All Forum Posts by: Phillip Nowicki

Hi Nicole, I would not do it with someone living there now. They rented it as-is. I also don't think it will make your property more valuable, that type of improvement may only make the house sell sooner. I would tell the tenant that the basement is set aside as  inside storage and not designated living space. Kitchens, Bathrooms, Master Bedrooms, Location, Neighborhood and overall layout and finish options like lighting and flooring sell houses not finished basements. For example in my area not having a basement decreases value by $40,000 to $50,000, but finishing the basement may only increase value by $10,000. Maybe ask a Realtor about the facts in your area.

Also you may want to consider an owner finance sale to them if they qualify and let them finish the basement as owners, not renters. Good luck.

Thanks. I just asked because in this thread it says you did paper source in April. HUD and FHA have a weird history and in some respects are part of the problem. They created these lower income boundaries and even played a part in sub-prime lending. I am not sure they are the answer to clean up the market. I agree with actually doing what they are doing now and selling off these pools of bad loans to private firms to come to a resolution. Some have been delinquent for years. Banks have obviously not done the right thing and either tried to work something out with property owners or foreclose and move on. Because of too big to fail bailout program it just extended the problem out for a longer period of time. All markets will have ups and downs and we have seen this over the years play out in the housing and stock and today oil. There will be another housing correction at some point in the future and I think it may be a good thing to have maybe a couple of big hedge funds or banks go out of business at that time than to have another bailout. For these reasons I support seller financing to homeowners from individuals or even private companies. This spreads out the risk among more people instead of consolidating risk in Government agencies like HUD or FHA.

Hi Steve B from Hinsdale,

Just wanted to post that I was at NoteSchool this weekend in Chicago. 3 Day event was $797 and included book and online training. They really did an ok job the first day of teaching and going into how to access purchase and evaluate a non-performing loan. Then day 2 and 3 I felt it turned into sales of mentor program with the main speaker Eddie Speed. I would give the class a C for not staying on topic of NPN's. The networking was actually pretty good with current note school students. The info was eye opening as to why the industry is the way it is today but I certainly won't pay $18,000 plus for a mentor course.

Hi Steve, Do you recommend education from the paper source?