All Forum Posts by: Michael Haynes

@Jason Faucher, Hello, you are taking me back to my first cry for help when I was 17 and graduated from High School in California. I had $25,000 cash when I was 19 years old and I grew up in Palo Alto, the Center of now Silicon Valley. No one teaches the children, "How to make Money." My college counselor told me that Universities do no teach how to make money and I quit. We end up in this situation that you are describing, grasping at straws to find a way to earn some kind of Fixed Income from our savings. That is where all the Banksters are waiting to sell us Snake Oil Solutions. You are a Pro. Make a list of all the different ways that you know of for making money with Real Estate. Go do Google Searches online for each one using youtube in your Search description and look at all the free video lessons on each method. Try and understand that there is nothing that you can do that retains control of your Principal and gives you Daily, Weekly or Monthly Income as if it were a Money Market account, except Stock and Futures Trading. Fixed Income vehicles are all that the "Investment Advisors" have to Sell you and they know nothing on their own. They just regurgitate the crap that they learned from the stupid courses that they took to get a piece of paper on the wall. I hate to say this, but, John Verduzco will see what happens when the Markets hit the Wall again and literally Everything Loses Value as we enter the next Recession. When Obama won the Presidency, he instructed the Fed to loan at Zero Interest, billions of Dollars to Hedge Funds who came to the worst hit States and Buy up tens of thousands of properties in Foreclosure and Rent them to Stimulate the Economy. These Funds, like Black Rock, packaged those "solid performing, single family, Rentals" into Mortgage Backed Securities...the same kind that caused the Meltdown in 2008. They unloaded their Risk position to the unsuspecting Public, who Buys this crap, again Worldwide, thinking that the Monthly Income is Safe until the next Trigger that causes, the Worldwide downturn in all the Economies. Obama did the same thing with the Student Loan Bubble. He prints money to subsidize these Loans that have enslaved our younger generations and indoctrinates them with Liberal Education that produce zero JOB's in the real world. Have you noticed that everyone is driving a new BMW and Mercedes, financed at Zero Percent Interest, for up to six years? The Car companies are doing what the Japanese do when they "Pull" on the Market, instead of "Pushing." Toyota and Nissan sell you the car at cost and charge you high prices for repairs and parts just to keep the factory working. They can't lose their skilled workers and Ford said this week that they are completing their Billion with a "B" dollar factory in Mexico to fabricate their economy car that loses Money. Wake up America! This is not the place to talk about alternative income strategies, but, I saw a study this month that showed how good Corporate Bonds survived and produced income all during the Great Depression. You can do the youtube Search for that and run from there. You can look into a study of what Harry S. Dent does and he has three different portfolio managers that make good, safe, Monthly Income for Fixed Income Investors. You could join the PhilsGang.com Club and learn how to invest with his two methods. I studied with Phil ten years ago in Sarasota. His method of trading the S&P on a Daily basis is essentially what I do on a shorter time frame. Your a Pro in Spring Hill, Florida and here is the map of all the properties on Zillow.com

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/spring-hill-f...

It looks like every house in town is either For Sale or in Foreclosure. Surely you have the inside track to Buying Distressed houses to rent there, in or approximate to the downtown area to be in the Path of Progress? I was thinking of moving there, up on the hill in the Center as it is 10 degrees cooler at night compared to the sweltering Heat we suffer with here in Tampa. No Floods on the hill. I could retire there and just Farm the whole town and be close to my Rentals. In Louisiana if you didn't have the money for a trailer park, you could buy a big, old, house and just rent rooms to us guys in the Oil Patch. The guys on BP talk about "multi-family" homes to rent, but, there may not be a lot of those for the right price. All those big houses in the old, downtown area in St. Pete were just right to be Rooming Houses 30 years ago. You get a couple of those going with one trusted friend living in one of the rooms and managing the whole thing for you...Even if we are going to have Negative Appreciation for Buy and Hold Rentals for the next 10 Years, if you find a way to finance some really distressed properties there in town and have good Monthly Cash Flow and you manage them for your mother, you will make it work. Everyone on BP is looking for the Easy Money, but, Flipping houses is not Easy.

