All Forum Posts by: Kase Knochenhauer

@Mo Muigai - you can ask the seller to pay your closing costs when you purchase. However, it's just moving numbers around - you are still paying closing costs when you buy or refinance. 

@Chris Acosta, here's what we use:

Pending Purchases/sales - Brokermint.com - updated daily

Financials - QB online - updated daily

Rental Performance - handmade spreadsheet to track ROI, cash flow etc - we update monthly

Lead Gen - handmade spreadsheet to track ROI, revenue, expenses- we update quarterly

@Mo Muigai - as long as your property has sufficient equity to meet the banks LTV requirements, you should be able to refinance and roll your closing costs into the loan.

*you still pay closing costs on the property - but not upfront, instead over the length of the loan.

@Aaron Almquist - sometimes the bank decides to take lower than the reserve price.

We've won numerous properties at a price somewhere between the starting price and the banks reserve.

I bought a property turned out to be "the whorehouse" of the city.

End of making a small profit on it, but it was a giant headache.

@Ralphie Hernandez - is your intention to be a real estate agent? or just get your license to help your investment business?

If you want to be an active working agent - do it and get ready to work your butt off 70 hrs a week.

If you are getting a license just because you can - wait until you are actively buying multiple homes per year.

@Staci Craft - better one in hand than two in the bush.

Without knowing numbers on anything - I suggest keeping your rental and saving. It's important not to switch directions to quickly.

@Bud Gaffney - all day long. The listing agent would have to follow the terms established in the listing agreement and advertised on the MLS. It won't matter if you are the buyer.

@Jessica Jaboor - I'm an owner broker of a small brokerage in Michigan. I can speak from experience that being a broker will only make you broker.

Working an associate broker with another local brokerage can be more profitable and MUCH smaller headache. Growing a team (not a brokerage) seems to be the future of real estate. It's faster, cheaper, more commonly successful, and has way less overhead.

If you want to be a mentor, talk to your current principle broker and see how you might be able to help him/her. There are so many ways to grow your business without taking on the risk of opening your own brokerage.

Please don't open a brokerage just because you can. It's a bad idea for 98% of people.

@Ivan Mendoza - a lot of people see buying properties with sitting tenants as risk (which it is), however, this can lead to obtaining properties at a steep discount.

If the property is on Auction.com it's likely (but not for sure) a mortgage foreclosure and the 'tenant' is the previous owner of the home. Things can get sticky fast - but that's why real estate can be such a high paying career. You get to solve the problems other people don't want to fix.

I've bought many occupied properties and will continue to do so. Just plan on things taking longer and being more expensive that you expect.