All Forum Posts by: Anthony Giannette

WOW. Scarier than Hellraiser.

Hi Kathy,

I have worked with about 5 different handymen in the Seattle area. But your project will need more than a handyman to finish. I have a particularly qualified contractor who works in Seattle proper and as far out as Lake Stevens. I'd like your permission to have him phone you. Please connect and lets talk.

Mortgage brokers solve this out of state or inter-state issue. Being willing to invest out of state is your greatest asset. Lots of southern and mid-western states are great places to invest. Follow the big companies like Boeing, Xerox, IBM, and others to see good areas to invest. Be sure its a city with growing trade economics.

Phil,

These are legal questions. I have some suggestions but can't really advise on this. Just be all business when/if these issues arise. 

You will have plumbing issues from time to time. This can be less of a headache by screening your plumber and only using services who are willing to issue a report on the repairs. When the tenant sees you document everything, fewer claims occur.

If you suspect damage to the walls due to tenant direct actions, you can hire an independent insurance adjusting firm to send an agent out to interview the tenant. These professionals are experts at digging into truth/story situations and deliver a detailed report for your tenant record including photographs. Might be expensive but when/if you end up in court, the tenant is more likely to be found at fault than not.

As a landlord, you have the final say whether the tenant stays in the rental. I always suggest offering your rental with an option to buy. Worse case scenario is, they buy the house.

Good luck and keep in touch.

Carlos,

You have so much space, you can do amazing things with imagination. I have some questions for you to begin brainstorming this out:

1. Have you reserved space for your family BBQ?
2. Is there an additional way into the back yard besides alongside your house?
3. Are you against kenneling dogs?
4. Do you need an external office space?
5. A friend of mine imported avocado trees. How about fruit trees?
6. Victory garden? Chickens? Rabbit raising?

Michael, 

Keep in touch with your friend. Check rental comps as you will have to find a way to bring in rent at or above $800 to make this work on the cap rate side. BUT here are some choices i see to make this work:

• Plan on making this a Rent/Option to buy deal in the end. This will get you some reserves for future repair on the tenant moving in. The chance the buyer will actually exercise the option is slim. You are likely to get a long term renter instead. Cash flow should be around $110+the reserves. Still slim. Another benefit is optioners tend to do their own maintenance, reducing your costs in that arena. Should allow you time to build up reserves for that roof job coming up.
• Combine the above with a lower offer to your friend to bring up the cash flow to $200 monthly. Price is up to you on this plan and you will have to wait about 60 days to wait out your friend's patience.

Simply be ready to step in and help him/her out when ready to do so. Be a problem solver rather than an investor in this case.

10%Cap rate. Quite good actually. Be sure to do your background check on the tenant and if the utility is lienable, you are better off letting the management company handle it than the tenant. Otherwise the numbers check out. 

Your situation sounds grim. Owner passed away, the RM continues to churn out interest debt, and no one has the title without a court order. Even if you find out the house has some equity AFTER all the hard work, that remaining equity may be subject to state death taxes. The worse thing that can happen is your efforts lead probate to actually start on this thing and the equity is gone. Keep poking though, best case is I am wrong and there is lots of equity.

D'Mark, Great topic to get some action on your questions! One of the things I do with MLS listed property is import that data into a spreadsheet and do a preliminary work up by viewing the photos to determine ARV. Once this is done, I shave it by 1% and choose that number for the sheet. This gives an illustration for my investors to quickly see what their costs will be to hold the property for 4 months. The tough part was importing enough data to make sense and limit unnecessary data. No photos are imported in this manner and I can whip one of these out in about 30 minutes.

The REAL first thing to remember is if the property truly is a good deal, it will be sold by day 3. These are never 70% of ARV properties so the investor demographic is a buy/hold or someone happy with 20k or so profit.

Joe,

There must be a Pennsylvania Landlords Association like the one here in Washington. Very good help. Might also want to check into NARPM National Association of Property Managers. These are the reputable groups I use here in Washington.

Personally, I would not use a service with flashy colored gimicky banners. The service may turn out good, but in my opinion, a professional website should be that...professional. If the website looks like a used car lot, I have a hard time believing their content.