All Forum Posts by: Aaron Linden

Steve McRory Alright I’ll bite on this one. I’ll answer as an engineer. I have one purpose as an engineer. Boil down design requirements to raw numbers I put on a drawing. I literally get paid to do only that every day (even if they are sometimes odd numbers). As a loan officer/broker you offer one service make a loan to a person in an amount at or under what they are qualified for. If your CUSTOMER wants a loan for an odd amount it is your service to ensure it goes smoothly. That is what you get paid to do.

John Warren PM me

Matthew Jones it bought me a house a few blocks from Notre Dame so we can chalk that up to different markets. No way you could do a full pop top with only 10k. With 12k I was able to do the basics with 10k. Wood floor refinishing, tile, paint, kitchen redo, appliances, some drywall work, fixing the roof and the fence, some plumbing and electric. Nothing too serious. It sounds like your mind is in the right place and it is good you are putting your ideas out there. Being an engineer I am painfully aware that I is those unknown unknowns that getcha. We can plan for and handle the known unknowns.

Matthew Jones I bought it with a personal loan because I didn’t have the cash to buy it outright and fix it up and wouldn’t have been able to get a mortgage on the house because it wasn’t livable at the time. I refinanced into a mortgage to get my cash back and lock in a killer interest rate for 30yrs. I did forget to note that I did all of the work myself. That is an important point haha

Matthew Jones I started with $12000 cash, purchased a home with a personal loan for $40k rehabbed it with my $12k and refinanced it for $100k and it rents for $1125.

@Kuda H. First of all South Bend is very neighborhood by neighborhood. I would advise against classifying it by zip code. If you want to get to know the city @Account Closed is the right guy. To be honest, I think the city does a fairly good job of treading the balance between protecting residents and landlords and overall Indiana is a LL friendly state.

Perhaps being only 2 hours away you could come visit for a weekend and drive around to determine what types of neighborhoods you would be interested in. The rest of the information can be easily had by doing some crime searches, rental analysis, and by doing some simple sales searches.

Regardless, we have a lot of good business coming to town what with ND being a recent advocate, the revitalization of downtown, the warehouses going up on the west side, and most recently an electric car company purchased the old AM Gen factory and has committed to building electric cars here. The flip side is that I think the downtown area is being overbuilt with A Class properties. I think this could drive down rents in that sector creating competition in the B and then C sector. This is pure speculation and would likely only apply to apartment prices.

@Dan H. I agree entirely, but that is exactly the point! If one is to have compassion  should it matter where the money goes? (besides like I said above you could just have an anonymous payment applied to the tenants account with the PM)  The underlying motif in that suggestion is that running your business is one matter and making charitable donations is another. By acting in the way suggested it clearly separates the two perspectives and may make it simpler for the OP to deal with the situation or to see it in a new perspective. The suggestion is a way of putting a different perspective on the situation. To your point, aren't you simply donating money to the person if you are letting them live free?

@Jo Zhou Here is a crazy idea that would allow you to save face in front of the tenant AND your PM AND help the couple out.

Tell your PM to evict them after some set time frame, let's say 2 months and make sure the tenants know this is the requirement. Then send an anonymous donation to the PM company or the couple. Viola! So long as you do not care who gets the credit for helping them out you have simultaneously helped them and maintained your position as the "hardened business owner".

Then in the meantime you can see if the VA or some other institution could help them out. It buys both of you some time and opens up options (I love options) at the very least.

Lead paint is a non issue to me. I always ensure there is no chipping/peeling paint and paint the entire house prior to renting. Even more important is replacing or stripping the old windows and frames. No matter how much you paint the paint will always wear through and you will have lead dust there before long. I always put in double pane windows when I buy if it doesn’t already have them. Properly siding a house with lead painted siding or repainting it is also on the to do list. Asbestos is another story and the answer from me there is that it depends where it is and what form it is in. You can dig yourself a hole quickly regarding asbestos. I don’t know that much about it so will refrain from commenting.

Amie D. I would schedule a showing to test them out. Be sure to give 24h notice. I would then ensure you have a clause in your lease which allows you to show the property. If you do and they stop the showings I would with hold whatever vacancy costs you accrue as a result of them not allowing showings from their deposit. I would document this value and calculate it based on lost rent. In Indiana we have 45 days to return the deposit so this should give you plenty of time to figure out how much lost rent you have accrued. I would also call my lawyer to make sure I can do this!