@Olivier Pare, Hello, from Tampa, Florida. I don't know anything about Canada or Quebec, but, it sounds like you have limited your Search to a multi-family, 6 unit property? Why? Are you, "looking for love in all the wrong places?" Here in Tampa, multi-family units in good neighborhoods were hard for me to find 30 years ago. But, I did find three that were not advertised correctly, in that they pictured only one unit when there was a house or second duplex in the deal. My agent Searched the listings that were on the Market for extra long periods, maybe more than a year and researched the reasons why to find this out. My CG Commercial property was four lots on a corner just off of the main Hwy in S. Tampa and it only pictured the 3/1 House on one of the four lots. So, you would skip over that one because, "just one house for that price?" One of the things that is done by Flippers is to look for, "the worst property, in the best neighborhood," to fix up and Flip for profits. Here is one TV show that gives you all these ideas in their series from LA 

http://www.hgtv.com/shows/flip-or-flop

There are many others, like FlippingLasVegas or FlippingBoston etc. You want a multi-family unit that is ready to move in or already fully occupied for Retail? That may never work. Houses are not Stocks and when looking to get a Deal on a property you have to use different Searches and be ready to do some work to get that profit up front that will be your "cushion" if there is no immediate Appreciation in the property. When I started to Accumulate my portfolio of Rentals for my retirement 30 years ago, the value of properties in Hillsborough County had not gone up for TEN YEARS, except for one little corner of around ten blocks down by Gandy and Bayshore Blvd. where I found one duplex with a house in front of the grammar school. That property only showed the House on the ad and a short mention of a duplex next door did not attract Buyers. That corner of Tampa Bay was one of the first to begin this building boom with side by side Town Homes and Condos on the water, with Million Dollar VIEWS . Even if you have a good, proactive Agent, he may not be doing the type of Searches that you need to find the Deal property that you are looking for or you may have to change your Search parameters to find the type of property in your area that will produce enough Monthly Cash Flow and be in the Path of Progress for future Appreciation.

@Gaurav Bahal, Hello, in Tampa, Florida it is illegal to rent month by month as that falls under Hotel rules which are stricter. The minimum Lease has to be 7 months and you change to a month to month after that. You live in San Clemente, CA. Nice place to live. What do you have out there that rents for $500 per month? A room to share here in Tampa, starts at $500 a month. Renters used to have to pay First, Last and one months Deposit to move into a place and that would solve the majority of problems we have with Renters, if only they had that much Cash on hand to rent something. They also have to pay a Deposit for Water, Light, Cable and my houses at $1000 a month would require the Tenant to have around $4000 just to move in. No one in Tampa has that much Cash on hand to move into a simple house. That is our problem here in Tampa. Your PM says he has repeatedly made calls? Here in Tampa, they may charge you per call and maybe $100 per letter. I could not find any of the Collection agencies here that would try and collect just one debt. They are too busy working on 100 or more minimum dead beat tenant collections for apartment complexes that go after every cent that they think they can get. A Lease here in Tampa is toilet paper for most Tenants. Private Property Rights are a joke to the Police. You can win in Small Claims Court, but, the Tenant has to have siezeable assets and you will have to go through an incredible process with the Sheriff to actually impound some thing of value from that Tenant. You have to pay the Sheriff for the siezure and storage and it is really dumb to try this. If you try to attach their pay check, because they actually have a JOB with a real company, then, they will quit and get another JOB. Credit Rating? Recorded Lien? Do you really think a guy who rents a $500 a month room from you, gives a damn about any of this? In the 2008 Crash, I had every one of my Tenants, lose their JOB or get their hours cut so that they could not pay the rent. I had weeks with filing two Evictions at the same time when I never had a year in 25 years where I would have to give out more than one Three Day Notice. This last few years I continue to have families who can't pay the rent, move out, leaving everything they own, including their vehicles. Lots of them use Rent to Own furniture and appliances and they abandon, everything. Do you think they care about anything in Life? This is why I am Selling at the height of this Market Cycle and I am only keeping my Residence to Sell every two years or so and move into my one Rental and do it again for Tax-Free profits. I day trade Futures for Daily Cash Flow. 

