All Forum Posts by: Amber Gonion

@Julius Johnson in this market you are better off to purchase, rehab, rent and refinance. Your offer for 203k is viewed as a headache for the seller, the exception is for properties where you are the only offer, I had one accepted with a fha 4-plex because the buyer was a owner occupant and it was a hud property with a 20 day first look. Otherwise you would be looking at properties that are off market or on the market with no offers for a long time.

@Cameron Riley  unfortunately with fair housing laws the smart thing is to have high criteria and not choose.  

I have worked as a regional manager for many companies and been to fair housing training over the years and while most small landlords will never have to deal with a HUD complaint no matter what they do, those that have will wish they never heard of HUD.

If I had taken a bunch of applications and picked the ones I liked for an apartment building I would have been unemployed possibly the same day.

So what starts a HUD investigation, "they won't bother with me because I only own a dozen units right?" Anyone can start a investigation by going to the hud website. You can be sued not only by the tenant, but also the investigator if you were discriminatory to him or her.

One example that I have heard of is a woman in a wheel chair was brought to an elevator rather than the stairs which were much closer to go look at an apartment.  The lesson was that even though you may think a person in a wheelchair will want the elevator you need to treat them the same and offer the stairs.  While you may not have any intent to discriminate,  intent is not always good enough.  For fun reading look up disparate impact.

These days everyone is recording interactions and we all need to be mindful that we live in a fishbowl and need to be careful and knowledgeable about the laws.

@Cameron Riley raise your rent, raise your criteria, have one person apply, if they pass the criteria, they then pay a deposit and it is theirs. If you treat it like a job interview your odds of hud coming around will be very high, especially with people paying to apply.

@Alexander Valarus. We don’t make judgements on properties on paper. We use the paper to determine which ones to walk through. Many times a property looks great until we pull up the street or walk in the door, then those great numbers turn to trash. It is also the case that places far exceed expectations during a walkthrough, where we find more value than we could see on paper.

That is why we always encourage our investors to take a look at a property if they “think” they are interested. Showing are free, and are the best way to determine true value. A new boiler with 80 year old pipes that have pin holes is something you won’t see in pictures.

@Kyle Hlavac. Welcome @Kyle Hlavac. We would be happy to meet with you to discuss your options when buying as a house hacker. My husband was saying the other day that house hacking sounds so cool, when he did it in 1999 it was called live-in landlord and didn’t sound as cool, but made the same amount of money then as it does now.

@John Walter. Hi John, we deal with investors looking to house hack all the time. For single investors it is simple, for those with spouses/Gfs it can get a little more tricky as often the spouse/GF is not too keen on living in a duplex in a so so area or during rehab. We tend to focus on the nicer areas for duplexes so that you can invest without giving up nice things and personal safety for a year.

I used to work downtown in a class A building as a manager, part of your challenge is the timing to find a property near the end of your lease. Pm me we may have a couple of options for you to make the transition smoother into your next property.

I used Kaplan, I think they are now called Brightwood.  I don’t know if it was better or worse than any other since I only took the one.  I do CE credits through them and the process is smooth and simple.

@Tyler Erickson Hi Tyler, let me know if you would like to meet for coffee to discuss.

@Michael Tempel We have a couple investors in that ballpark that would be interested. Please email, or pm.

@Jim K. My husband just added an additional room and a half in our basement and used the same specs. He explained that there are different levels in construction, this will pass inspection, this is how I would do it in my home, and what the heck was this guy thinking?