All Forum Posts by: Frank Adams

The insurance company needs the MATERIAL of the roof, not the design. A "HIP" roof is no more likely to burn than a gable or shed roof. But a "comp" roof burns (and blows away) much faster than a "tile" roof does.

Frank

and I could use some advice on some options I'm considering.

I got this place for $50K in '03 and sold it the day of closing for $65K without lifting anything but a pen. Now 7 1/2 years later my buyers need to upsize but the economics of the small town make it tough to get conventional financing for purchase. A couple of years ago I still had 8 seller financed sales in town but 3 have refinanced since late 2007.

Because they had a fair amount of traffic in the high $70K range, both when trying to FSBO and had it listed for $83K, later reduced to $79K and got traffic, but everyone was looking for seller financing. These guys don't have a pot to pee in so they don't have the option and I'm not restructuring the mortgage so they can profit.

Anyway we have a deal for me to give them $2K, forgive their mortgage and resell it. They put the FSBO sign back in the yard with my number and I've had a few interested calls, one from somone who looked at it with the agent.

Since I'm going for $88,000 I'm no longer interested in getting a mere $2K downstroke so I'm considering some ways to goose that a bit when people often don't have big bucks to put down. Plus one year's insurance and the $400 for document preparation, which I do myself.

Some of the possibilities;

1. Make the first mortgage smaller, but use a few consecutive second mortgages at high interest rates. This would give them an incentive to pay those off quickly, while not making their payment real high "forever".

2. Delay the closing until they've paid me an few extra thousand $$. Since this is TX I can foreclose and get the place back about as quick as eviction and for the same amount of money.

Any other ideas?

I've got a couple of weeks to finalize since they're not ready to move out and I can't travel until after June 3rd anyway.

Thanks in advance.

Frank

I've had my car, home and umbrella insurance with Nationwide for about 15 years but just changed my car to Hartford (AARP, about 1/2 the Nationwide rate) in November when renewal rolled around. The AARP house insurance ended up being 40% HIGHER than anyone else so I kept it with Nationwide.

Now my umbrella is coming due and I got a letter from Nationwide telling me to take a hike; IOW, if they can't have the underlying buisness they don't want the umbrella.

Anyone have any recommendations? I've got about a month.

Thanks in advance.

Frank

The 1031 has to be set up at the time of the SALE and the replacement property has to CLOSED within 180 days (I think that's still right?) so it's not likely that this is going to work out.

Frank

Direct Buy??? I thought they were a high initiation fee scammer outfit.

My best sources have been the ReHab stores of Habitat For Humanity, yard sales (particularly higher end subdivisions) and close out sales. Knowing that I had a fair amount of places with small 4' X 6' entryways, 6' X 8' bathrooms and 8' X 12' kitchens, I was always picking up leftover ceramic tiles for next to nothing. I'd stick them in my garage until the need arose.

Knowing that I had a re-roof coming up I bought a 50# box of roofing nails for $5 at ReHab store, as well as mismatched (oops) paint for next to nothing.

Where we lived in Houston there were no yard sales allowed except for a HOA sanctioned ($10 permit) once a year. I bought a $2 toilet, a $1 towel rack set and a free sink top and faucet for a 1/2 bath I was adding to a rehab I was working on.

There was also a guy in the subdivision getting ready to do his kitchen and had one or two of his old cabinets sitting outside. I called a buddy who I knew would want them and he got the entire kitchen cabinet set up for FREE. He ended up using them within a couple of months!

Frank

I don't know which drug is worse for you guys, whatever it is you're smoking or listening to an uninformed lying POS like Limbaugh.

Let's just look at the FACTS;

April 20, oil rig explodes/catches fire about 10:00PM

April 21, (not 12 days, but the next day) after a meeting between Obama and the secretaries of Homeland Security (Coast Guard), Inerior (minerals extraction) EPA and FEMA, several secretaries and/or their deputies headed to NO as well as 4 Coast Guard oufits. The CG started S&R operations that day as was reported by BP and reported on several media outlets.

April 23rd, CG and Interior announced that they were focused on mitigating the damage from the leak, but that neither they nor BP saw any release of subsurface oil.

April 25th, CG implements containment, hampered by high winds, rough seas.

April 28th, skimming operations resumed after seas calmed. On the same date CG reported that the release was much worse than BP had led them to believe.

April 29th, BP official said, "we can handle this" and HS Secretary called the spill one of "national significance".

I realize that Rush is incapable of telling the difference between LESS THAN 24 HOURS, and "12 days", but overuse of drugs and his hatred of Obama can cause that.

Easy enough to find the FACTS, if you're interested in looking. Of course if you just want to bash Obama then nothing I, nor anyone else can say will prevent you from spreading the same BS that Rush and Fox do all day long.

Frank

Clogging of the holes was a huge problem when we lived in Houston, terribly hard water there. I used to dump acid bowl cleaner in mine occassionally and always once a year in my rentals on my inspections. I've used the bits too but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I never rented to college kids but back in the "old days" when the "Ozzie and Harriet" nuclear family was the norm I had 3 people; a couple and a single guy want to rent. I told them OK, the couple pays the $650 deposit, AND the single guy pays it as well. They said NFW and rented the place a couple of blocks away, where the guy only collected a $500 deposit.

About 3 months later the guy 1/2 of the couple moved out, so they moved in another girl, then the single guy hooked up with the new girl and the old girl got PO'd and moved out. Within a year there were still 3 people but only one was part of the original trio. The funny thing is that this idiot landlord gave the first one to move out part of the deposit back.

Great answers above, I really liked Rich's. When I was doing buy and holds I noticed that the spread on those returns was never that far, the DIFFERENCE between 20% and 35% is NOT 15%, it's 75%.

I knew that the hassle, work and vacancy on turnovers was much less on the higher end places. Higher end tenants were ALWAYS stable enough to see the value in a MINIMUM TWO YEAR lease. And once they were there for 2 they stayed an average of FIVE. Regardless of the difference in monthly cash flow the difference in NOT painting, NOT carpeting, NOT replacing broken screens and NOT doing other stuff that is easier to do in an empty unit more than makes up for it.

I never wanted a place that my wife would be uncomfortable living in, and I knew that eventually I would be the one selling and I was always the one leasing. People who are interested in a crappy place are going to be crappy tenants.

Frank

Jeff B. wrote; "I think the one thing everyone is missing is that wanna be investors were helping prop the market up with the banks money while flipping."

Absolutely, it was actually much more than "propping up", the ratio of sell prices to income levels in the overinflated states was absolutely crazy. No relationship to reality. The only thing that mattered was the money to be made by "bedroom brokers" making commissions on "liar" loans and the bond traders at the investment banks, who screwed their ostensible customers and in turn the American public.

Frank