All Forum Posts by: Nathan Grabau

I would just say that you will not grant access until someone has shown proof of financing and signed a damage waiver, so you know it is only serious buyers and not "slippin jimmys". You could go as far as to say that someone has to have an accepted offer to enter the premise. There should be reports and pictures that detail damage and estimated repair costs. Someone who is curious about if a burnt wall is salvageable or not is likely not a serious buyer. 

This is possible, but it is going to be lender specific. For a lender, a non recourse loan could have appeal if there is a large equity position, because it makes repo'ing it easier. That being said, if you start walking into banks looking for non recourse loans, you are going to be asked for a why, and you will need a better answer than "I do not want to be personally responsible for the money you are lending me." 

This depends on how long and extensive the renovations will be. I would not expect someone to for example have a kitchen that they could not use while living in a property. Having to share a bathroom for 5 days on the other hand, not as bad. 

In a 3/2 it is going to be hard to recover 2/3rds of your mortgage with one bedroom. I would not base the rent off of your mortgage, rent should be based off of what other people are charge for bedrooms with an on suite bathroom near you and in similar conditions. 

What you are talking about reno'ing should not take more than a couple weeks. While working full time, I renovated my master bathroom in my house, on my own, in less than 3 weeks. This should not have a huge impact. That being said, if it is going to take longer, I find it really unreasonable to expect a tenant to deal with unfinished floors in their bedroom for more than a day or two and even then I would probably put them in a hotel or at least prorate their rent. 

I think you might have incorrectly entered the time of the loan into the calculator. I see that it is currently set to 5 years. Is it a 5 year balloon that you would be using for financing? Lots of loans are due as balloons, where you pay on a typical 25 or 30 year amortization schedule, but then have the balance of the loan due after 5 years, meaning you have to refinance, pay off, or sell the property. If it is a 5 year balloon, you should ask what the "am schedule" is for it, and change that 5 year loan into the number of years of the am schedule. 

If this is not the case, and you are expected to pay back the whole loan over 5 years, this is a bad deal. It is virtually impossible to make an investment deal pencil with a shorter than 15 or 20 year am schedule. 

Do you have any that you have worked with before? That would be where I would go first. If not, I would use a large national one, so that their systems are aggressive and trusted. You can also call some and see who calls you back. Some title companies have terrible communication. 

The question you want to ask yourself is: if you had to sell, do you want to have to be selling to people who struggle to get financing too and have to pay all cash. In my opinion, the most valuable part of single family real estate is on the exit, you are selling to a wide pool ranging from cash buyers to first time buyers putting 3% down. You should expect that your appreciation is not going to keep up with the market because buyers who could buy your property if financing was available, can't now. 

There is a joke among agents that FSBO are just future listings, that being said it is very easy to avoid this being a scam. Just use a title company to hold all of the funds in their escrow accounts. They'll do a title search and confirm authentic ownership.

You get into trouble is when people buying without an agent hand a FSBO seller an envelope full of cash or a wire to a personal account for an escrow deposit and just wing the sale.

While this sounds like they are just making an excuse to me, there could be a legitimate issue too. 

I would investigate the issue she is talking about more, potentially having a licensed hvac tech come out to check out the problem. 

I also think your other option is to let her move out, if she finds the problems to be unbearable. 

Generally, you want to avoid eviction proceedings if you can after a grievance has been document, because it can draw it out. While I am not explicitly familiar with Chicago/ Illinois landlord laws, I would imagine they favor tenants to some degree, making a voluntary move more advantageous for you. 

I don’t think so. I generally let tenants know that if they want it, there are services they can pay for, where they put the data in, and then I get sent an email just confirming the data is accurate. 

I would max it out before you move, so if they freeze it you have access to the full line.