All Forum Posts by: Carson M.

Hi @Christopher Franco I live in Ferndale and invest in the immediate area.  I have done 9 buy and holds/flips over the last few years and recently got my real estate license. 

I would be more than happy to answer any question you may have about the area or assist in your purchasing.  I can drive by any homes you'd like, point you in the direction of contractors, ect.  Please feel free to message me and we can further connect.

Carson

Hi Riku Kiyokawa unfortunately I'm limited what I can do on the BP phone app, but check for a private message from me later. I graduated from MSU in may with a finance degree. I'm waiting to close on home #9 in a few weeks and am negotiating #10 and #11

Who was the property management company? I call the city every quarter to see where the tenants stand with the water bill. If there is a big balance, I say something to the tenant. If something happened and there was an eviction, I want as much money to go towards repairs and lost rent as possible. I don't want to pay for someone's water use. It's a tough situation with many people that have a share in the responsibility but I would be pissed at the management company for never checking in. This should be a basic function of managing a property.

Joe, Craigslist used to be the only way I advertised rentals in SE Oakland county. I am Now finding roughly 75% of my tenant leads are coming from Zillow with the remaining 25% split between trulia and craigslist. To get on Zillow, I use postlet.com. Post let will syndicate your ad across many different sites.

If you do decide to venture in the east Lansing student rental market, I would be glad to answer any questions you may have. I graduated from MSU a few weeks ago and rented off campus for three years.

George P. Do you have a price per sq ft for refinishing?

@Ryan Dossey That's interesting advice.  I appreciate it.

I assumed anyone who has recently bought a home would not be willing to let it go at a steep discount. 

Maybe a lot of marketers have this train of thought which means that market segment does not receive any/many mailers.  This could be a nice little niche to exploit.  Thanks for the useful insight.

I have pulled a list of 1600 absentee owners with high equity for a target area.    I put my last sale date from 1900-2013. 

As I look over my list, the earliest sale date is in 2001.  There should be many homes that sold from 1900-2000 that would of ended up on my list.

I called Listsource and they looked into the issue.  According to them, the county in which the cities are located in does not provide tax info prior to 2001, making it impossible for them to produce leads from 2000 and before.

How the heck can I build a list of absentee owners and get around this?  I would prefer to hit homes that were sold pre 2000 more so than homes sold after 2000, which makes this data vital. 

Has anyone gotten around this problem before? Would different list generation websites be able to pull the full data I'm looking for?

Check out castle at entercastle.com Disclaimer, I have not used their services but have personally heard many investors vouch for them wholeheartedly.

@Wendy Black check out this podcast with Michael Quarles.  He goes into detail about which areas to target with door hangers.  Hope it helps. 

http://michaelquarles.com/podcastitem/podcast-200-door-hangers-for-profit/