All Forum Posts by: Steve Morris

i've seen interest rates in recent times on investment properties in the high 3's very low 4's. If you ask me, I think those are great rates compared to what most people have received on bigger pockets in the last few years.

Well, before COVID, I know people that closed at 3.15% and 7 year balloon. If you have the time/money, a HUD 223f is about 2.65% fully amortizing.

Right now, banks are tight.  If you wait until they relax post-COVID, you'll get a better rate.

Any loan you can get.  Banks don't like lending on investments that don't earn money.

Well, I think now is a good time since NOI is getting hit and most owners blame the prop mgr.

Think you need to take the direct route and just get together a list of owners.  I'm an apt broker and I appreciate the referral fee, but I'd rather have a happy owner since they may want to buy/sell more stuff.  However, being buddies with ACTIVE brokers wouldn't hurt since they'll gossip.

I'd start with an INTRO letter and then follow up with a human contact (phone call F2F).

The INTRO letter should state how you're going to help them running their property and make more money - So think it thru since it'll lead your discussion. Stuff like how you do the day-to-day stuff so they can think about big issues on spending. Show them trend lines on spending, in short, get them involved. If it's easier, "Monthly I'll talk to you about the 3 things we do to increase your NOI". You get a dis-interested owner and thats good (as in they'll prob use inertia to keep them from making a change) and bad (blame you for eveything wrong = shrinking monthly check).

See a lot of guys saying to use us because we're big and have lots of clients which is less compelling.

In any case, is the appraisal something we can use with another lender?

Usual rule (by lenders) I've run into is if it is a MAI-certified appraiser (not a BOV) they see those as valid for six months.

Unfortunately, COVID is blowing lender's minds and they are making it a lot harder to qual or raising rates.

If you can, I'd let the COVID stuff settle out and lenders will come back and you'd prob get a better rate than today.

"the cutting edge real estate online marketing strategies"

Darn, I miss the old trailing edge strategies.

Sorry, unless you're at a global scale, SEOs (even if you pay religiously) aren't much of a high-quality traffic generator.  It's still the same blocking and tackling:

1) Figure your money out

2) Identify what business you want to be in with a very cold heart

3) Contact owners and don't wait for them to walk to you

4) Be able to figure how much you want to pay so you can make money on the deal.

My father, the mechanic, said it best: "You don't make money polishing tools, you make it when you fix cars"

Well, could be an issue or it could be 3 buyers that didn't qual.  Had one deal that fell out 4 times (2 were other 1031 chosen and 2 were non-serious buyers) and it closed OK.  In addition, in the past 100 days, banks are getting a lot tougher on investment property lending.

You could call the listing agent and ask, but you'd probably get more out of eyeballing it with a drive-by and comparing it to comps.

In sum, I guess I'd be aware, but I wouldn't let it cloud me from looking at it as an investment for returns - AND I'd get a full list of disclosures signed by seller and go thru it.

Depends on what you want to do.

If analyzing properties for a syndicator is your goal, I guess it would help.  However, you're going to be doing the same low-level stuff (running XLS galore) you would if you walked in and begged to be an intern.  In addition, you'd learn more practical stuff than you would in 4 years at a college.

If you want to buy/sell/rehab, the quickest best way is to do deals.  They don't teach ground-level stuff in college like how/where/who to spend your time and the basic sales skills you need with clients.  That is something you get a RE license for and apprentice to some guy that knows what he's doing.

I'm not slamming colleges, but I think they serve a better role to supplement skills as opposed to giving you the basic skills which you can get thru practice.

1 year.

Less and you risk spending time vacant and turnover

Longer and you risk not getting/keeping rents at market.

If it's private money and you'll be the owner, I don't think a lien would be necessary.  Don't know GA law, but in OR, we're a lien-theory state.  So the lender is NOT an owner, but does have a claim (lien) on the property.

Go get a CPA since there aren't many on the boards here.  Your CapGains rate is based on you total income and can be up to 20% (plus Medicare at 4% and if your state has income taxes like OR, their rate).