All Forum Posts by: Mark Yuschak

I exclusively use Sherwin Williams for flips and rentals. With the prices I'm getting from them, Home Depot or Lowes can't even come come close to their prices.

All I buy is Sher Scrub, unless I need semi gloss for trim, then I go with Pro Mar 200.

We use three colors for the walls, primarily: Rice Grain, Bagel, or Totally Tan.

Ceilings are always Navajo White.

Trim and interior doors are always Creamy.

Exterior colors vary depending on the property, but 90% of the time, the exterior doors are painted Mahogany.

In addition, I never pick out my colors. My stager picks all the colors since he watches the trends in buyer desires closely. His consultation of $150 is well worth the money spent. In addition to paint colors, he also chooses the granite, glass mosaics, etc.

Why not do both?

We market to both types of sellers and actually get a better response from the out of town owners. Typically the expired listing owners ended up letting the listing expire (or the property did not sell) because the seller was unrealistic with pricing.

I do both.

The flipping is what gives me the cash to be able to buy more buy-and-hold properties. I spend very little of my flipping income on living expenses. Everything else gets reinvested into my buy-and-hold side of my business.

In my opinion, you'll see most investors do a combination of the two since they compliment each other...

The best place to advertise vacancies to existing voucher holders in the Genesee County area is www.michiganhousinglocator.com.

My experiences with HUDs echo what Rob K has said.

I've literally bought dozens of HUDs (just closed on one Friday, as a matter of fact). The deals aren't as good as they used to be. 2009 and 2010 were awesome years for picking up HUDs. It seems that ever since the bidding is now all done on hudhomestore.com, the deals aren't as prevalent. I also picked a few sweet deals when they used to advertise their highly distressed properties with a red box around them, and the label "ALL BIDS WILL BE CONSIDERED ON THIS PROPERTY". Those were the good old days!

I also agree that getting title insurance is a must. I won't close a HUD without first reviewing a commitment, then buying the policy if I close the transaction.

The best way to catch a good deal on a HUD these days is just like anything else... the higher the DOM, the better likelihood you have of getting your low ball bid accepted.

And, one point of clarification from your original post, it doesn't matter if the house is UN, IE, or IN. If you're bidding on it as an investor, the EMD is non-refundable, no matter what. The condition of the property has nothing to do with potentially getting the EMD refunded.

I have completed 14 deals so far this year. I have two more in the works which ought to close within the next few weeks.

This year ought to have been slower than years in the past, however, I changed my strategy and started focusing more on the buy and holds, opposed to flipping. As already said in this thread, the flipping has slowed down with all the OO bidding and investor competition. Since prices are on the rise, my game plan has changed to acquiring as much as possible for buy and holds.

I've also started a wholesaling en-devour with a partner. We have four under contract.

As an agent, this has been a banner year. 2012 has been far better than any other year.

My daily driver is a 2000 Pontiac Bonneville with 212K. It's not much to look at, but it's cheap and get's 27 MPG.

My work truck is a 2005 Chevy Silverado. Base model with a v6 and extended cab. 200K and still going strong.

My wife drives a 2005 Suburban. Only 100K on it.

Our play car is a 1999 Pontiac Firehawk. It very rarely sees daylight since it's a garage queen. Only has 13K. It typically only gets driven one weekend a year...the first weekend in August.

None of my cars have notes. I won't buy a car unless it's with cash. And, I minimize the cost as much as possible since there's no point in pouring tons of money at a depreciating "asset".

I agree with Ken.

I always search the "real estate for sale" and "office/commercial" categories using the terms already given.

You can test that GFI very simply by grounding the hot side of the outlet directly to an adjacent water line. If it trips, the GFI is functioning properly and you don't have an issue with the plug itself. If it doesn't trip, then you have a faulty plug (assuming this is wired right). Or, the other scenario is that the panel isn't grounded to the water line...

Do you have a plug-in tester? They can be had from Home Depot or the like for about $7. I'm betting you have an open ground somewhere on that circuit.

The plug was likely added in the living room as a means for truly getting the protection of being able to use a three-prong cord (with a ground) and not being in violation of simply installing grounded duplexes without the ground wire. I'm willing to bet there are other plugs in the circuit in the living room which have the three prong outlet and are able to be there as a result of that GFI. I'm also willing to bet you have other three prong plugs in the house which are not grounded. They ought to be two prong plugs.

The easy solution to this is to move the feeds for the light and fan in the bathroom to the Line side of the GFI as opposed to the Charge side where they are now. The bath fan and light do not need to be GFI protected. I'd still proceed with caution in doing this because there's obviously a fault somewhere and that's why the GFI is stripping.

I'll definitely be in Denver again. The event was too good to miss!

I had no complaints with Denver. Reasonable accommodations, and stellar content!

I think if the event were to move to another city such as Vegas, the attendees might be tempted to loose focus on the event and why we're all there.