All Forum Posts by: Aloma Murray

We are exploring some options currently and I wanted to put this out there to see if any of you have any insight.

We are interested in trading houses with someone who's house is probably similar in appraised value. She owes very little on her mortgage as she's lived there for 30 years.

Our house value according to Zillow (since we haven't had appraisals done yet): $620k built 2000, does not need any major work. We owe $349k

Her house value according to Zillow (since we haven't had appraisals done yet): $754k needs major work (we are ok with the work, it comes with the land we want as well and that has huge value to us) She owes around 60k (I think)

My question is more about how to go about the legal piece of this.

What are some options to make sure both parties are covered legally?

Are there any major reasons not to do this?

Thank you for the replies! I just hadn't seen it separated out before.

Is it common for a commercial lease to require tenant to pay proportionate share of the property owner's Taxes and Insurance?

This Insurance would be in addition to the tenant business owners own required insurance policy.

We just had our tenants move out and I'm trying to figure out how to charge for some of the damages. They were good tenants for the most part and cleaned the house pretty well but there are some things. 

Any tips/advice/encouragement is greatly appreciated.

Garage door - they had a car roll into it so I'm getting an estimate. It just dented.

Floor - there is one decent sized scratch on the laminate. How do you recommend we charge for this? Is this something we can fill? I'm not familiar with fixing laminate flooring!

Trim - there are  a couple places where it looks like something bashed into the trim and took some chunks out. Not sure how to charge for this or fix it.

Yard - they didn't really keep up the yard as we would have liked (we are moving to include yard service to avoid this in the future) There are big chunks of dirt where grass used to be, some of the plants we had planted died due to not being watered etc.  Also, lots of yard debris that should have been swept up and disposed of. 

Screen door - the screen door was taken out and leaning against the wall and has a tear in it. Do I need to get a whole new door or is there a way to replace just the screen? 

Painting - there are holes from hanging pictures and some spots that need touched up. Is this something you normally charge for or is this considered more normal wear and tear?

@Walt Dockery Yes, We are going to move to having yard care included for sure. I'm just trying to figure out what's fair for this specific situation. 

It was in our lease that the tenants would take care of the yard. They didn't and now we have to replant the grass which isn't cheap (plus watering new grass this time of year has to happen several times a week).

Do most landlords charge for yard repair if it was clearly stated in the lease that it was the tenants responsibility to take care of it?

How do you charge for the regular watering that it will require until established?

Oh gosh I got a good laugh out of your answer @John Thedford, also very helpful. 

Thanks for the clarification everyone. I sometimes think things have a mysterious meaning that I'm missing when it's pretty obvious it just means what it means!

We went to look at a house a few months ago - 

About 15 minutes out of town, 5 acres, 5,000+ sq ft house, built in 1985. 

It does need work. We aren't sure how much yet. There was a deep dive indoor pool that was dug out and never finished for example. We'd want to just fill it in. It's in an amazing room of almost all windows. 

The lady who owns it and lives there bought it from the bank 30 years ago when the builder couldn't finish the house. She did a lot of the work herself to finish parts of it. Some things were never finished like it needs trim. 

I connected with her on an emotional level about raising kids and how excited I would be to have that wonderful yard and forest for our kids to play in (all true! It would be amazing)

We are coming up on two years at our current residence and have some great equity already (close to 200k if we sell for asking price)

The owner of the house took it off the market but told me she'd still be open to selling it to us (her kids don't want her to sell but she doesn't want the upkeep of the place anymore)

We'd like to offer her something like what I'll outline below but I've never put together a creative offer like this before so want to make sure I am not missing something.

Offer:

Asking price of $495k (this seems reasonable to us since most houses of this size and acreage are closer to $750K-$1M - we are going to look at it again and will get a better idea of what work needs to be done and then possibly offer lower, also, of course we'll have an inspection done)

Take over her mortgage - she said she still owes about 60k

Down payment of $X - not sure how much to offer but she had previously said she wanted to get $150K down if she was going to carry so she could pay off the 60k and still have some cash to get into a new place. We could offer her the difference of 90K if we take over the 60K mortgage

Differed payments of 60-90 days so we can sell our house (with 4 kids we feel we need to move out to be able to stage and get the most for our house!)

The owner seems very willing to work with us and I want to be fair to her but also get a great deal. We are excited to live there for at least the next few years and fix it up. It has a huge yard for the kids to play plus 5 acres of gorgeous lush forest.

Any tips or things I should consider that I'm missing?

I've heard/read these sayings and would love some more explanation from some more experienced investors.

"You make your money at the time of purchase"

"It's not the price so much but the terms of the deal"

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!

@Phil Allen Hello! We are looking for a contractor for several current and upcoming projects. Do you have a website?

I just found out what BRRRR stands for and am very excited to learn more. I love the long term equity but being able to access the short term loans for flips is awesome too. It sounds like this is a bit of both?

@Neal Collins I'd be happy to chat about coworking. I love the community aspect of it the most. Our space is called Eugene Mindworks if you want to look it up (though our website is overdue for an update!)