All Forum Posts by: Ashraf Farrag

Thanks for the comments.

I was trying to see if there was an option in this scenario that could help him out as the buyer to pay less, close the deal and because I knew in the end, what we would likely negotiate/agree to was going to net me the same amount but oh well. I guess that is the price he paid for buying through the MLS for me to get out of this property this year instead of having to deal with a lease option.

I'll have to start a different topic to address some of the questions that came up going through this process that I don't think I found many/great answers for...

I have a property I'm marketing on the MLS as well as on my own (Lease-Option/etc).

I paid a company to list a property for me in North Carolina. They do not get a commission and only send correspondence back and forth to me.

I have an offer that came via the MLS from a broker who is buying the property for himself / his LLC (no client). I presume he is going to be renting it out.

I can tell the MLS folks to let me negotiate directly with said broker or negotiate on my behalf (for a nominal fee).

If I choose to negotiate directly with the broker on this offer, is there any legal or other precedent that prevents us from suggesting in the negotiation that we let his "official" offer expire (he put a 48 hour clock on it) and we take the deal offline and accept it as is to eliminate the commission where we both are happy campers in the end?

Mike Dymski - did that figure include padding?

Christopher K. - thanks for the numbers. Has been helpful to gauge estimates (mostly getting them "out there" even when I explain that I want builder grade...) Chris Martin - contact info would be appreciated.

@Christopher K.: Would you mind sharing how much you pay per square foot for installation and carpet as well as painting in the area?

Any recommendations for investor-friendly (affordable) individuals that to do carpet installation and some interior paint refresh on my rental?

Thanks @Brian Gibbons and @Matt Moger! Matt, I will send a PM when I collect my thoughts further.

That is some great information and I need to spend a little more time to digest it. I have heard some of these issues but was not pointed specifically to that legislation, so this is some solid gold for me. The pertinent piece for me is the right to cure every 12 month period in terms of getting better tenant compliance because their option fee is now at stake instead of just one month of deposit.

What I realized that I need to adjust in my Excel model is that I would be entering a contract to sell the property now for an agreed upon value greater than current value. I need to figure out just how much the property value will increase year to year in terms of appreciation and factor that into the total profit or value of assets.

@Dawn Brenengen

I can definitely say that I am not looking to start a rehab project as a next step.

I could see doing buy and hold as a potential if I am able to pull out some equity from my current rental.

Wholesaling (or some variant of creative financing) is probably the best fit with my current situation.

I have a fairly steady rental property. It was a former home of mine. I lived in it for 7 years and it has been rented for about 6 years. There still is a mortgage on the property and it has a decent amount of equity in it. I could refinance / home-equity loan to pull the equity out for another RE investment but I am trying to use this an an opportunity to learn how to work the numbers of creative financing to be able to do other deals.

What I am trying to determine is if it makes more sense to go with a lease-option buyer in order to continue to have some residual monthly income but free up the equity in the property so that I have capital to seed additional RE investments. 

I also understand from the proponents of L/O that having a buyer-tenant with more "skin in the game" versus a renter in the house would make the management easier.

From what I read/understand, it definitely does not seem to make sense to seller finance in regards to my options for non-payment (eviction vs. foreclosure).

The problem I have in structuring the deal is if they cash me out "soon" then I don't stand to make as much as I would if I continue to rent the property but I guess the trade-off there is that I would then have all the equity available as capital to reinvest into another investment (or multiple investments) which may offer better returns.

I am curious if:

1) Anyone has actually done this and found it to be a better long-term strategy?

2) What sort of numbers on the lease option did you use such that it worked out for you?

Greetings,

I am currently a landlord of a single property, own my current home as well as a rather time-consuming retail business. My goal is to diversify by initially doing RE part-time and use some of the proceeds to help provide capital to acquire a commercial building for it and ideally transition out of my current business into RE full-time.

I have a couple of audio courses (LeGrand, Harbolt) that I have listened to, have been attending the local REIA chapter meetings for almost two years and have gone to some of the single day seminars (LeGrand and Harbolt).

Obviously, continual education for any discipline is important...I have watched several seminars on here but I seem to be stuck in a chicken or the egg situation in terms of moving forward and am hoping to get some advice here on what next steps to take.

Why I feel "stuck":

I have started to look for a wholesale or terms type of deal but what I keep running up against is that I don't feel like I have adequate training to actually get it off the ground. My life background is what one might call someone that is probably over-educated (too much formal school can definitely be a bad thing!) I have also been a teacher/instructor at the college level as well as for more "hands on" type of hobbies that require instruction and "sign-off" for an individual to "operate independently", hence my apprehension to try and tackle a deal without what I feel is either adequate training or supervision to ensure success. I do know there will be failure along the way but what I've learned in other realms is that proper instruction tends to help mitigate the failures. I've tried to network within the REIA to get a mentor offering up my team's professional skills in IT and Marketing but have not managed to find someone willing to do that as of yet. Ah. From the pop-up, the marketplace is the place for that on here...okay...

I don't really have a lot of time to be able to put together all the information myself (reference time-consuming business as primary income) and I am seriously thinking about in-person training (LeGrand) but I don't see a lot of support in favor of this on here. What I know about my business is that investing in good training has improved my business in profitability and ease of operation...

What I've done recently to try and get started:

I found a couple of local FSBOs and dug up some call scripts but it seems like what I really need is to setup a stream to have multiple deals in front of me given how many you need before you get one to "work"? (I see the same theme in my business) - do I talk to them and then figure out what sort of creative investment opportunity can be crafted and then find someone to help structure it once I see there is a "live target"?

Thanks for reading and I look forward to getting started!