All Forum Posts by: Sean Walton

Is your goal double closings. My local chicago title is willing to let C fund A in an to B and B to C double closing as long as everything is transparent and seller and end buyer know how much I'm making. I've heard First American does too but my local person wasn't responsive

It depends if you have more time than money or money than time. If you are trying to save money you can order post cards in bulk from vista print when they run a sale and print a bunch of labels at home with a mail merge. Where are you getting your list? You can talk to a rep for listsource and see if they will give you a discount. If you have more money than time order from yellowletters.com or click2mail some advantages is they can order your list for you at less Per address and they will run it through the NCOA database to make sure it is forwarded to the right address. Use a 1st class stamp on your first mail so that Unreachable addresses get returned to you. Use a standard stamp after to save money

I think it depends on your market. In San Francisco a month to month lease only really benefits the tenant since the landlord can't end a rent controlled persons tenancy without a limited number of reasons. If you get harsh winters and it will. E hard to replace them you may want to get a 6 month lease starting in September If your area isn't super tenant friendly and there is a decent pool of tenants in the winter and you're not too worried about them getting a job in another state then stay month to month

I think it's a good idea for everyone to have a script. Obviously you don't stick to it verbatim but it keeps you on track and in charge of the conversation. Michael Quarles has an answering service trained specifically for buying houses at a discount but they are trained specifically to follow only his script. I think you need to be part of his coaching program and it is about $1/min and only open I think 9-6 pacific time. They won't negotiate for you but they will filter for motivation and set appointments for you You could also train one or several virtual assistants either in the US or abroad and use ring central to route calls

I'm going to assume in my response by REO you mean the bank owns it because it went to auction and they had the winning bid. If you are buying at auction most of the below does not hold true and I recommend against a newbie buying at auction sight unseen.

1. I think it is potentially a great idea if it is livable now and you don't mind living in a construction zone for a little while. I wouldn't recommend it with small kids. Also if it only has 1 bathroom expanding the shower may mean showering at the gym for a month during that part of the rehab. Maybe add a 2nd bathroom first.

Not sure what you mean by loaning more than 20k. A bank will probably not loan you more than 96.5% of the appraised value or the purchase price whichever is lower (3.5%) down so you will either need to have cash or another source for the rehab money: read up on 203k loans.

2. You usually only have a warranty on new homes and up to 10 years for hidden construction defects. You may be able to buy a appliance warranty from a 3rd party if money is tight and it helps with piece of mind. If this was a traditional sale you would have recourse if the seller knew of something wrong with the property but didn't disclose it. I think that still holds true for REOs

3.  You should be able to hire a home inspector to give you an inspection report but they don't always catch everything and will not open up walls so there could be old electrical which you should have a good idea of based on the age of the place.

4. You should be able to get a contractor in there if it is bank owned.

Welcome Roger you came to the right place to learn!

Be sure to check out the BP podcasts. Play them at 1.5 speed to get through them faster.

Take a look at Jonathan Segal FAIA he's done great real estate investing/developing with his architecture background.

Does the basement have 2 exits or a way to add an exit out the window? You may need to excavate dirt around a window in order to get a roughly 6 sq. ft. operable portion out of each bedroom. Also some jurisdictions when you go to more than 2 units make you build a concrete block wall around your furnace and water heater. I agree with @Bill S. try and talk to someone who has done this or ask a local architect who specializes in remodels and additions.

@Aaron Bloodworth i'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice so do your due diligence. If getting an LLC is keeping your from starting your marketing then don't bother unless you have a lot of assets to protect. Also check with an attorney and CPA but if you are doing a lot of deals you may want to do an S-corp i think it is better tax wise but not my area of expertise. Use the money from your first deal to hire a good lawyer and CPA to advise you

If you want to market under a business name you can file a fictitious business name also known as a "doing business as" or DBA. This is usually pretty cheap $50 plus the cost of running an notification ad in your local paper for 4 weeks. You would still buy or contract the property under your personal name and there is no asset protection but it allows you to legally market under that name. This would most likely be filed with your county but may be different in your neck of the woods.

In Landlording on Autopilot the author says that some cities allow you to pay to just park a cop car with no one in it at your complex. Should be enough to scare away most business if you do it on and off for a few weeks then go to the suspected dealer and offer cash for keys. There is a whole section on what to do with a drug dealer tenant

I agree with J it can vary widely based on the jurisdiction, whether the exterior appearance is changing, if the design conforms to the current zoning. 3 weeks to 9 months are quite possible for small to medium projects. Before you spend a lot of time and energy on design hire an architect who has worked in that jurisdiction on similar projects before. Have them do a rough site plan and elevations and set up a meeting with the planning department. Ask how long it will take for approvals. Does it need to go in front of city council? If planning doesn't see any issues meet with building. If building doesn't have an issues have your architect make a planning department submittal and submit right away. At this point you can have the architect keep working on construction documents but they will usually say any changes required by planning will be an additional service so you need to decide if that risk is acceptable.