All Forum Posts by: Michael Haynes

@Maricruz Medina, Hello, the fact has been that they did not build a lot of multi-family houses in Tampa. The building boom came after WWII and they targeted 2/1 and 3/1 wooden houses for the Military returning from the War. Those are all the houses that everyone is Buying in Seminole Heights that are full of termites and going for big rehab prices. Did you look at the map on Zillow? Do you have an agent that knows how to do Searches? Have you driven each block in the area you want to live in...East to West and North to South and taken down all the numbers for houses that have potential? I am trying to do a Deal with my friend who has two houses on one lot next  to my rental, which is something you can also try to look for as some lots have two buildings. I converted the 1000 sq. ft. workshop in the back into the 2/1 house. I connected the Old Hyde Park style front house with an extension on the roof over the back porch to make this on Inlaw Apt. by the old rule in Tampa. The other thing is that BP members are talking Seminole Heights like its the one place in Tampa to Buy and it is a big area that I consider as mostly low class. Do you see that you have the West side of the I275 Hwy and you have the East side? Central Ave. is gorgeous, but, it is next to the Highway noise and on both sides the condition of the houses goes down to abandoned and overgrown. The Flippers are buying anything that has some kind of achitechtural appeal and gutting it to create those gem type houses that you see on the Flipper shows on TV, but, your neighbor may be raising pit bulls and have junk cars and cook crack cocaine in the kitchen. We are selling my girlfriend's 4/2.5, 2700 sq. foot home on a lot and a half with all kinds of extras on the top of the hill at Rivercrest Park with the best view of the Hillsborough River. Check out 4701 N. Boulevard on Zillow or Realtor. The lesser valuable areas of Seminole Heights are comparable to everything you have on the West side of the Hillsborough River, North of Hillsborough Ave. and we moved to our river home on the East side of the river across from the Lowry Park Zoo where there are some Deals, but, very hard to find a Duplex for cheap unless you want to live with the mess on the East side of I275. Time to do your due diligence.

@Sheldon McMullen, Hello, at that point I would scream..."STOP!" What are you trying to do? Then, I need to know where the heck did you find a 2/1.5 house that is supposed to be worth $2.90/sq.ft. when you can build new for half that price? A tear down house on Davis Island can be $750 if you want to spend that kind of money to build new. Call Tony Torres at Olympia Mortgage Services on 7301 N. Armenia and really think about Buying anything at this time in the Market.

@Shane O'Donnell, Hello, We thought this out many years ago as my girlfriend works for the County as an Accountant. We came to the conclusion that the increase in property tax can only go up 2% a year with the Valuation of the property. So, you will hire the best and most expensive to prove that the Valuation is incorrect and get relief this year. Then, they hit you again, next year. Your pissing in the wind. There are a lot of reasons to get mad, but, we just went through the deepest Recession since the Great Depression. Tampa and Las Vegas were Ground Zero for the losses in property value in the 2008 Crash. I lost 60% of the value in my rentals that I succeeded in keeping, with my third lawyer who turned out to be the only one in 30 years that I could call on the phone and talk to on a Daily basis as we worked out all the problems over the last six years. Our property taxes took an extra year to be modified and they were cut in half or more. Now, after 8 years they are starting to get back to where they were before the Crash. I think we are at a Top in the RE Market and one simple solution is to Sell the property and save your profit in Dollars. Further, IF, we are at the Top of the Market and we really do experience another and worse Economic Downtrend this next year, then it will not matter what you do and the only way to save yourself is to Sell everything. I will save all my Dollars in separate FDIC banks and wait for the Bottom to put in to Buy again. Because I trade Futures I also have the ability to Sell the Market Short during any Corrections on the way Down and make my Daily Cash in the mornings trading. I have properties in Brazil and they are experiencing the biggest Depression in their History. I know a Brazilian Investor here in Tampa who says that the property values lost 50% of their value this last year and that he lost 3 Million Dollars in value. So, my properties may have suffered a big loss in value, but, my properties are in the Oil Capital of Brazil where we have all the oil rigs offshore and most of the high paying JOB's in Brazil. We will recover first when the Market hits bottom and begins to recover. The RE Market is just like the Stock Market if you follow charts of the Business Cycle and such.

