All Forum Posts by: Allen Maris

Hi Sam,

I own a small multi-fam and from experience, I make someone sign a letter of intent if they want to see the inside. Having to let everyone know, show up, show people around, etc, etc, is not that much fun. This keeps some of the tire kickers away. The inspection upon accepted offer is fairly common in the larger properties.

All you can do is submit your offer based on a drive by and what the owner tells you. If I were buying on these terms, I'd put multiple contingencies. One visual walk through upon acceptance that it's satisfactory plus your normal inspection contingency. You have lots of out if it's not what you wanted.

Just make sure you pad your numbers for all the expenses, under estimate the income, over estimate the vacancies and if it's still making sense then give them a good offer and re-negotiate after your inspections.

Some of the apartment guys on here might have some good tips.

Are you accounting for vacancies if someone wants to move? How's the historical on it? I'm not that familiar with parks, but IMO anything that is a rental should account for vacancies. (Fun note, auto correct tried to turn vacancies into vampires. Something you should always account for !)

Hi Brandon, what's your ARV on the place? That changes the equation.

For any short term, I'd go with the credit line in a second. Less headache of having to deal with having them give opinion, signing titles, etc.

I of course offset that with the fact that the credit line will most likely be tied to you personally, whereas the specific deal may not as they have an asset tied to.

Without knowing all the details, that's about the best opinion I can offer.

Either way, doesn't sound like it's a bad problem to have.

Hi Craig,

I recently purchased from out of the country and had to make an appointment with the US Consulate to sign and have them notarize. I wired money to escrow so never had to deal with the money part in person.

A couple of pointers:

Keep reminding everyone you're out of the country and you'll have to do that. Even after I reminded everyone a few times, they had forgotten when the closing time came around.

Check with the Consulate well in advance of needing to do this and why you're doing it. A regular appointment could be weeks away, which could be hard to get to sync up with a closing.

Best of luck. I'm sure there are people with a lot more experience than I have doing this.

Allen

I just found out IF YOU ASK Home Depot during check out for "the lowes matching discount" when buying with their cc or account card, they give you 5% off as well. But you have to ask. It took me a couple times to realize they hadn't given me the discount after it was too late.

Hi Jeremiah,

I'm happy to help as well. I live in central coast but invest in Fresno & Clovis.

Best,

Allen

Hi Matthew,

I'm an investor in Fresno/Clovis. We do our own work as well.

Best,

Allen

I used them about a year ago. Had some traction and high response on a very low number of mailings. I didn't get a deal out of it, but locked up a property for wholesale but couldn't move it because of the wrong price point.

In my area, they didn't have a very high lead count so the cost wasn't very much.

Hi James,

This can go any which way and really depends on what the seller is looking for and what you can negotiate. If it's a lower end priced home, 25% might seem okay.

As far as terms, that's another thing that's negotiable with them. I've found that usually owner terms will be higher than a bank, but (hopefully) less than hard money lender. Usually they will amortize the loan across 30 years but have a balloon note after 3 or 5 or 7 or whatever you guys want.

I currently have a property I'm asking just over 10% down, 6.5% interest, 30 year amortization with a balloon (due) in 5 years.

The biggest plus right now for owner financing is that you're usually saving the pain of getting traditional financing if you don't qualify or just trying to keep another loan off the credit report.

I would suggest a loan servicing company handles the monthly transactions too so there's a middle man and both sides are taken care of.

Allen