@Manuel Prado, Hello, no one is telling you that you can roll over the Conventional IRA into a Roth IRA which is where you will not have to pay any taxes after the 5 Year Holding Period and you are 59 1/2. I can trade Futures and Options without even keeping any records, which makes day trading easier. You can sell your Residence after living there for two years, Tax-Free and move into another one. One thing we do with Investing in the Markets is to try and Diversify. Same thing with Real Estate. You can have a Residence and a Rental and do a Flip or 1031 Exchange a property to build up Equity and try to preserve some from the Taxes.

@Parker Caldwell, Hello from Tampa. I remember they advertised for Virtual Offices in Las Vegas and sure enough, we have it in Tampa. Here is the link  

http://www.cocreativ.com/hourly-office-rentals-tam...

CoCreativ rents for $20 an Hour. Maybe they franchise if you have the space.

@Jonathan Safa, Hello from Tampa, Florida. I have had Rentals in S. Tampa for 30 years and according to Code Enforcement, it is the law in Florida to rent with a refrigerator and stove installed. Has anyone seen any Houses for Sale in Florida without them? If you look on Craigslist.com to Sell a House they have designations for Washer/Dryer as W/D in Bldg., Laundry in bldg., Laundry on site, W/D hookups and No Laundry on site for you to see what is common here in Florida. Same with the different designations to choose for Parking, type of Housing, number of Rooms and Baths etc. Here in Tampa, there are a few places to Buy Used refrigerators and stoves from $100 to $300 depending on if you want the double door or glass top, digital etc. Delivered for $65 and take the old one to scrap. Renting two different packages of appliances to Tenants here in Florida does not make sense. Not even for extra Cash Flow. If you want things like that, Buy a Trailer Park. Some wacko Tenants will take out your stuff and Rent-to-Own new appliances for as long as they can stand the high, monthly, costs. My houses rent for around $1000 a month. When the Tenant Rents-to-Own the refrigerator, stove, washer, dryer, flat screen TV, sofa, bed etc. the cost can add up from $300 to $500 or more a month. Those types of Tenants are the ones who want to live way beyond their means and they usually end up leaving before the one year lease is up. I will get a call from Rent-A-Center wanting to know where the Tenants are and if their stuff is still in the house. The problem is that Tenants and people in general don't know how to take care of or maintain anything. "Do you know how many Tenants it takes to change a light bulb?" My houses have W/D hookups. I can buy a used washer and dryer that look good and clean, for $250 at a number of places near my home. I guarantee that within a few months, the Tenant will break one of them and demand that I fix it, NOW. You don't give a Tenant a glass top stove. They will break that glass, for sure. Push button stoves have Digital Brains and they break and there is no repair. Just get another one. Having a microwave above the stove is a convenient place for it and the filter. But, I had a fire last year, first one in 30 years. The Tenant forgot a pot on the stove and it caught on fire. The microwave hangs above the stove and is made of plastic. That is what caused all the damage when it melted and caught on fire and it burns with sooty smoke that filled the big kitchen. Modern kitchens have these fire hazards hanging over a lot of stoves when it is better to place them above a counter, away from the stove. The Refrigerators can last a long time. The seal can rip if they have kids that put drinks on the door, especially glasses of coke that spill and run down the inside to dry on the bottom of the door, making the seal sticky. Open and close the door and it rips the seal. No one cleans the insides of refrigerators for a one year lease. No one knows how to clean the lint and dirt from the cooling coils. You roll the refrigerator outside and blast it out with a hose. Spray it with bleach and clean with soap and water. Stoves can be taken out and sprayed with Oven Cleaner. Don't breathe the fumes. Let it sit and then blast it with the hose and let dry. Scrape all the burned on stuff in the oven and spray again. The hourly cost of trying to save appliances can be the same as just getting more used ones delivered and a lot quicker. I save the parts and do all my own repairs. We have Air Conditioners here in the sunny State of Florida and they are the worst. You have small, wall and window units in older houses and apartments. They require flushing out with a hose to keep the leaves and mold out of the element outside and unplug the drain. Inside the Tenant must take out the plastic filter and wash them out on a regular basis and wipe them out. No one does any of this. Tenants turn the temperature down to the MAX and let the machine run 24/7 until it plugs up and burns out. It's all your problem. Central AC units need to have the filter changed between 30 and 90 days or the unit will not cool. The electric bill goes up and the Tenant complains or stops paying rent to cover Utilities. You can put anything in the Lease and the Tenant will ignore that, call Code Enforcement and cause trouble. The outside compressor needs to be cleaned out and wash the element, once every six months or so to keep it running efficiently. Again, the Tenants will turn down the temperature to the lowest setting and the machine will run until it burns out or the drain plugs up etc. No one listens. No one follows instructions. No one follows the Lease. No one knows, "what are you talking about?" You still want to rent your Home? 

