All Forum Posts by: Wade G.

In my opinion leveraged houses only make money by appreciation and equity capture at time of purchase. I guess mortgage pay down could be added also. Paid for houses may make some cashflow that could be used to live off of but the trade off is a low ROI. My houses cash flow $300 - $350 per month after PITI and then after factoring in vacancies and repairs the real cashflow is about $50 - $75 per month. Having said that I think it is still a better return than trying to solely invest in an IRA or something like that. We have a RE club here in Houston that tries to tell people they can live off cashflow from houses after only figuring in PITI. They have systems in place that prevent loss of rent from vacancies and repair. The hypothesis sounds good but in real life it just does not work out that way.

For the first time in my life I am 100% serious about making RE a business. This is largely due to extreme stagnation at my job and a diminishing income. I have bought a few rentals over the last few years and that is fine but I want to actively do more. I mainly want to do rehab flips but I'm sure some wholesale deals will also come with the territory (I want to generate cash). For my first mailout I have identified a couple of neighborhoods. Within those neighborhoods I have narrowed the search down to owners with mature loans or paid off properties. My first mailout will be about 400 and I will probably extend out to other neighborhoods too. In about 5 months or so I will probably rework the same addresses and send a second round of mailouts and then a third and fourth. I have purposely excluded properties purchased within the last 15 years in those neighborhoods unless they put down a large down payment. Is that wise? Does anyone else exclude certain properties or do you just do a mass mail out to all addresses in the neighborhood?

I am a buy and hold person typically but I need to increase the funds so I am considering a couple of flips. Is there any andvantage to using hard money loans rather than liquid money in the bank to acquire and rehab a flip? Common sense tells me I would save on the cost of the HML if I could just use all cash but often times I learn that I am not seeing the whole picture correctly.

My line of thinking is to use HM to buy the property and use the cash for holding and repair costs or if the total costs are low enough just use all cash. I hate the HM draw process. I have 110k to use.

I had a unit stolen last November and didn't claim it. I just self insure for such things. Things that cost a couple of thousand are going to happen every so often. I always figured I would only use insurance for a fire or inside water damage due to a water leak and maybe serious vandalism. It bites because my rates have gone up on average 20% each year for the past three years.

The Wagner steamers work really well. It is the best way I have found to remove paper. The best way though is to paint the wallpaper with an oil based shellac primer like Zinsser. It just seals it and then you can texture, prime, and paint just like sheetrock. Unless the paper is not stuck real well to the drywall, then go ahead and use the steamer and remove it.

Well I have done it once. When I first heard about this technique I thought it was crazy. It allowed me to get a lot more showings and rent the house a lot faster I think. Now, I didn't just let everyone in that called. I know there is no way to judge someone over the phone but I let people in that were well spoken and sounded serious and usually female. I know I shouldn't judge but anyone that called me with a hint of "slang" of any sorts I did not let in. Sorry, you can bash me for that but the way one speaks does tend to tell a story...usually, but not always. I recognize there are plenty of well spoken people that aren't worth one red cent too. I told them it was the contractor lock box and they were in and out all day. I changed the lockbox combo each nite. Didn't have any problems except with lights and fans left on sometimes. The lockbox is good to have because serious renters seem to want to see the inside of the property more than once on different days. I certainly would not do it in a war zone area though. I'm not sure if I will do it again but I will have the lock box there for second viewers. I also change all locks out before a tenant moves in.

Well its not just real estate related. Its buy and hold investment properties, vehicles, primary residence, wife expenditures, funeral, etc, all at once. All I can say I don't see how anyone can survive life without a heck of a large reserve fund.

At the risk of shedding a negative light on this post I won't say much except that so far I have been losing money like water through a funnel. Gotta get better at some point.

They have force placed a policy for me. Now I need to get my own policy that will be less expensive than the one they placed. Paying for a useless policy decreases my spread in the deal but there does not seem to be any other option.

In this case I am the seller. I sold a property with my mortgage still in place. I guess this is one of the problems with doing a wrap because my lender will not accept the new buyers insurance policy even though my lender is stated as being in the first position on the insurance policy. They insist that I must obtain my own policy on the house even though I no longer own it. I thought I understood the pros and cons to doing a wrap but it looks like I failed to recognize the insurance problem. Live and learn I guess. Take note if you have thought about doing a wrap.