All Forum Posts by: Bill Richard

Thanks everybody. Looking forward to doing some deals. I'm currently building inventory at this time in northern lower Michigan. Always looking. There's plenty of deals around. Anyone I can help, I will.

A couple other things.

ALWAYS give your deposit check either to the title company, your lawyer or sometimes the broker who has the property listed. I like my lawyer. NEVER just give it to the seller.

Talk to your real estate agent or the local board of Realtors and get local real estate contracts that all the real estate agents use with all addendums and disclosures that they use.  Get several copies. Read and understand these well. Use them because the other party's lawyers will want you to anyway. If you must put in special clauses, use an addendum and attach it to the offer.

If you use self made contracts, weather they are good or not, most lawyers and closing companies will ask you to use the state approved ones anyway.  

Need more details.

Let's say it really is a good deal.  Is it listed with a real estate company?   Yes means talk to either the listing agent or your buyer's agent and make an offer. Make your offer contingent on inspections approval and financing.   If it's NOT listed, talk to the owner and reach an agreement. Use either an offer to buy it, an exclusive option or possibly a lease option. Depends on the details and your available cash.  Make the closing for as reasonably long as possible away to give yourself time to shop it around and flip it. Take the paperwork and your deposit/good faith check to a good title/escrow company to process the deal.

There are lots of investors around Dallas. Find and go to the investor/landlord club meetings and shop this deal hard. If it's real good, you'll find someone to take it. If it's not, you'll quickly find out and why.

If you flip it, assign your position to the new buyer for a fee. Collect your money at closing or possibly before, but that doesn't happen that much. It's usually at the closing. Don't let a real estate agent kill the deal. Keep in touch with everyone, especially the title company and very especially your new buyer because problems show up that must be handle or they kill your deal. 

There's a bunch of ways the deal can fall apart, so keep on top of everything.

That's a lot of one BR units. Why so many?  Is this an old motel?

12K per unit is pretty low, so you need to know why. Area? Vacancy factor? Type of tenants?

Check with some local lenders and hard money lenders both and see what they want and how far they will go on this project. My initial feeling is that you will have a hard time pulling this off without a strong partner who has done deals this size before and has a track record. From my experience, lenders are very cautious with new investors who don't have a proven ability to make deals work.  Nothing personal, but if you don't have a proven record and some skin in the game, so to speak, I'd look for a partner on this one.  

What extensive work does it need?  Just because it's not on a slab doesn't make it bad by itself.  Take a good look and see if water is getting under the house and pooling.  Is there adequate ventilation for this crawl space?  

Have you had a good inspection by someone that is familiar with that area?

I'm a long time investor getting back into it  in a new area (Northern lower Michigan). Looking into acquiring more properties to fund retirement. I'm in the process of building a team there. I have lots of experience in both real estate investing and construction.