All Forum Posts by: Eddie Ziv

As for myself, my failures are still ahead of me. I am too new in this (About a year) - I'm sure it will happen.
I do have a story similar to that of Harrison which almost cost me my marriage . Twenty years ago I hired a contractor to do major renovation in my own house. I made a real rookie mistake and hired the lowest bidder. The guy didn't know how to assess a job, I ended up paying him all the money and he didn't even finished half. In the end I had to borrow more money and hire someone else to finish the job.

Dan,
That is a great lesson. ( Did you read this, all you GM Plants towns property owners?) I guess the seller knew something that you didn't.
It is really tempting to invest where the industries are, but that the flip side of it. I do own two SFH in Round Rock, TX where Dell and Samsung have plants but I know it is risky.

OK. Who starts?

I wish I could do that. Some of the worse neighbourhoods in Birmingham, have the most spectacular, turn of the century houses...

Hey Lawrence,
I'm in the business too (1st AD) and if you work IA you should have enough to buy a distress property in lets say, OH, AL, MO, etc. All you need is $5,000-10,000. You are a grip, so I take you sort of a handy man too. In your down time, you fix it up. Rent it out. After a year you can refinance it, get some money out and keep going.
By the way, if you buy in Detroit, you can also work in the business there while working on a property since the business is booming there. They are going to build two movie studios on the ground of some old Pontiac plants.

Good luck,

You heatless landlords!! Shame on you....
No, seriously. We are not talking about someone who stuck in the property and not paying. This tenant was paying (Or at least someone was paying for her) in a timely fashion, so there was no grounds for eviction (By most states laws, I presume) This is about the landlord preference. She wanted the good old tenant back. So in this case it's about a carrot not a stick. I think she did the right thing. She is happy, the tenant happy, everybody's happy and that what counts.
Now everybody, let sing Kumbaya.

Matt.
By instinct, I'm a libertarian too. Unfortunately we don't live in a vacuum. People of faith believe that all man are created equal, but if you look around you, the evidence show otherwise. Some good, some bad, some smart, most not, etc. We can all build fortresses and arm ourselves to the T gun against those who are not as fortunate as we are. Screw them all. I'm not sure that this is the society we all want to live in. Yes, the octa-moms of the world boil my blood as well, believe me but I'm not sure that I want to finance the prison cells for those eight kid when they grow up.

To Mike M
Check Round TX and Pflugerville, TX. I have two rentals there and I'm very happy.

TO Tim:
Funny thing. Despite our political pollars, we do have something in common. I too, tuned into those cheapies although I buy them in Birmingham. Bought one for 15K -rehab 6K including new roof and it is rented now for $650 a month. I'm working now on getting my 3rd and 4th.

Eric,
I'm in the same boat. I also live in California and have properties in Texas and Alabama, My "day job" is a freelancing in the entertainment industry and I work out of my corporation so to minimize the tax impact I pay myself as little as possible therefore my DTI ratio is poor. It's easier to get approved for a $24-30K mortgage, but when you deal with higher numbers (Texas style) it is harder. I recently approached Colonial Bank in Birmingham and they do their own underwriting and seems to take to account sole proprietary corporation's income. But it seems that most of the bank are scared of auditing and the guideline this days is very stringent.

Typo correction ("Until recently")