@Peter Lampione, Hello, funny thing happened to me at an old hardware store in S. Tampa this morning. I needed to cut a pane of glass for the house that I am selling near the AFBase. There was a lady looking for a special type of glass to fill in a space on an inside railing and I made some suggestions. Somehow that got around to houses and do you watch the Flipper shows on TV. She says that she represents a Caldwell Banker group of 37 who have done 200 Flips this year. She has a list of 120 Foreclosure and REO properties to Flip. Was leaving her business cards and we are going to talk about my CG Commercial, half acre For Sale on the Dale Mabry Hwy just before the AFBase as she was surprised that the builders who are desperate for Deals to build out in S. Tampa, have not called me. My tenant stole my sign last year and I only have it on Zillow.com this week and Craigslist.com and Loopnet.com without a price. I am Selling what I have, except for my Residence and one Rental. I want to Buy two house on one lot that my friend has as he will give me a wrap-around mortgage if we can save it from Foreclosure, at his Cost. Anytime you can get Financing by the Owner, try and make it work. My neighbor across the street from the house I am Selling, has six, paid off houses like mine that he is going to Sell. He started in 1985 around when I started in S. Tampa and we are both horrified with Tenants in Tampa and want OUT. He is someone who could be a good Owner Finance guy if you can get his trust. The young family who contacted me two months ago about Buying my house, were over yesterday and they brought the grandfather. The daughter grew up in the neighborhood. Her best friend lives two doors away. They want to bring up their three daughters in that Zip Code for the schools down the street. The husband and grandfather work for the same construction company that does all the ground work, preparations for big developments in Tampa. The grandfather said his house is the same as mine and his Credit Rating is 650. He is co-signing the loan. 620 and above works for an FHA loan. 3% Down, 3.5% Loan. I think they will pay my full price $160K. They want me to get them a Lender and a Title company and make up the Sale contract. In the morning am getting up at 7 with the dogs and out by 9 to pick up my Helper and get down to the house For Sale to do some more of the final repairs, on Thanksgiving. Maybe, half day and go have dinner with a friend. Do you think that you can do all this sitting in your office, at a desk, with a telephone and affordably make it work, with your Team? What kind of days do you plan to have with your Investment Company?

