All Forum Posts by: Matt Nelson

I had one guy come in 10 minutes late......flies up in a late model benz (wanting to rent a 2B/1B at $775/mo). The guy looks like hell, like he just got out of bed at 9 AM. First thing I see is a cigar, which he quickly places under his windshield wiper. Immediately I know it is a no go, but I have to be nice. Show him around quickly and take his app $$ and he tells me that he only smokes outside. Sure. C-Ya. At least I got a few bux for gas on that one.

Luckily I held out and found a great tenant a few weeks later.

Hi John

Thanks for the reply. So my objective should be to try to get her to make as large of a down payment as possible....Not sure of anything else about her (and her husband) but if she calls me again Ill know where to go. She did claim that they have been renters all of their lives, so that should give me something to work with as far as credit history goes.

Thanks again, Ill advise as we progress

Matt

I bought a house to rehab about a year ago. Its been on the market since early summer, and I got caught in the falling market here in Ca.

I bought it and fixed it up for about $163k, and I have been dropping the price, hoping for a buyer. The price is now at 159k, and Ive had a few calls and offers. I spoke to one lady today that was not represented by an agent (yes!) and I asked if she was going to get financing. (The house is in a 55+ area). It came up that I might consider owner financing. Ive read elsewhere that this can be a good tool to sell a home, save some tax and pull in a bit of profit. I own the house outright, no loan.

My question is, how does one structure something like this? Down payment, term, n?

I am just a bit in the dark on this one, never done this before, and the search tool didnt help me out that much...

TIA

Ive widdled the price down to 159k, and now Ive got an offer and another, both seem to embrace the competition. It looks like Ill get a full price offer, and lose less than $10k, not including the time value of money.

I guess Ill keep an eye open in the future for cheaper properties and try try try to make them cash flow. Rehabbing is rare now..

ya, I took a look out the window last night at 1130 and couldnt believe what I saw....huge wall of flames about a mile away. Then another idiot lit another fire about 1/4 mile away. Luckily no damage here, but the fire dep't moved fast and got them out by AM. Very, very scary. PD came by twice and told us there was a mandatory evacuation in effect.

Now today I can see 6 fires on the horizon. One is getting close, but crews are getting it down. The absolute worst is in a town just south of here, Fallbrook, Ca. Very little news coverage, but the entire town (40,000) was under mandatory evac notice. I heard that in this one town, an estimated 500 homes were lost. I can drive up to a point and look at the flames and see black puffs of smoke - thats a house going up.

San Diego County in general took it very, very hard. 500,000 people are said to have evacuated their homes all across the county. On a scale of 1-10, this is a 10.

Ya, it was a mistake. I got it for a good deal, and should have just cleaned up and sold it within 2-3 weeks instead of doing a full-on rehab. Made some big mistakes, but Im learning from it.

Ive continued to get more calls today, and Ive got someone interested in a lease option deal too.

It is just surprising to see prices fall as fast as they are. A nice and clean 2/1 would sell for 200k a year ago, now its looking more like $140-150k and a long wait.

I thought I would post an update here.....

Ive continued on with lowering the price, and as it sits now the price is at $159k and is seeing some action. It has shown several times in the last week. I expect an offer soon, but I it might as well be a lowball offer.

I have also worked on getting it rented. I had several people that work in rentals in the town come over and take a look. Most of them said that I could ask $900+ and it should go. I put an add in the paper (along with a big sign out front) for $875 and have gotten a few calls, but no one interested enough to fill out an application to rent. $800 would pry take it.

Meanwhile, the market in this area has slumped quite a bit.

For instance, my house is a very nice and clean 2/1. There are other 2/2's out there for around 135k. Also other 2/1's for 125, and they might take less.

Maybe it would be a good idea to dump this one and go back in in a few months and try to turn the $159k into a down payment on a few of these cheaper (and less nice) homes and make them rentals....

lol

no need for nastiness, we can just say who we support! after all, this does apply to investing and the general state of the economy...

:lol:

Hi John

Thanks for the opinion...I havent read any books specific to landlording. CA does offer a landlord-tenant booklet (more like a book) with all of the applicable laws and info. It sounds like between that and reading here in the forum would be sufficient.....

I still have some time to learn, because prices havent fallen enough here in Ca to make positive cash flow possible..

Any thoughts?

I am for Ron Paul...

He strikes me as the only honest guy up there, on either side.

Any other thoughts?