All Forum Posts by: Mike W.

What the bank has in it has no bearing on what you should offer...

Offer a price that makes you money. If they say no, move on to the next property. If it is still on the market in a few months make another offer, lower this time.

You must make money on the deal, otherwise don't buy.

Be careful working with friends and family...

If the seller is giving the money to a third party that is giving it back to the buyer outside of the HUD or even on the HUD as a grant or some BS that is not government sanctioned, that is still mortgage fraud. The seller is money laundering and possibly wire fraud and the buyer is mortgage fraud. People do it all the time, they may never get caught, but it is fraud against the lender if they do not know about it. Do whatever you want, just know the potential consequences. Look up the cases on mortgage fraud. Read your story in there...

As for the other question, IMHO, the seller would be responsible for tax on the whole 200k, but it would be excluded if it was owner occupied anyways with the 2 of 5yr rules. If they count it as gain, then they are helping the case of mortgage fraud against the buyer.

Depends on how much you spend.

If you spend $1200 or more a month on purchases, the AMEX Blue card will provide the highest cash benefit I have found.

If you might spend less than $1200/mo then go for the Chase Perfect Card, I have both and use the chase when they don't take AMEX.

They are both unlimited to the amount of cash back per year, but the AMEX is a teired rebate schedule 1.5% to 5% for gas and groceries, and .5% to 2% for everything else, where Chase is 3% on gas and groceries and 1% on everything from the first purchase from the first purchase. That is why I say you need to spend 1200/mo to see a bigger benefit from the amex card.

When was the last time you took a vacation, without thinking about the work that you love? How long was the vacation? How about before that, how long was that vacation?

I love RE activities, but I found that I never took vacation and justified it because I was enjoying what I was doing not that I couldn't but didn't want to. I told people that I was retired, because life was bliss as a self employed RE guy. Toward the end of last year, I gained a perspective that I never would have imagined and it has changed my life about work. Not a perspective I could teach either. It is something that is discovered internally.

I went out of town last weekend and got paid for monday anyways... money shows up in my account every 2 weeks whether I like it or not. If I get downsized, I get another job, because there will always be room for good engineers in my field, there will never be a time when there won't be jobs for engineers that any rational person could foresee. I just closed on a pimp deal last thurs that nets me about 8 grand. That is besides my leach off someone elses net worth job that pays for my normal expenses. And also besides my cash flow from properties. All is good. I hope your situation continues to provide you with family and financial satisfaction for years to come. I know that mine will.

I doubt that from here on that my net worth will continue to grow at 50+% annually due to market changes, but I will still continue to make money on cash flow that will be used to pay down mortgages and grow my portfolio that will continue to provide cashflow and extras for me and my family for as long as I live or continue to rent out units. Being a landlord is full on passive income, unlike RE pimp, mortgage guy, rehabber, wholesaler, or many other various forms of "creative" REI which are all self employed jobs.

I may do another rehab as the right deals present themselves, but it is not my goal to do that as a business. Too much time taken away with the pains of employees(contractors)...Almost worse than dealing with tenants sometimes.

BTW, I very much enjoy what I do leaching off someone elses net worth otherwise I would still be doing RE full time.

an umbrella policy that attaches to all your insured assets is the easiest and cheapest defense for a newb. Don't worry about making it more complicated til you have done it for a while. I use 12 unit building or larger before an enitity to hold. Holding SFR in your own name has a number of benefits, especially if you die. If you have a complex scheme for holding your properties and you die, your family may not get your properties if your will is not structured properly or God forbid you have no will.

Besides, if you run a stand up business and don't screw your tenants and you pick tenants well, you may have no reason to be sued...I have never been sued yet in 8 yrs.

If you think you are not giving up time for money you are mistaken...

My reasoning for going and leaching off of some other guys great idea is simple. I have no problem creating wealth, my net worth increases every year 50%+ compounded for the last 7 yrs. My problem is leaching off of my own net worth to live. I want to leach off someone elses net worth to live and create my own net worth for things that my day gig doesn't provide me. I have to make approximately 2 times what my salary is to equal what I would steal from my net worth to live the same. That is due to health insurance and the retirement benefits I receive from leaching off someone elses net worth. Providing for my wife and 3 kids consistantly, without constantly stealing from my own piggy bank, being home every night for dinner and the like are also benefits. I have been where you guys are, it is bliss I agree. I have found that at this phase of my life, there is no better way for me to live than to do both.

The short answer is NO.

The main reason is contractors. Just get 5 bids for any job and your spread will be larger than 20% between the bids. The reason? One of the 5 might complete the job as asked within the timeline. 1 might do a beautiful job in his own sweet time. One might require money up front, then might show up once a week to work on it if you are lucky, another might never show up. And lastly, you may have an overeager contractor that tears everything up, but isn't so good at the detail work and it looks like crap when it is done, on tiem and within budget. How do you deal with that?

Experiance. Go in with an idea of what you plan to do and hope for the best. Don't do anything that will put yours or your families finances at a catastrophic risk.

First,you need to be good at identifying what needs to be fixed first, then identify what the costs should be for good work done timely. Then you should be ready to give it the ole college try.

My wife grew up in cedar rapids and her entire family lives there. I try to keep an eye on the cedar rapids market pulse and I can tell you that trying to rehab in that market is going to be tough if you are a newb. There is plenty of trash for sale for 50k or less, but the value can only go up to what a nice house in a crappy neighborhood is worth, which is not enough to make the numbers work in many cases. Don't let me stop you, but I would highly suggest that engineering degree. I can attest to the benefit of a marketable skill as I went back to work willingly after 5 yrs of self employment bliss doing REI, mortgage brokering and RE pimp(aka real estate agent). I now have the skill and knowledge to not only make a decent living on my engineer salary, but I can also continue to serve my customer base I created over the last five years and grow my portfolio of rentals. The longer you are doing RE activities, the less time it takes to do it. There is no way I could juggle it all if I was a newb.

Show me someone who makes their only money rehabbing and I will guarantee they are either lying about their net profits or they will be either a landlord or out of the biz in the next 5 yrs. Rehabbing is not a sustainable lifestyle by itself. In most cases, every single deal could bankrupt you. Even if you pay cash all of your cash is tied up til it sells. There might be a handful of people in the nation that fix and flip successfully and thats it, no other business for more than 5 yrs.

There are hundreds or more likely thousands of investors that buy, rehab and hold successfully and have a pot of gold in their portfolio that keeps growing.

Now I am confused, you can't delete a file that is open...
You need to delete it from the finder window.(the file manager) The little square face in light blue and blue in your program bar.

You need to select the file name of the file you want to delete then, hit apple and delete at the same time, a pleasent noise occurs and the file disappears. That is no different than a PC. You can't delete a file on a pc when it is open either...

If you are a new mac user, the best thing you can do is buy a USB 2 button mouse. Your transition will be far easier with a 2 button mouse. That single button thing is a pain in the rear. I refuse to use it.

Also, I highly recommend hot keys.

For example,
Apple - Delete(sends a file to trash)
apple - c(copy)
apple - v(paste)
apple - x(cut)
F keys for volume and monitor settings.

There are hot keys for many other things.

in firefox
apple - t(new tab)