All Forum Posts by: Philip Williams

Yes even though we don't allow smokers if by some chance one snuck by but respected not smoking inside. We would put some of the smokers poles outside 20 feet away so they would have a place to go and know its far enough away from the common entrance. 

I agree this does leave you with a very small buffer when there lease is up. I would meet with the tenants and explain that although you have a good relationship this damage although unintentional was due to there negligence. You could allow them to pay you 100 extra each month for five months perhaps? That way it seems you are still working with them but not allowing them to damage your property with no consequences!

It depends on how much your time is worth to you. For our first property we did literally everything, from painting to plumbing to laminate. We were trying to cut costs and learn some valuable lessons. What we ended up learning was that our time was better spend elsewhere. Finding deal, financing said deals, networking with other investors agents etc....

As long as they are licensed and insured it should be fine. Perhaps they are just light on work at the moment and wanted to insure that they got the job. 

Hey congrats on your first deal! So I always advise using a home inspector....unless of course you have a very competent contractor with you. Is he licensed insured? Is he a family friend or someone who does this for a living? If this is his full time job you should be able to skip the home inspection as he knows what to look for. 

@Jeff Valentino  I had tried with several on the mls maybe 15-20 owners. I view about 20 properties a week and it took me a week to find this deal. But the very next property I viewed was the current deal so hopefully I can get another owner financed deal locked in here in the next week. 

@Eric Moore I actually found the listing as for sale by owner on Craigslist. Two of the duplexes we own were purchased off the mls, the other from HUD. I am currently negotiating with a seller now we want to buy 3 buildings from him. They are for sale by owner so they aren't on the mls, my property manager saw the sign and informed me. We want to finance the first two and get seller financing on the third, they have never done owner financing so it may be a bit of a challenge. We can't force much equity as the rents are pretty high for the area, my idea of what we can do though is upkeep the property a little better to maintain the high levels of rent. As far as the paperwork the attorney we used had done land contracts before so it was very simple! Hope all this helped!

The biggest difference in my opinion between large multi and single families are the close quarters the tenants live in. Since you have experience managing duplexes you have undoubtedly dealt with some of the problems you will experience in a large multi just on a different scale. In a duplex if you have a unruly tenant playing loud music disturbing the peace it affects one other tenant. In a 3 level 25 unit building for example that same one tenant could be disturbing the tenant on both sides, across the hall above and below etc. This is just a small example I could give several others but i hope this helps! If you liked my post do me a favor and vote :)

Hey scott I saw no one had replied so thought I would give my two cents. The first thing I would do was try to obtain owner financing if you have already picked out a few properties you are interested in. If that is not an option the next thing I would do would be to find a bank that does portfolio loans that could be an option. The third option I would pursue would be to talk to a bank that has some properties on it's books that your interested in. If you already have a good relationship with the bank they might be willing to hold a loan in house for you. Hope this helped! If you liked leave me a vote :)

Congrats on your first wholesale deal! It really depends on your business plan, how did you find this deal? If it was through direct mail marketing perhaps you should work on expanding your campaign. Send out twice as many post cards as before, buy a bigger list of names. Or if you have never done a direct mail campaign put the pieces in place to start one! Hope this was helpful.