All Forum Posts by: Mike Goikhberg

I'm wondering if anyone in this forum has done something along the lines of what my partner and I are thinking of doing. We put an offer in on a property of 80k in as is condition. we plan to put 80-90k into it, and expect a conservative ARV on it of around 225k. We want to do the initial purchase of the property through a community lender with a 20% downpayment. After this, we plan to use either hard money OR a service called Sprout to provide the loan for the rehab costs. Once the rehab is done and the property rented out, we plan to refi with another community bank that does not have a seasoning period requirement. I'm still new and this would be my first deal, so I'm a little hazy about the actual mechanics of the refi process. As I understand it, if the bank refi's the property at 75% LTV, that would be about 168k that's available to cover the original purchase price AND the costs of rehab. What I don't get though, is how does the hard money lender actually get that $ if it's tied up in a loan with the bank?

I just want to share a more recent experience with this software to contrast with the reviews here from over a year ago. I have actually found it immensely useful for pulling comps. The speed with which it works and the layout of the photos and everything else is awesome. I haven't used it too much for finding deals since I am focusing off market for now but one of the deals it flagged as gold was actually one my partner had brought to my attention just a couple weeks prior to that, so its algorithms seem solid! In fact, this just happened again today. There's no question that it adds a lot of value in terms of speeding up your comp pulling and learning what sells in a given area and what doesn't, as well as QUICKLY finding you the deals that make sense to look into. The only thing I didn't like was that you couldn't pull comps by zip code, you always have to enter a property address, so sometimes I had to go pull a random address from google maps in order for it to show me comps in the area I wanted. However I think they are going to remedy this shortly.

I just want to share a more recent experience with this software to contrast with the reviews here from over a year ago. I have actually found it immensely useful for pulling comps. The speed with which it works and the layout of the photos and everything else is awesome. I haven't used it too much for finding deals since I am focusing off market for now but one of the deals it flagged as gold was actually one my partner had brought to my attention just a couple weeks prior to that, so its algorithms seem solid! In fact, this just happened again today. There's no question that it adds a lot of value in terms of speeding up your comp pulling and learning what sells in a given area and what doesn't, as well as QUICKLY finding you the deals that make sense to look into. The only thing I didn't like was that you couldn't pull comps by zip code, you always have to enter a property address, so sometimes I had to go pull a random address from google maps in order for it to show me comps in the area I wanted. However I think they are going to remedy this shortly.

I've been working wiith REIBlackbook for a couple months now. I'm still new and haven't actually closed any deals. But I've learned the REI Blackbook interface and capabilities pretty thoroughly, and can say that their systems will be a major boost to my business for a long time to come.

I was at a MAREIA meetup last week and the two individuals leading the meetup, both experienced investors, said they actually go as far as to pre-screen their leads on the phone by asking if they're current on their mortgage payments. And, if they're not current, then these two investors avoid working with them entirely. So that goes even a step further than just not putting "stop foreclosure" in the marketing. As Ned said, it seems it's not very clear cut and how we deal with it will depend on how much risk we want to take.

I'm new to investing, in the learning phase. Just wanted to revive this thread, as it has been about as enlightening to me as an entire book! Reading thought after thought from experienced investors from all sorts of markets is one of the best ways I have learned. I'm especially curious about what some of the investors in the DC metro (even more specifically, Baltimore) area are thinking now as opposed to 7 months ago when this thread was started. And in general, how/if sentiments have changed in all the people who posted here back then!

wow, well tha's that then...thanks!!

Any experienced investors from the maryland area care to weigh in on the issue of marketing to pre-foreclosures in baltimore? I read the regulations stating that you must be a certified foreclosure consultant if you are goign to be doing ANY dealings with the bank on behalf of the homeowner. However, an experienced developer/investor I spoke with at one meet up was not aware of any issues with marketing to these individuals. Also, what exactly does it take to get the "foreclosure consultant" cert??

they probably meant something like peoplefinders.com , they will give you a report for $2...but the info they provide has been highly inaccurate from my experience. I've seen someone recommend www.spyreal.com , maybe try that out? def not cheap though.