All Forum Posts by: Becky Comish

We're looking into paying someone to mow the lawns and shovel snow at our two rental properties which are now 20+ minutes from our house. Properties are in Troy, NY (capital region of NY). Questions are: 1) how much would you charge assuming that lawn is bi-weekly 3-4 months per year and weekly 3 months per year. Snow is hard to predict but could snow during 6 months of the year with 3 being peak where there could be 2-3 storms per month. Our houses both have city sized back yards. Shoveling is just the sidewalk in front of the house and a path out back to the alley. 2) do you pay a weekly or monthly fee, or per mow/shovel? 3) is anyone located in Troy Albany Cohoes Schenectady etc who can recommend a lawn and snow person?

John thanks that would be amazing! I'd love to know if there is a title insurance company that is willing to issue insurance on these properties.

We're all set to buy a 3-family in a tax foreclosure auction from the City of Troy, NY. Property has been awarded to us and all we'd have to do is close. Issues are: -our attorney ran a title search which showed that the person who owned the property when it was foreclosed is deceased and his heirs weren't notified of the tax sale. Attorney said for this reason we can't get title insurance. -woman at City Hall who does title stuff says she did serve all 5 heirs. We believe she can document this and are working to confirm. -we subsequently found out that NY has a 2 year statute of limitations for foreclosed properties like this. Other attorneys have told us this means that after 2 years we should be able to get title insurance, but during that 2 year period there is no way to get title insurance regardless of the situation w the heirs being served. We would want to take a mortgage out after those 2 years are up. So, my question is: if the woman at City Hall has proof that all 5 heirs of the deceased previous owner of the home were served, are we fairly safe to buy the house? Also, is there anything else we can do? I've asked around about quiet title action and have been told that's not an option. If you have been in a similar situation and have any other advice I'd very much appreciate.

Did you ever find anyone?

Sent email.

Hi there. How can I send you my contact info?

Does anyone know of an app that will 1) scan and OCR receipts; 2) itemize items on the receipt; and 3) let me scan as many receipts as I want at once? The only app I knew of that would do this is Onereceipt and they shut down. I need to scan all my receipts for the year for taxes, so Shoeboxed is not an option because they have a limit on the # of documents per month. I don't care about free vs paid. I do care that it will itemize. Ex if I bought 16 things at Home Depot, I want it to list all 16 items and not just the grand goal from the trip to HD. Is there anything out there that will do all this?

Thank you Albert!

I think Homestead Funding serves down there. We've used them several times.

Here's what we're being offered by the mortgage broker we work with. Is this worthwhile to do? - Our current payment will go down from $1287 to $1154 - so about $134 in cash flow savings. - no closing costs. Our broker is offering to pay the $3167 in closing costs in exchange for a bump in interest rate. - new interest rate will be 3.875%. Old rate is 5.25%. - the mortgage insurance premium is actually increasing from $53.60 to $79.91. And now it sticks for the life of the loan (whereas our old insurance premium would have sunset in 2020. This is a 2-family, and is our lowest cash flow building so we really care predominantly about the cash flow. We're looking at a savings of $134 per month for now and $80 per month after 2020 (when the mortgage insurance premium would have sunset. My biggest question is whether the 3.875% interest rate in exchange for no closing costs is worthwhile, or if we should shop around.