Hello BP, I looked at the Torcana site and I would expect it to be selling properties at Retail. Lots of good information and some listings in New Port Richie area where I helped my partner fix up a home for his son. Lots of simple houses on sand dunes. Working class areas. North of Tampa you have lots of lakes, swamps, sand and sinkholes. My friend has four acres just North of NPRichie on a sand dune in the rolling hills. Look at the Zillow.com map...amazing. Must be 100 houses in pre-foreclosure! 

http://www.zillow.com/new-port-richey-fl/

Example...There is a small house that was sold to an agent, around the corner from my girlfriend's home in Seminole Heights, next to the Broward Elementary School. I think it had an asking of $92K and an agent bought it for $52K and is selling for $90K with no repairs, as if this is an primo property for a Flip. I think this is the same thing you can expect from Torcana. Go look at all the pre-foreclosures on Zillow and do you own due dilligence. The idea that they specialize in Turn Key properties does not make sense to me as they would be selling at Retail and "Where is the Beef?"

@Tim Ferguson, Hello, since you stopped during the 2008 Crash, did you have any skin in the game? I lost a few of my duplexes because I made the mistake of refinancing and taking out my Equity. But, I used the money to fix up all my properties and we are now at the high point of the RE Cycle, again, where I am Selling. You should know already, that the Retail guys start Buying at the Top and Sell at the Bottom in Stocks. Why would an experienced person want to start Buying here at the Top? If you do get back into it as an Investor, try to do one at a time and control your Risk Factor. 

@William Howley, Hello, I will make this post a short one. I have had rentals in S. Tampa for 30 years and I am now Selling. I bought my original portfolio of duplexes and houses with money I made from Mutual Fund Investing while I worked on Oil Tankers with a Union. So, I have been following the Markets for a long time and last year I saw an article about how Warren Buffett is big time into Mobile Homes. The reason is because the majority of the citizens cannot afford to own houses. So, they have to Rent or Buy Mobile Homes. There are many articles explaining Buffett's involvement in the Industry. Here is a long article to get insight into Buffett's way of doing Investing. 

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/04/03/17024/w...

I used to attend seminars with Jimmy Napier, the local "Selling Paper" guru. He had associates from the Investment Exchange Club in Clearwater who would also give seminars. There also was one guy who specialized in Mobile Homes and Financing. Lonnie Scruggs wrote, "How to Create a Mobile Home Money Machine." Check it out.

http://www.creonline.com/mobile-home-money-machine...

We should all be looking for a Short Cut to the Riches or why would we be members of an online Club like BP? The other point is, "why do we start a Business?" A Business is supposed to be a way for us to Invest our Money and the Business makes more Money for us. If you just Buy houses and set up a Real Estate Portfolio like I did and you are the Manager or Landlord, then all you did was give yourself a JOB and there may be other ways to Work that make more Money. I learned how to make a Million Dollars when I was twelve years old. There was a restaurant a few blocks away from where we lived. We used to go there on the weekends and we were friends with Harry, the owner. One day we went there to eat and Harry told us that he had sold the business that he had worked so hard at for ten years. He said he made a Million Dollars from the Sale of the Property. Harry lived all those years out of the Business that he worked at seven days a week, but, he made his Million Dollars from the Sale of the Property that he owned. I made my Buy and Hold Rental Portfolio for long term Appreciation and to have the Rents pay for all the Debts, while I worked on the ships and studied more about Investing. Now, I am ready to take my laptop and move back to my properties in Brazil and all I need is a fast speed internet connection to make my Daily Cash each morning. I plan to make more money in my retirement, than when I was working. Too long of a post?

