Cleveland Heights properties

[Arthur Wong]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $41,400
Cash invested: $41,400

Single family home in Cleveland Heights. The tenant is being finalized through section 8 but it should be approximately $1100/month + utilities. The closing on this took forever! I had this under contract in January 2019 and it took until November 2019 to complete the point of sale violations and transferred over to me.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I'm always looking to add to my portfolio in order to gain cashflow.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I purchased this from a colleague who was looking to sell. I didn't do a ton of negotiating to be honest as he is a friend and I'm guessing that the price was fair.

How did you finance this deal?

I had refinanced my own personal residence to purchase three homes outright in the Cleveland area.

How did you add value to the deal?

I can't say I added value. The numbers already made sense though now that I've said this, the property taxes are WAYYYY higher than Cleveland properties.

What was the outcome?

It took over 10-months but I was able to complete the transaction. Now to get the house rented.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

1) Properties in Cleveland Heights and Garfield Heights need a POS (point of sales) inspection in order for a sale to be complete. I'm not sure how many inspectors there are but with all the "violations" that needed to be completed, it was hard to find people to do the work since a bunch of the jobs were small jobs.
2) We should have formalized the agreement through a statement of adjustments and escrow but in order to save the double exchange rate, we didn't and I'll end up losing out a bit.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

No. The only professional I worked with was with Mount Morris Title Agency (Debbie) which I would definitely recommend.

[Dustin Lauer]

Lessons learned? Challenges?

1) Properties in Cleveland Heights and Garfield Heights need a POS (point of sales) inspection in order for a sale to be complete. I'm not sure how many inspectors there are but with all the "violations" that needed to be completed, it was hard to find people to do the work since a bunch of the jobs were small jobs.
2) We should have formalized the agreement through a statement of adjustments and escrow but in order to save the double exchange rate, we didn't and I'll end up losing out a bit.

3) - adding a 3rd one here from my own experience.  Some of the Cleveland burbs also have very unique renovation laws.  Shaker Heights for one can require investors to escrow their estimate of the repairs directly with them at closing. I believe the thought is so that they can maintain property condition to a certain standard, but I know this often throws a wrench in transactions.  I probably like challenges too much so I've done a few for some reason haha.  

really a great post @Arthur Wong .  Cleveland is fairly unique for some of its rules, but overall it's one of my favorite cities.  Construction quality and brick houses are super cool to me for the value there.    Also that's an awesome and affordable way to finance those purchases.  Way to think outside the box!