All Forum Posts by: Becca Summers

@Tina Mackay welcome to biget pockets! It's a great place to meet everyone on your list. What are your plans with investing? Sounds like you are looking for flip or buy and hold? I too am a Dave Ramsey fan he teaches some great principals but your right they don't help much in investing. 

@Andrew Dean great stuff! Thanks for answering so quick!

Sounds great! Quick question when renting to singles do you screen and place each tenant or just have one on the lease and let them sublet? Last time my house was available I had a couple singles come check it out and I was wondering if it worked well? Do you self manage?  If so do you find it more hands on or less?

@Justin Hammond Wow $50k in American Fork is a great price, I'm sure the condition of the property reflects the reason for such a low contract price.

I've sold multiple homes after they have been through probate being sold by the executor. A few follow up questions for you, did you have a title company running the title for you? Is this the only signer? I could see them getting out of this if there are more than one signer for the property. Also there is a very specific way to sign when it's the executor vs the homeowner how did they sign? Just their name or name executor of XXXX will and or trust?

What contract did you use? If you used the standard Utah Real Estate Purchase contract that is six pages long I'd be surprised if they didn't realise you where purchase the home. If you used a one or two page offer letter I could see them being unaware. Very foolish of them to think you would do all this work without full vested interest in the property. 

If you used the standard Utah contract section 16.2 does say what will happen if the seller defaults on the purchase. 

I wouldn't say this is cut and dry one way or the other but I don't have all the details. Let us know what the lawyer says, I'm interested to hear what the they would say. 

I had an agent in my office attempt to buy a home off the Homie site they made it through offer, inspections and got the appraisal. The house came in 10k under contract price and it killed the whole thing. That home later was listed on the MLS for above the FHA appraisal price which FHA appraisal stay with the property for 6 months. Technically you don't need an agent or lawyer to write and offer for you on the Utah Real Estate Purchase Contract if you've bought multiple properties and know the system well many investors don't use agents. I also know many investors who don't have the time to negotiate or find deals so they pay others to do it for them.

Your right to find a deal in this crazy market you have to see it the day it comes on the market and get an offer in. What I do that you might suggest to your agent if you don't get this house is I search the MLS multiple times a day once I hone in on what my buyers are looking for and get them in within hours of it going on the market or sooner if it's a pocket listing from someone in my office. That way my client has the first right to say no.

Mountain America has some good portfolio loans. I've had great success with them their investor loan is 10% down and the interest rate is slightly higher than normal interest rates.

Steve is right I shouldn't speak in absolutes when talking interest rates because we could go into a civil war after this election for all I know. With that said if you look at election years historically rates almost flat line during election years and then gradually raise or drop until the middle of each presidents term and then go the other direction. Is this tied to the elections perhaps not but it's an interesting trend line to watch.  

I my research an interesting thing I saw was December the month after Obama was elected the first time rates jumped a full 1% even though we where in a recession. However if you remember they where offering the first time buyer incentive at this time that rebated a percentage or set amount back to the buyer and money was "running out" so maybe there was a jump of mortgage applications. The money lasted another 6 months so rates went back down shortly after.

The best thing about real estate is the more you give the more you learn and the more you can service your clients. Even though you've spend all this time analysing properties with no luck at least you know more than you did.

@Chris Watkins My advice, unless you're paying cash now is a great time to buy because your interest rate will be possible the lowest you will ever see in our lifetime. Yes your tenants are paying the interest rate for you in the long run but when rates go up your payment goes up and then rent rates have to go up and you're already having a hard time hitting the 1% rule. To be honest in the last year I've only seen one property that hits the 1% rule and it wasn't on the MLS. I don't want to say it's impossible but because of other factors I'm willing to still invest not hitting those numbers.

To answer on if you're being too picky maybe. In all the inspections I've been through the building permits to finish the basement have only been pulled once. If this is a criteria that is important to you then you'll want to stick with condo's and townhomes, single family homes with no basement so the builder has finished everything in the home. I'm sure you know the mindset of people around here, if they can save money doing renovations and repairs they will. 

Have you approached the non-warrantable condo owners to see if they'd be willing to do seller financing? I'm sure they have struggled to sell the property and might be interested in alternatives to get out. 

I agree with you, I think we are close to the peak in our market. You can see some of the signs inventory is starting to build up, a few months ago we had 1.9 months supply in Utah County and now we 3 months worth. Still a sellers market but very odd to have inventory build up in the middle of summer.  However with that said if you buy it right it shouldn't matter what the market does if it's meant to be a true buy and hold. One of the big reasons that will help the market into a buyers market is interest rates going up, which we've thought they'd be higher by now. After the election I can see rates going up. Then you have to look at affordability.  

Welcome to BP your in the right place a ton of free learning!! It sounds like your off to the right step in knowing what you want. 

My advice is run all your numbers to plan on having a property manager so if one day you decide you hate being a landlord and managing the properties yourself you can turn it over and still cash flow. That is where a lot of landlords get burned out dealing with the day to day and forget the long run. There was a great podcasts they just #182 about multi family investment go check it out.

@Marcia, thank you. That has been how I try and work. Being firm but fair. It's been good to me so far.