All Forum Posts by: Tom C

Spending $2.30 on carpeting for college students will turn out to be a very poor choice. I like to use the .69 cent berber from Home Depot when I have to put carpeting down.

Zach,

I think it makes sense, taking advantage of any new fad will give you a step ahead in any market. Although you have to be in an area that is progressive.

What kinds of things can you do in order to make your homes ECO? I was looking a corn furnace for my own home, they sell for around $2500.00 and corn is plentlyfull around here, although the price it is creeping up. I am not sure that many home owners will want to deal with having to buy corn and go through the hassel of loading the bin. Many people just want the simple convenice of having gas, electric or fuel oil.

Paul,

As you know that is a nice area and you shouldn't have any problem moving a home there. good luck

8 months ago I would have told you that getting a loan wouldn't be a problem, now it's going to be a real issue. All you can do at this point is start rebuilding your credit. You need to get a credit card. Capitol One seems to be pretty flexible, but you will pay for it. My discharge was over 3 years ago and up until the credit crunch I was able to get loans. Now it is much more difficult for anyone who has less then a 700 FICO.

Welcome.. What town is the house in? I see you are from Cleveland.

100K in rehab expenses is an awful lot of rehab. You are talking contractors working around the clock and top of the line upgrades. One thing to consider is that everything has gotten cheaper with the down market, including contractors and material. I can't imagine that you should be anywhere near 100K unless you are doing a total gut. You really need to get in the house and nail down those rehab expenses.

I come from a very blue collar farming area where homes like this are listed all over. Almost any one that has the ability to buy a home in this area, also can pick up a hammer and rehab one of these homes, just like I do. There is no reason why they would pay several thousand more for a home that has been rehabbed when they can do the same work themselves to a home right next door.

No one is moving into our area due to the unemployment conditions. Which means that the only market are people who are wanting to either downsize or move up and as I stated above, we all know how to do are own rehabs. Until those listing go down and the homes become harder to find, flipping is not an option, unless of course I do owner finance and market to those people who have very little skills and are right now my target renters.

Sure I could take a 16K home rehab it for 3K and then sell it for 37K, but then who will buy it, certainly not the people I am renting to, they can not get a loan. So the only other option is other investors and why would I give up my cash flowing properties? I would prefer to hang on to those homes and rent them right now. When the market comes back, then I will focus on the 60K homes which will be hard to come by and when listed at 90K they will move quickly.

Every market is different and I have seen a lot of these out of town fools buy these homes, contract out the rehab and think that they are going to make money on the homes. When I see their listing price it makes me laugh. Sure enough 6 months later they are still holding the home and have dropped the price by another 15K, which is still too high. You cannot come into an area with a 6.5% unemployment rate and expect to move homes using the same philosophies that you use in a 4% unemployment rate community. It does not work.

I not sure how you would do a double close with a bank. So far the dealings that I have had with the bank has been their way only. Which meant their title company and closing agent. The only communication that was permitted between myself and the closing agent was to discuss the meeting time and place, which could not be my home.

I wanted to use my title company, but the bank refused and said that it would only complicate and make the closing more costly.

So how would a person communicate a double closing to a title company who is working for the bank and will not communicate with the buyer?

Nice job.. THose are exactly the type of flips I hope to get into once our market starts to come back..

In my area, if the bank has only been listed as the owner for 3 months, that is a short time period. I have found that our average is 6 to 8 months.