All Forum Posts by: Yaniv Tivon

Thanks @Dustin Allen! The property is in NJ and here we are not obligated to send reports of buyers investigation.

Thanks @Jonathan Greene! I'm worried that declining to send the report would let the seller know that it appraised over the purchase price anyway in addition to annoying the seller's agent. Making it even less likely they'd be willing to renegotiate.

Hi everyone, I'm under contract to buy a property that appraised higher than the purchase price. The seller's agent has asked several times now for the appraisal report even though I told him the property appraised. The house has foundation issues so I'm planning to renegotiate once the estimate for repair comes in. I'm worried that disclosing the extra equity will make the seller less willing to negotiate on the foundation repairs. Should I send him the report or politely decline? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

BP just released a self storage book Storing Up Profits by Paul Moore that also may be worth checking out. 

Thanks for the advice @Scott Mac! I was confused because the house doesn't have the classical signs of foundation problems like cracks in the walls or sinking floors.

Thanks for the input @Dena Puliatti! I will have an expert take a look at it.

Thanks @Bruce Woodruff! It's actually the GC that gave me the second opinion. But I've never worked with him before so I'm not sure whether to trust him or the inspector.

Hi everyone, I have a property under contract that the inspector flagged some foundation issues for.  I received a second opinion on it that  indicated that the foundation is OK and I would greatly appreciate any advice from the BP community before I spend money hiring a structural engineer. The foundation is made of brick that's mostly covered by stucco. The first inspector made his evaluation based on the bricks that are showing. He also said that the floor joists are supported by a temporary support (see pictures). Thank you in advance!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Have you ever had to replace a toilet on Christmas? Share your Christmas landlording stories here! Any lessons learned would also be welcome!

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure whether this is commonly known so here goes.

I find that a lot of the rent estimators like Rentometer can be highly inaccurate. But at the same time there aren't many active comparable rental properties nearby, which makes determining the market rent of a property difficult.

I found that using rental listings that are inactive but were recently active provides me with a lot more data for determining market rent.

To do this I go to the Zillow rent estimator tool and enter my property's address as well as a (very) rough estimate of the rent. I can also enter other criteria such as number of beds or baths to make the data as relevant as possible. 

Once I enter the data Zillow spits out a price range for the properties shown and a map with all of the active and inactive properties in the area. This has been valuable because it allowed me to easily choose comparable properties that are in the same neighborhood as mine.

Hope this can help someone.