All Forum Posts by: Susan Maneck

The Real Estate Agency I work with is Dove Realty owned by Katrina Hawkins. Her number is 601-238-3287. Her husband does most of my handy man work. Fondren is the best place for small multis, but I could never afford them there. Yes, I acquired all my properties BRRRR but the way I was able to finance them is no longer available. I pulled together enough money with my mother to pay cash for our first house and then rehabbed it with my credit cards. After a year I refinanced it via a first-place HELOC from Wells Fargo. They were the only bank I knew which would give HELOCs to rental properties. I then turned around and used the money to buy another house. I ended up with five houses that way. Alas, Wells Fargo no longer has those. The reason I did it that way is that it is really hard and really expensive to get financing for houses that cost less than 50K unless they are owner occupied. Of course, nowadays there aren't many houses in that price range, at least not ones you want to buy. The rest of my properties I purchased through a solo401K. If you have any self-employment income that might be worth looking into. Dmitri with Sense Financial who belongs to BiggerPockets set mine up. I've only had three properties with standard mortgages. Two of them I sold last year and my son lives in the last one while he finishes his PhD at UMMC.

Aside from my son's condo all my properties are in the South Jackson 39212 area. 

I moved to California to take care of my mother during the pandemic, but I could give you some advise on any properties in the Jackson area which is where all of mine are located. I only have one multi-family property myself which I'm getting ready to put on the market. Unfortunately it will not go FHA because I don't think the back house was ever permitted. At least there is no record on it with the county land roll.  I get $1500-$1600 a month for it and I'm only asking 95K which is the value of the front house. I can recommend a good property manager/real estate agent for the Jackson area, though. 

If you are willing to live in one of the units, you can get an FHA loan with only 3% down because it will be considered owner occupied. Virtually any local bank or even credit union should finance it. I like Hope Credit Union myself because of their commitment to racial equity. I find it a good place to put my emergency funds as well because their checking account pays 3% interest on the first $10,000.

Most wholesalers and investors here in Jackson use real estate lawyers rather than title companies. Steve Younger is one I've worked with as a buyer and I'm pretty sure the property I bought was a double close. Most title companies here don't want to touch those. 

Quote from @Jason Quisberth:

Property Management seems low at 23$/mo, consider a rate closer to 10% of rent unless you are always managing it.

My property manager in Mississippi charges 8%. 

Properties have appreciated all over Mississippi during the pandemic but I only buy properties here when it makes sense in terms of rental income, I don't count of appreciation and I don't think you should either.  However, I'm seeing that more and more investors are looking seriously at Mississippi, probably because the numbers don't work out any place else. As for coast, personally I wouldn't buy there after what happened with Katrina. Insurance companies found all kinds of ways not to reimburse people for their losses. One place in Mississippi where appreciation appears to be more the norm is closer to Memphis. Still, I think the house you are looking at is a good deal. 

 The most they lose is any earnest money they put into the deal. Well, unless your local attorney general is very bored or if they sold it as a property and not a contact they are selling then the local real estate board might be interested. 

That's my understanding as well. You only get to keep the earnest money. That's what it is for. In Mississippi earnest money tends to be pretty low and most wholesalers will try to get around paying any earnest money if they can. There are ways to get wholesalers in a lot of trouble in Mississippi because they are selling real estate without a license. The real question is, does Jason want to sell this property to them or not? If he is just trying to squeeze extra money out of them, then good luck! 

Did your contract specifically say it was non-assignable? 

Quote from @Jason V.:

Not sure how I could lose the sale, tho....

I've already got a contract with the 2 local guys.  There's NOTHING that allows them to cancel the contract, short of foundation, roofing or other "system" problems (HVAC, electrical, plumbing, etc.).   But the concrete slab is great, there's a new roof, a new HVAC system, new electrical, newish water heater, & there's nothing wrong with the plumbing.  Their contract specifically precludes then from cancelling due to cosmetic issues, which there are many.

So the way I see it.... There's ZERO benefit for me to amend the contract to other buyers. If they want to amend, then there should be something in it for me, no? Wholesalers mean they've likely already found another buyer, the LLP, to pay them $10k to $20k on top of what they originally offered me. Accepting their buyer amendment only makes sense to me if I'm getting something extra, because I'm ALREADY getting the original contract price. No way they're getting out of it. So yeah... No benefit for me to accept buyer reassignment.

I would not assume they are getting as much profit as you imagine out of that deal. Wholesalers operate on a pretty low profit margin. In any case, if they walk away I'll you'll get is their earnest money, and usually wholesalers get away with very low ones. 

Quote from @Nathan Patterson:

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

You can't count on 3% appreciation in Mississippi. The last time there was appreciation in Mississippi before the pandemic was in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Also, keep in mind that Mississippi still hasn't raised its minimum wage from $7.25 so there are limits as to how much rent can be raised. 

 That is great information.  Do you know what appreciation you typically see?

Honestly, I can't give you a figure. When I bought my first house in Mississippi it appreciated for the first four years. Then when the Great Recession hit I found my house (which was purchased from HUD) was now under water. I figured I could either cry about that or buy up the neighborhood. Over the next eight years I started buying up one property after another but it wasn't until the pandemic hit that my original house could be sold for a profit and then not by much. In fact, if I figure in my upgrades I probably lost money.