All Forum Posts by: Shawn Thom

i was on the "out they go" bandwaggon until I saw Mesquite Tx.  is the house in Mesquite?  If so, that means you will have to get it reinspected.  right now, you can let some things slide but if you have to get the city involved...of all cities, mesquite, you will have to fix everything on tenant turn over.

It sounds like you have been a little lax on inspections.  Kick that up a notch.  How firm is your lease on violations.  If they are month to month, strengthen up your lease.  You can keep it month to month if you want.  Formalize results in a letter with consequences.  If they aren't changing the filters, buy a box of filters and give it to them.  filters are cheap.. AC units aren't.

Being messy can be cleaned up when they move.  Messy walls don't matter because you'd paint anyway when they move.  If they are doing things to destroy your house, that kicks it up a notch on how your respond.

What kind of repairs from the water damage is outstanding?

My 2nd rehab went horribly.  It was way too big of a job at my skill level.  I had to do everything, electrical, plumbing, foundation, roof.

The good thing is (like you), I may it through it and learned a lot.  I knew if I could handle that, i could handle most rehabs.  It built my confidence that I could take on most projects.  

You'll be a lot stronger on the next one.

is the guy in this line of work?  If he has the skills I'd be tempted to at least take a look at what he is proposing.

Here is the news story.  It doesn't say what the full amount of $$ that was taken (allegedly).

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/State-Seizes-Titl...

@Wayne Brooks I was told this happened over 3 months.  i'd think it would have to be a home owner transaction because they are a little less savy.  I know the mortgage company still sends regular correspondence to borrowing, so I can figure out how people didn't catch on.  That was why I was skeptical at first.

I still find it hard to believe that some one could get away with so much money.

@Steve Babiak I'm not smart enough to figure this out.  If I'm not mistaken, if a title company pays off a loan, the mortgage company or the title company clears the deed.  That is on record.  I am pretty sure I've seen those when i've done title searches.  You have to know an address in question.  My transaction was early 2015 and it was a smaller transaction and i know it was paid off.  After that one I stopped using them due to other issues.

disclaimer:  I did not hear this first hand.  I heard this from some one who is in the hard money business and had a direct business relationship with the alleged person.  Do your own research.

Heard from some one today that a title company owner made of with millions of dollars of customer's money this month.  I don't want to name names on a public forum, but I've used this title company last year.  They are big in the investor arena locally. The story I got was that the scam targeted high dollar houses that were going through their title company.  Instead of paying off underlying loans this person kept the money and made the payments so no one got suspicious.  This only went on for a short period, but the raked in allegedly 30 million.  The person I heard this from had been contacted by the Feds already.  Apparently the alleged person skipped town last week with all their family members with approx. $30 million. 

Being the skeptical person that i am, I did some digging to validate his story.  I called their main number.  Its say "Thank you for calling XXX title company in receivership".

Their facebook page is gone.

The alleged person's facebook page is gone.

It looks like the story has story may have some truth to it.

If you've closed any high dollar homes in the last 3 months, you might want to dig a little bit to see if you may be affected.  I posted all I know :)

If you plan on using a CPA I'd get with them and see what kind of process you can come up that works for both of you.  More than likely they will suggest quick books.  If you are planning on scaling out you really will need it.  I fought it for a while and wish I would have done it sooner.  I do the online version so my book keeper can get to it easily.  I also like that I can attach receipts to the record so I don't have to keep up with paper receipts.

To expand a little further.  I plan on keeping lower end houses at owner finance and maybe sprinkle in a higher end rental here and there.   $89k-$110k seems to be a sweet spot for owner finance.  I've gone as high as $150k.

I'd like to do some rentals with ARV of around $200k. I'd put those at a 15 year or a 30 year with the goal of paying off early. I'd be less worried about cash flow on those and just use them to have tenants pay down mortgage to build some paper wealth and have a paid off asset in 15 years.

I have recently started focusing on owner finance and love it.  You get the cash flow and no fixing toilets.  you will get a lot of naysayer's on here, but i haven't had any issues and I know several others who have been extremely successful at it.

I don't know your experience level but if you have not done one before I get some legal advice so you can make sure you stay compliant.