All Forum Posts by: Robert Taylor

Although, the comp mentioned on 46th can be a LONG way from 54th, but not going there and scoping out the two blocks, both day and night time, I'm not 100% sure, but pretty sure. 46th is right by the Wendys on North (and the massive police district station there, but other than maybe directly across the street, that doesn't guarantee anything!) and that can be a fairly tough area, I'm not as sure about 54th. Its all about perception anyway though and if people are nervous about crime, that's what matters. That's the other thing about the whole NW side, you have some really nice areas that are quite safe and others that aren't. Even in eastern Tosa you'll read about people getting robbed in their front yard, back yard, etc somewhat often and that can kill sales. 

I had a good friend, probably 8 or 10 years ago who bought a house with his gf at the time just inside of Tosa, near 60th and North and he was a guy who could handle himself in most any situation, but after several neighbors got burglarized and one was robbed at gunpoint, they moved. He wasn't someone to be scared of hardly anyone but that doesn't matter much when you're staring down the wrong end of a gun barrel!

Hi Dave, I think I must've have found yours, I'm guessing it is the one that just had the old listing withdrawn and was relisted yesterday on N 54th? I haven't read all of the comments on here yet, maybe you gave the address or mls#, but without even looking at the actives I'd guess that's a high price for that area and now seeing Conrad's post just above mine and that he did look through the recent sale comps and actives and is saying the same thing, I'm sure he's right on that one. I hate to discourage anyone here and I hope that's not how you take it, as you actually went out and really did something for real, got it done, which is a lot farther than a lot of people get! You might want to chalk this one up to experience though and drop the price, I'm curious what your new realtor said about that price. I don't know her personally, but the firm she works for (and I'd obviously assume she's part of their family-not exactly a common last name!) has been around for many years, the founders and their sons were old friends of my family, all grew up in same area, went to same church, etc. as my family and they DO know what they're doing, one of the older ones was a UW-Milwaukee real estate prof for years and wrote at least one book on the RE business, a while back. So, I'll assume she knows what she's doing as well, which is why I'm curious what her assessment was, especially as we near the "Thanksgiving Drop Dead Date" for many area sales as winter approaches.

I did see as I briefly skimmed some comments that some people were being hard on you about the cabinets, I'd actually disagree somewhat in saying that for that price range I think they're fine, although you can get much nicer ones for not a whole lot more money. The appliances being mismatched (black range/SS fridge/missing dishwasher-NO ONE buying a house wants to also buy a dish rack!) is an issue, but I wouldn't worry about it now, but make a note for the next one. Having a second full bath upstairs IS a definite big plus and the bathrooms look very nice for that price range, maybe even a bit over done and that's from someone who HATES plastic tub surrounds! So, other than the lack of a garage, which I'll get to, I think it looks decent or great for the bathrooms, for that price range. As mentioned, staging does sell houses and if you're going to be doing more of them, investing in some furniture and accessories OR having it staged really does help and that's something I personally learned the hard way! Same thing for the yellow flowers Nicole mentioned, or even pink flowers! 

What it always comes down to is location though and that whole NW area can be tricky, but not at all saying you can't sell something on that side of town, quite the contrary. The fastest flip sale I ever had was on 74th, just north of Capitol. I listed it and had a problem with the 25 pics I'd just taken with my fancy new SLR camera that I was all excited about, couldn't get them to upload right because the fancy camera was so complicated. So, being short on time I went back and snapped a single phone camera shot of the front of the place as the sun was just going down and listed it as is, intending on uploading the correct pics the next day. Had a showing the next morning and got a call right after saying she wanted it! I got the offer a couple days later as the realtor was a part timer, but still a competent guy just working a full time job as well. Your block isn't a really dangerous one, but crime is an issue, even in the eastern parts of Tosa it is, so the missing garage is also an issue, even if its detached, people love a garage in an area where it is even a question. Some neighborhoods nearby like Enderis Park and Washington Heights are fairly hot areas, Enderis Park is for sure, some people watch for those houses ahead of time.

