All Forum Posts by: Patrick L.

Same as any other house except you have a tax deed and do not currently have marketable title.   In Florida you'll need to do a quiet title action or use a company like cleartosell (~$3k) in order to transfer with any type of warranty deed.....or you could find a buyer willing to take it on a quit claim deed with no title insurance (probably at a deep discount).    You'll also want to verify the amount of any liens that are still with the property (government liens are not wiped out by a tax deed auction....code enforcement, utility, lot clearing, special assessment, etc).  

I hate landlord paid utilities, tenants will take advantage and run up much higher usage than if they were paying the bill.   

First for the short term get copies of all utility bills for the previous 12 months, don't take anybody's word for it.  

Second is it feasible to separate any of the utilities?  Depending how it was built this may prove very difficult depending on the style of the building.   

Shared utilities should definitely lower the value quite a bit.  

Laminate is just cardboard with a picture of wood on it.  Get it wet let it sit for a little bit and you've ruined the entire floor, not great for tenants.   Go vinyl unless you like changing it as often as carpet.   Take  look at the Trafficmaster Allure vinyl plank flooring from Home Depot, goes down easy and is very durable. 

"Court records show that Watkins was in the process of being evicted from the Grasmere Avenue home that he rented from Remlinger."

I don't get why a landlord would show up and try to collect rent with a pending eviction case.   Once an eviction is filed there's zero reason to have any contact with the tenants until the sheriff shows up to serve the writ of possession.  You definitely shouldn't take any money from tenants you're evicting so just a dumb all around move.  

2,000 wouldn't even cover the cost of the materials on a new cut in.  Goodman is probably fine since he's flipping it, but I would never install Goodman in anything I was going to keep.  In Florida you cannot install anything lower than 14 SEER now per code, so add another $200 to that 13 SEER price on the Goodman unit.  

2 ton will be fine, installation cost will vary.   It's going to depend on the number of drops, how easy it is to run duct work (a large attic will be favorable), electrical (do your existing panels have the capacity to add central?  Being a new cut in you'll also need an electrician to do the wiring.    My guess would be a minimum of $4k/each, get a bunch of bids as they will vary by thousands.  

 From your spreadsheet it looks like you're losing money every month.   With expenses that high it makes it pretty tough to cash flow, especially with the $500/month COA dues.    With $8k in gross income and $10k in expenses it's obviously not a great cash flow purchase, you're losing money even without a mortgage.   If you can gross closer to the $14k estimate you gave while keeping expenses the same you'll be getting almost a 5% return which is still pretty poor but at least you'd be making something at that point.   

Unless this is a property you bought for your own personal use in addition to being a vacation rental I'd sell it.  It's not a great cash flow generator. 

On Auction.com you put your auction registration on a credit card but the EMD and the closing will need to be done with a wire transfer.

Basically you cannot swipe a credit card to buy a house under any circumstances.   It's not certified funds, what's to stop someone from doing a charge back after closing?  

You will need cash or a cashier's check.  You cannot swipe a credit card.    If you can get an advance on your credit card ahead of time and have those funds available in certified funds prior to the payment being due then you could do it that way.   A credit card is not cash.  

Most of the institutional bidders do exactly that, create tons of entities and bid .25% with all of them hoping to get it.   It is low risk on the premium properties, stay away from vacant lots and rough areas and most will get redeemed and you'll earn your interest.   The ones that aren't quickly redeemed can tie your money up for a while.   If it doesn't get redeemed within 2 years of the delinquency you can foreclose and pay off all other certificates and the other required fees, sending it to tax deed sale.   If the property has any value it will sell 3rd party, if not you'll end up as the owner (that generally happens on vacant lots with little to no value).  Here in Pinellas the only ones that go to the certificate holder are vacant lots in the hood where the city demolished the house, complete with a 5 figure demolition lien attached.