All Forum Posts by: Craig Shute

Also, @Brent Paul mentioned the maintenance, mgmt, and vacancy.  Just to be clear, a good rule of thumb is 10% for EACH of those, for a total of 30% of rent for those 3 items.

The main thing is to get a solid ARV. You've got a range from $150,000 up to $282,000 although that top one had 3 bathrooms (?). If it's worth 275 fixed up, and it needs 30k in work, great, you've got a smoking deal. If it's worth 150k fixed up and you buy it for 150k and put 30k into it, you've got a steaming pile of, well, you get the idea. I might suggest talking to a real estate agent to get an arv and if you end up purchasing, give her the listing.

We are here!

It's a local bank in Central New York. The credit unions around here seem to be offering the same terms.

oh yea then definitely refinance to get rid of pmi!

Tim Palecek If you're looking to do a flip, I would get a home equity line of credit rather than doing a cash-out refi. I got one where they paid all the closing costs and the first 6 months is a half percent interest and prime plus 0.25 thereafter. The advantages are low or no fees, less paperwork, and you only pay interest when you're using the money. Plus with mine I can convert to a 15-year fixed whenever I want to without paying a fee. A cash-out refi would make sense if you have a high rate on your existing mortgage but since you bought 2 years ago your probably don't.

@J Scott I think @Donald Conrad means that the banks outbid everybody?  So what's the point of going since they always bid up to the amount of the amount owed plus fees, which is usually more than the house is worth?

@Mills Snell

I did not find that to be an issue.  I don't think anything in there was originally, and the only part that was the mobile home was the center 400 sq ft, out of roughly 1000 sq ft.

@Katie Neason  

Here are the steps I took:

I told the homeowner to request a payoff amount, which they sent him, and on that it had the phone and fax of the lady in charge of his case. I called to confirm what she needed and she said they needed an authorization from the homeowner that they could talk to me, and a signed purchase agreement. I wrote up a simple, plain-language purchase agreement (1 page) where I detailed all the problems with the house. The contract has to include the Loan #. I met the seller and we signed it and he wrote a statement at the bottom that I was authorized to speak to them. I faxed that in and emailed her pictures of the condition of the house. The approval came back shortly and had a closing deadline of about 3 weeks later. I made sure that their approval stated that the borrower was not responsible for any deficiency. He had to contribute nothing. He had already filed for bankruptcy and abandoned the home.

I remember I was very nervous until I got the abstract of title back, wondering if there were any junior lien holders. There weren't, and if there had been, most of them should have been wiped out by the bankruptcy.

If anything was unclear or you have any other questions, feel free

@Account Closed

Oh I see.  I didn't have any motivation for looking at the tax website other than I needed to find out who the owners were, and where to send them letters.   That also reminds me that at first I was planning on using this as a buy and hold.  However, I ran the numbers and selling it blew the cash-on-cash out of the water.  Plus, it's not a property that I would want to hold long-term anyway.