All Forum Posts by: Sky Mikesell

Hello @Mike V.  . Sky Mikesell here from Charlotte, North Carolina.   Here we close our RE transaction with attorneys... when i was investing on west coast (oregon) everyone closes with title companies... end result pretty much the same.   

Here in Charlotte When i am interviewing title companies my main agenda is a follows (and this may vary state to state)

1. Do they work with other investors in town and understand creative & legal transactions. (the most important to me) 

2.  Cost of transaction 

2. Approx cost of title insurance (with their respective firm)

3. Timeline it takes to get title work back.

5. How soon they file their "final title"  after closing has occurred. (second most important to me) 

happy investing & take care. 

I have spent time at Both Metrolina and Charlotte REIA and both have similar offerings and i enjoyed them both very much for different reasons.

@Dave Hurt I would join up with the BP group meeting in dilworth i will check in with you next month as i am travelling the week of the 17th. 

thanks 

Sky Mikesell

Im with   @Elizabeth Colegrove ... 

For me personally i have preferred the route of owning more real estate through leverage then owning it outright.  I have no issue owning them outright but there is a specific place and time in my portfolio plan i will do that.  

@Mike O. To leverage or Not to leverage is less about what all of us think and maybe more about what outcome you are hoping for the the seed capital you intend to use for investing.  Good luck and take Care. 

-Sky Mikesell

congrats on your journey. 

in my experience i have refinished hw floors and installed thousands and thousands of square feet of laminate floors. 

the issue i have found with laminate floors is if they ever require a repair down the road it is unlikely you will be able to get an exact match for the floor you installed  X years ago. 

hardwood floors can be refinished several times and look great when done right. 

you assumption on carpet is pretty accurate. we tend to install a mid-grade carpet (not the cheapest carpet available)  and as long as tenant did not totally trash it we have been able to get it cleaned and in some cases even dyed it a different color if we could not get the stains out but yes we replace a lot of carpet after tenants leave. 

I agree... my experience is when i had less then 10 properties the handymen looked at me (and charged me) basically as a homeowner that only called every so often.  Volumes of scale makes a difference. 

When i got my portfolio past 10 properties life got a lot easier... better systems for management, had enough maintenance work to find 1-2 reliable guys, and wasnt so concerned when 1 would go vacant as i still had 9 others cash flowing. 

I lived and operated my REI business in portland for a number of years and am now based in Charlotte, NC.

I have a contact there who does property management and is hands on and a good communicator.   Send me PM and i would be happy to share. 

Sad to hear.  I read those books and they impacted me.   

thanks for sharing @Jerry K. 

David i will share a similar experience...i  have converted 2 different duplex's back into SFD and looked at doing in with a few more. each time what i ran into is making sure the layout was not "functionally obsolete" or in other words.... look weird. 

so i removed walls and did lay out reconfigurations and ended up with a good SFD.  

Good topic @Bryant Hull .... Are your applicants in need of this service pet? blind, etc?  

 i have run into a situation here.. and have had tenants come with their pit bulls as service pets.  Of course because pit bulls are on the list of breeds our insurance policy will not allow us to accept we normally dont... but with this new service pet tactic we want to tread carefully not having a full understanding of ADA. 

Also not a 100% sure how to handle. 

Well said  @Kyle J. 

i agree. My past experience with having a HELOC is i liked the flexibility is provided me. I was very mindful of the fact that i did not have a locked in 30 year mortgage and that made me a little uncomfortable so i always had a clear plan that if interests rates started moving around at all i would move for a refinance into fixed 30 year loan straight away. I was fairly confident interest rates would not double overnight so i knew i had time to react if i needed to.

good luck

I like most of what i have read above. 

I have utilized angieslist.com in the past.   this is a review of contractors.  after work is performed property owners go on and write a review of said contractor. my experience is when i have called contractors off this list and then told them where i found their name they are very responsive and mindful i have read their reviews and will be writing one upon completion. 

i have found far more great contractors on there then not .