@William Howley, Hello, I have a half acre on Dale Mabry Hwy, just before Interbay Blvd. at 6305 S. Roberts Ave. 33616, that I wanted to put Trailers on there, but, they don't allow that anymore in the City of Tampa. You still can do that in the County as far as I know. The other option would be a Mini-Storage business, but, I balk at the thought of spending a million plus and having to manage it for the rest of my life. Obama Care and all the new rules and regulations, with Code Enforcement making unreasonable demands, like making me paint the same eaves on a rental, twice in six months and here comes Hillary and all her new rules and regs and taxes...give me a break. Traverse Townhomes just built 8, two story townhomes around the corner on Interbay Blvd. on the same size property and mine is much better as I have 220 feet fronting Dale Mabry Hwy. on Roberts with an unobstructed view and access on Mango St. because I own the corner. The simple way to find out is to go to the City of Tampa, Planning and Development Department on 1400 N. Boulevard and talk to one of the Professional Plans personnel. I just ran some ideas by them with the Roberts property for an Investor from Brazil. If you make up an Elevation Study, you can pay them to send it through a Quick Approval Path where all the different departments can take a look for any glitches and identify any questions that would need to be answered before they would sign off on you proposed plan. That way you don't have to own the property, before you know what you can do with it. Another person to try and get a meeting with if you have a property development idea is John Lum at LIST Developers on 1501 S. Dale Mabry Hwy. John has all the Agents and all the Builders contacts out of his office and has built many houses around where we just sold a property in Hyde Park area. He also built another ten houses near Old Port Tampa. If I were going to back into the business, after the next downturn, I would think of buying a Trailer Park as they can be the best Cash Cows and you can Rent the Trailers, the Lots, Sell the Trailers financed by the Owner, where you usually would have them go into Foreclosure during bad times or if they are owned by Military personnel who don't usually stay more than two years on a Base etc. Your idea of planning to build in the Path of Progress is something you could talk over with John Lum as he was something like the City of Tampa's Development Councelor. My friend used to be a waiter at the meetings where the Mayor and all the Builders and Lawyers would get together and plan out this future Path of Progress and that leads into the Good Ole Boys Club and all the Deals that the Big Guys are able to make that us on the outside are not privy to. That Buying in the Path of Progress, when you have time to wait, starts with buying Four Corner sites and like I did on the Roberts property. where it is now time for me to Sell as we are experiencing an explosion in Demand for buildable lots near the AFBase on the East and West side of Dale Mabry Hwy. You could do a Google Search for all the types of Trailer Parks in the three County area. There may be youtube videos of How to Build Trailer Parks. Here is something I found on my first Search 

http://www.ehow.com/how_6600421_build-mobile-home-...

I know someone who started when I did 30 years ago in Tampa and his Path was mostly with individual Trailers on single lots, outside of the City, small abandoned Trailer Parks and Apartment buildings. He Accumulated enough of the single houses and then Trailers on single lots out in Lutz until he had enough Cash Flow to start a big refinance effort that led him to Bundle groups of properties into Jumbo Loans for better rates and more Cash to buy Trailer Parks and he had 90 Trailers about ten years ago and wouldn't stop his efforts to expand. He would buy a destroyed box for $3000 and completely rehab it with my handyman and set it up on a vacant lot if he had to. Just had to be in an area where that was allowed and he would immediately begin to collect a few hundred cash a month on each Trailer. The Newbies on BP never look at starting with the smallest entity to invest in that can give you some kind of positive cash flow and then just don't stop. That friend is a hands on Landlord who collects his own rents and drives around 24/7 with ten thousand in his pocket as he runs the errands and gets the materials and looks at new properties and meets his obligations. He started working for the guy who owned all those mini gas stations in Tampa, managing rentals for his company that owned 500 rentals about 30 years ago. The question is, "How do you make a Million Dollars?" You find something that everyone wants to Buy for a Dollar and just sell a Million of them. Duh...oesn't have to be as big and complicated as Real Estate Investing seems to be in the beginning. Same with the Flippers. I remember there were two girls, when I started, who were buying apartments in those first high rise buildings on Bayshore to fix up and flip and making a killing. Doesn't have to be a whole House. Like there is a 2/2 Condo with a shed for Short Sale, behind the Home Depot on Florida Ave. for $32K. I know you can rent it for $800 a month. When I was a kid the Concrete company had a slogan...Find a Hole and Fill It!

@Jesse Moran, Hello. You went to one seminar and got your head filled with possibilities of doing what other people do and you don't know if any of those methods actually make them any money. Where do you start? It's a funny question. "In the beginning." Did you see the movie, The Gambler? 

Goodman: I need to know if you’ve got the f***ing brains to walk when it’s time to walk. People don’t, you know. Ball players that can’t play anymore. A**holes trying to maintain a standard of living that’s not possible anymore. A lot of those around. I’ve seen you half a million dollars up.
Wahlberg: I've been up two and a half million dollars.
Goodman: What you got on you?
Wahlberg: Nothing.
Goodman: What you put away?
Wahlberg: Nothing.
Goodman: You get up two and a half million dollars, any a**hole in the world knows what to do. You get a house with a 25-year roof… you put the rest into the system at 3-5% to pay your taxes and that's your base, get me? That's your fortress of f***ing solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of f*** you. Somebody wants you to do something, f*** you. Boss pisses you off, f*** you! Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank. Don't drink. That's all I have to say to anybody on any social level.
That’s remarkably sensible advice for a man that earns his living breaking the knees of people that don’t repay their loans.

Think about it.

