All Forum Posts by: Michael Norris

Congratulations Anthony on your purchase. I invest in Lakewood and also insure a lot of landlord and property investors in the CLE market. If I can be of any help let me know. Cheers!

Look up Shonda Holcomb who is a property manager on the east side and Angelo Russo for the attorney work

Checkout a website called Service Sold. It's a reverse auction where you post the job, info, and photos of what you want done and the max you are willing to pay and contractors bid the price down from there. You don't have to take the lowest bidder and the contractors have ratings sort of like ebay buyers & sellers.

It's a start up in Cleveland run by some Tri C professors in building trades. I don't have any affiliation with them other than one of the owners is a member of my REIA group.

Try this link for a basic guide - each city you see on the map has it's own code and it can be confusing.  Cuyahoga County Tax Map

The good news is the auditors website will show the current taxes on a given property - just keep an eye out for the homestead exemption (older person / owner occupied house) and if you are buying the property tax will be adjusted for the new sale price. Buyer beware...As properties have appreciated, especially on a rehabbed house, a newly purchased property could have much higher taxes for you than what the current owner pays once it's adjusted for the new sale price.

Some "high" tax areas on the map are rough areas (East Cleveland, South Euclid) where as others cab be a good place to invest (Shaker, Univ Hts, Cleveland Hts, etc) 

Contractors - ugh. I think this is one of the hardest parts of investing especially for someone out of town. They don't show up, when they do they don't do what you asked them to, on and on. Finding a good one is rare. 

Checkout a website called Service Sold - it was started here by some TRI C professors here in Cleveland.

 It is a reverse auction for trades. You post up photos and a description of the work and the most you are willing to pay and contractors bid on the work - only they bid down. The contractors have ratings (sort of like ebay) and you don't have to take the lowest bidder. The smart ones on there post a lot of photos of their work so you can get a feel for what they can do. You can scroll through it to see other jobs posted and won to see what works and get a feel for what you could expect to pay for some common jobs.

I haven't had a chance to try it yet but the guy who runs it is in my REIA group and he is totally dedicated to making it work.

Maybe try it for a couple of small jobs and see if it works for you.

Appliance HQ had some decent deals on what I'd call middle and upper middle grade appliances. You can get a set of front loading washer starting at $550 up to $850 for a really nice set. On some of the nicer ones If you weren't looking closely they could be confused for a new scratch and dent unit.

East Cleveland is rough as it gets right now. I insure some landlord properties in that area and I typically won't do any inspections without #1 CCW and #2 getting there and leaving by 10am. Follow Cleveland.com on your newsfeed and you can get the daily murder stories. That said the worst crime is concentrated and outside of that there are great parts of Cleveland to live and/or invest in.

There's a newer shop (more like a warehouse) called Appliance HQ in Brook Park, OH that sells used rehabbed appliances that may work well in rental properties. I'm actually stopping by there today to check it out.