@Peter Lampione, Hello, I am impressed with your diligent effort to research for an Investment property. But, to me it still seems like you are trying to Buy a Pig in a Poke. You don't live down here and any amount of research is trying to pinpoint a certain property based on specific criteria. That is what we do in Stock Trading. There are Fundamental and Technical guys who Invest or Trade, depending on your time frame. You are a Fundamental, Growth Stock type, who may find the exact type of property that you are looking for, but, there is a vacant lot next store full of weeds, the guy across the street has pitbulls that constantly bark and the corner house is in need of repairs and going into Foreclosure, etc. Even if the Numbers work, the area may not be appreciating or our Economy may be ready for a ready for another Recession and not the right time to Buy anything, long term. I am a Technical Futures Trader who uses a chart to just Trade the Current Price Movement, or scalper, regardless of the Fundamentals. I want to 3D Google Map the area that was indicated to me by my Search on Zillow.com etc. and drive all the blocks around the Target property to see if I would actually want to live there. One difference between Tampa and Sarasota is that it is much more expensive in Sarasota. They didn't build a lot of multi-family units in City of Tampa. I never wanted to consider Buying anything on the East side of the I275 Highway which runs North out of downtown Tampa. Your best tool is an Agent who really does all the research for you. They have to find properties that fit your parameters that make for good investments because they will produce positive monthly cash flow and be in appreciating neighborhoods. I like to look at the value of the land first. The lots down by the AFBase where I have a half acre, CG Commercial property that used to be four lots are going for around $90K per Residential lot. Builders for basic, two story town homes will build for $120K per sq. foot and you can get that down to $80 per sq. foot. For simple homes and duplexes, why would you pay more than the cost of a vacant lot with a new building? Agents like to price the Sale Value of a property at the Comparative Sale Value in that area per square footage of building, with little concern for any extras or the neighborhood. This way they can say that all these homes in that area have been sold for so much per sq. foot when the lot you could be looking at is extra big or has no trees, is not in a Flood Zone etc. on the positive side. Or is near the Highway noise, on a street where the School buses all run by at 5AM, is one of the streets with all the speed bumps or bad drainage or mosquitoes etc. on the negative side. People want to treat Investing in Houses as if they were a Stock and their not. The main reason is that you cannot snap your fingers and just Sell your property when you want to, like a Stock. And properties don't always go up in value. 

@Ryan Mortti, Hello, I am a small, long time, Buy and Hold, Rental guy in Tampa. I don't know much about Wesley Chapel, but, I know it is a new town that has been growing for ten years. If you have been able to make such a living in two years with one Residence held for two years and Flips in a small town like that, then, do yourself a favor and "Don't Try to Reinvent the Wheel." I am also a Futures Trader and after studying and practicing for more than ten years with many different types of Trading Methods, I know that when you finally find the Time Frame and Method that fits your Trading Style..."STOP." You learned how to make Money and all you have to do is to repeat the process. Ca Ching! Do you watch any of the Flipper shows on TV? There are many different ones and all the lessons you need to learn are shown in one or another of their videos. Try this one 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoDpbJFFeuT...

The couple in Flip or Flop show their Flips that were winners and losers. They showed the one where they did not get an offer right away and they had to rent it. They apparently have very good Credit and a lot of Cash AND they use Hard Money Loans. Three questions, Ryan. Most people don't want to use the Tax-Free Sale of your Residence, every two years, because they have families and they don't want to move that much. Did you sell your Residence Tax-Free? Then, do it again. There is nothing better than tax-free Money. Secondly, are you doing 1031 Exchanges with your Flips? That involves lining up simultaneously, another property to Buy and you get to Defer the Tax on that Sale. You can leverage your Profit by not paying the Tax and do it over and over again until you have enough Profit to Buy a property that you want to live in for two years and then Sell it Tax-Free as your Residence. And do you know your local Loan Shark for Hard Money Loans? Using Hard Money puts more pressure on you to make the Flips work out and the last thing I want in my life, is, more Stress. My friend had 10 houses that he was fixing up to Flip in 2008 when the Economy Crashed. He lost all of them. Ruined his Credit, almost ruined his wife's Credit and the lesson that we both got was to, "Do one Flip at a time and make it work out before doing the next one." Wesley Chapel may be "booming" today and you have to be aware enough to see any trouble brewing on the Economic Horizon. 

@Whitney Sams, Hello, did you go to a seminar on Tax Deed Sales? There is no Cash Flow to support yourself with these things. It is a long process to try and make something out of your effort. Everything you want to know is on a youtube.com video. Just Google a Search and there will be the instructions for you. Here is one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQmg3oUhRK8

The first thing is if you have studied anything about Real Estate Investing? Do you know someone who is making Money with houses? Do you own your own Home? The easiest thing to do is to Buy your own Home with First Time Homeowner type Financing and Sell it later on, Tax-Free with the Residential Sale rule.