Jesse, my idea for beginners is to get a JOB, build up your Credit, save for a Down Payment, Buy a Home. As a First Time Home Buyer the Government gives you a lot of advantages and the best interest rates to buy the place where you need to live. You need to live somewhere, right? You could even start with a Trailer or pre-fab home which are really cheap. A new Trailer can cost $20,000 and the Trailer Park will finance it for you at under 3%. The cheapest trailer I found online this week was in a park for $8,900 or best offer. You can do a Google Search for Trailer Parks Tampa Florida and pick the General Family ones. The Government helps you with HARP loans. They also allow you to Homestead your Home in Florida for a property tax break. The sale of your Residence is tax-free after two years. My current Plan is to have my Residence, which is protected from any Judgements against me in Florida. I need one Rental and I would only Buy a house that I would live in. Your Rental has to make positive cash flow and support itself, so, you probably have to find one to fix up at a cheaper price. Real cheap and that does not mean that you have to Buy in a bad neighborhood. You can put in a zip code for say Riverview in Zillow and learn how to use their map with the three color dots to search for the houses that have sold, are for sale and foreclosures and their prices. Are you handy with tools and such? You can use Sweat Equity and do lots of the fix up work yourself. You can work like this and Buy Up to better houses over time and not pay taxes. On the way you can study Real Estate courses on BP and Google a Search for anything that comes along that interests you or that you want to learn more about and use youtube videos for easy to understand video lessons. You could do a Search for Ways to Buy Low and No Money Down Real Estate youtube...I have the Carleton Sheets course on Low and No Money Down if you would like to study that course. I bought some of my properties with Lease-Options to start with. There are different ways, but, I am not in the Accumulation phase now. I am Selling to just keep the one Residence with one Rental to make tax-free profits as my Real Estate Business Plan. I trade Futures in the mornings for Daily Cash Flow.

@Jonathan Jackson, Hello, I was given some advice by my first Real Estate agent thirty years ago, who owned the Ford dealership in Bradenton. Bill Davidson said that when you pick a Title company, you should choose the one that is also the Underwriting company. An example is when there is something missed in the Search, by the Title company and there was a hidden lien on the property that they did not find in their Search. You may have to sue the Title company and not the Underwriter. I know of this happening this year with one sale and what a mess. We just sold two houses in the Hyde Park area and my agent did not even ask us which Title company we wanted to use. Keller Williams had the forms all ready to sign over for their choice of Title company, like I just rolled off the melon truck! Their Title company had started the process and I had to tell them to stop and send over the documents to Stewart Title, whom I have used over the years. And it took more than a week to get them to do this. Lastly, all the big guys have offices in downtown Tampa, where I hate to go because of the traffic, congestion, difficulty and cost in parking, getting in and out of the high rise buildings, their attitudes towards their customers and they never return your calls. So, I avoid the lawyers, accountants and Title companies downtown. 

@Aaron Gordy, Hello, you point out a couple of problems with all the cities. The Traffic jams and the Infrastructure. Here in Tampa, it is not only the rents that are going up, but, the County projects that Utilities are increasing by 20% a year. How long before your Light, Water, Cable, Telephone etc. have doubled and you can't afford the Rent? That is where I am at with my rentals, so, I am Selling. The other thing is that the Government wants desperately to stimulate the Economy. They got the Fed to lower the interest rate to almost Zero. I have houses in Brazil and what happens is that when the interest rates are high, all the big guys with money, invest in high interest Bonds and just have a good time living off of the Interest and save the Principal. I did that for years when I was building my houses there. When the Cycle changes and interest rates come down, the business guys can't make enough off of the Bonds, so, they are forced to put their money to work and start building. The reason they have started negative interest rates in Japan and Europe, is to try and force all the guys holding the Money, to start building businesses and houses. You can see it in this second building boom in Tampa. Where else are you going to put your Money? That's nice, but, the City does not fix, the infrastructure problem. Where we had single story houses for the Military Base, they tear them down and build two story, MacMansions without increasing the sewer, water, storm drainage in the streets that are full of potholes. The pipes are a hundred years old and the Mayors say that they can only patch what we have and make the City Center a showcase for all the events in town. Florida has just so much capacity for all the Baby Boomers who want to retire in the Sun. On another subject. I went to School in Louisiana to get my Captains Licenses and worked out of all those ports in Texas running Crew boats and some Supply boats, until I joined the Union and sailed on oil tankers. I made my money to invest in my rentals in Tampa with Mutual Funds and now I find it easier to to trade Futures, than collect rents for Monthly Cash Flow. The reason to invest, is to Create Wealth over the long term, while you sleep. That is what Buy and Hold rentals are supposed to do. The problem is that it is Cyclical, like Stocks and not a given that their value will go up forever. All the best.