All Forum Posts by: Zac P.

If they balk, then let them go. It's just the first of many red flags. 

In a few of my rental properties, the crawlspaces have a lot of moisture and mold in them. I have a plan of attack to deal with the issue, but I'm looking for a specific tool that you all would recommend to measure moisture/humidity in the crawlspace? I'd like to carefully monitor the moisture to make sure that what I'm doing is actually helping. Thanks!

 Roger,

I struggled with the same decision for years... I would recommend for you to just do it! It's totally worth it. MLS access is a great tool, being able to quickly get into houses/write contracts is convenient and you make/save a ton of $$$ on transactions. I don't even advertise myself as being a Realtor, but people know that I'm "in the game" and just ask me to represent them on their deals. I make very good side $$$ occasionally representing friends, family and other investors buying properties. Yes, Realtors are held to a higher ethical standard, but we should all hold ourselves to these high standards... It does NOT hold you back as an investor in anyway unless you are purposely looking to lie and deceive your clients/costumers. Being able to tell a potential client that you are a Realtor gives you more credibility as well. Find a good brokerage company to work in and you are golden! For myself, not having my license would hold me back. Good luck! :)

If you get a good lead, but you aren't good on estimating the cost to rehab the property, what is your procedure for figuring out the figure? Right now I've had my contractor quote work out. A few problems, first is that it takes awhile to give me a full detailed quote. I can't make an offer until I know this figure. I can tell that a lot of work goes into these quotes... Second, a lot of these deals that are at first promising end up falling through... I'm afraid that my contractor may think I'm starting to waste his time. Of course I hope that one day I can walk into a home and be able to estimate my own rehab cost, but I'm not there yet. 

Talking to the seasoned house flippers out there, what do you all recommend? Many thanks! :)

-Zac

Here's probably a really noob question for you guys, but I'm not sure what to do. I have these really great looking direct mailers that I custom designed. I don't want to have to hand write the address onto them for 500-1000 at a time. What do you all recommend I'd do to speed up the process? Can I order printed stickers, for the targeted neighborhoods, that have the addresses on them? Thanks guys! 

 I do not know. I had not gotten that quoted out yet. I need to. However, I was thinking that electric heat from the baseboard heaters would heat cheaper than a gas furnace. Maybe that's incorrect, but that's the opinion of most of my tenants and potential tenants as well. 

I have a duplex that has two really old gas furnaces that are about to die on me. Instead of dropping $6000 on two new ones, I have contemplated replacing the heating with baseboard electric heat throughout. 

This place seems harder to rent with it being gas, so converting to electric would help keep it rented. I already have multiple houses with baseboard heating and I love not having to change filters and not having to worry about replacing an expensive furnace. The AC is window units. I'm looking to hold these very long term as rentals. Any info would be appreciated. Thank you.

I have an LLC with a partner and we are going to be doing flips. All of these properties will have insurance, all contractors will carry their own insurance and we have E and O insurance being Realtors. However, do owners typically carry some kind of "operating insurance" in this situation? We are located in Kentucky. We want to protect ourselves, but is something like this necessary?

Please help me and offer your advice!

Over the last 2 years I have bought 4 rental properties and they have done great cash flowing. Between my property management salary, rental income and other business income (from other ventures) I have ok income. However, I recently have ran into a wall here...

Because of all the debt (mortgage debt) that I have brought on, my debt to income is not good. My income is good now, but my 2012 and 2013 returns are not great. I have a lot of write offs on my taxes too which is nice, but I'm starting to wonder if I should start showing more income (everything is legal on my taxes of course)? So basically I can NOT get any banks to finance me anything because of the debt and for some, I have too many mortgages!

What's a motivated, fairly young investor to do? I want to keep growing my rental business, but I can't access bank money. I'm sure private money is the way to go, but what do you all think?

Thanks!!! -Zac

Normally I am financing my investment property through bank financing. However, I now have access to cash and plan to use it. How do you evaluate if an "all cash" deal is a good deal? I would like to get a 20%ROI minimum, but how do I evaluate if I use 100% cash? Thanks.