If you can, I'd also consider lowering it, but again I'm interested in hearing the realtors thoughts and plans, she's been there herself and knows that block (or I'd sure hope so!) from checking it out, as well as the comps and thus knows it better than I do, looking briefly from a distance. Don't get discouraged though, you got this one done and even if its not a big money maker, they get better with experience, although I'm still the first to admit that I'm still learning myself!

Not to add to an already WAY too long of a thread, but I can think of several very shrewd investors I know who are sitting on a bunch of properties not making anywhere close to 2%, some might even have negative cash flow, I'm not sure, but they're doing it because they see a good chance at a future goldmine on the appreciation side! These are here in the Milwaukee area and I can point to one area of town, the 3rd Ward area, which is now chock full of high $$$ condos, where some of these same people made a killing, like the kind of money most people could literally retire on, by doing the same thing from the early 90's to the early 2000's. 

Now, if you're simply looking for cash flow and that's it, the 2% rule may make great sense. It is certainly not a one size fits all type rule though, I don't think ANY of them are.

And one thing you'll likely learn on that forum is exactly what Anthony just said, (his comment popped up while I was writing mine) an awful lot of the many different types of businesses claiming to help fix bad credit aren't worth it and some are plain old rip offs!

I have NO experience and limited knowledge of the online rent payment biz, but there's a web forum dealing with anything and everything related to credit and credit reports, especially anything related to rebuilding bad credit, that I'd say can be as valuable of a resource on that as Biggerpockets is for nearly anything real estate related. Its called "credit boards" and if you post on there, you'll likely get some good answers quickly from people who know the real value of whatever they're doing to supposedly improve someone's credit. Because there's always the chance that yes, it does improve your credit score eventually, but for what it costs vs HOW MUCH it improves someone's credit, they may say it isn't worth doing.

Hi Greg,

One comment I've made many times here is that I see people getting all wrapped up in all of the various "rules, ratios and percentages" far too much, unless they're operating on some HUGE scale, like if say sone big hedge fund gives them $1 BILLION to invest and wants it ALL invested in 6 months, so there's no time for further analysis. My advice for anyone starting out and even for someone like me, who's been a landlord for 15 years, flipped on and off for around 10 years, including full time for the last 2 1/2 years and a WI broker for 10 years, is to take each and every purchase as its own unique animal and there are all sorts of intangibles involved in investing as well. Obviously, you don't want to spend ALL of your time analyzing, but look for the intangibles too! Good luck!

As you may or may not know from my previous posts here on BP, I'm not a wholesaler, I'm a real estate broker but my full time business is both rehab/flip projects and being a landlord. That's not at all meant as anything derogatory towards anyone in the wholesaling biz, I'm all for anyone who's working hard to run an honest business, but just to add a little context here. I do have a possible opportunity though that I think could be a great flip project or as a long term, single fam rental property, but please read all of the details.

This wasn't my listing but a good friend of mine who along with his wife are successful RE investors, realtors as well as running his mortgage business, have asked me to co-broke on this listing as they're already busy as heck and live out in the suburbs, so its a big time waster for them to show the place. Its on the south side of Milwaukee, listing for under $30k that certainly needs work, but isn't a disaster and once complete would make a great flip to sell or would make a great place to hold onto for the long term as a single family rental. As many of you know, we have some great rates of return in this area for rentals, especially in the lower priced parts of the city, some of which are also dangerous areas to be in. This isn't in a "war zone" area, although just being frank and honest here, its not an area where you'd leave your doors unlocked either, but not a scary area at all and what do you expect for under $30k for a house not ready to collapse??!!

I'd buy it and rehab/flip it myself, but I focus on middle and higher end properties. It would work well for someone who does focus on the lower end of the market and/or a first timer looking to get that first flip going.

They listed the place and it had an accepted offer in under a week, it is a good deal for someone looking for a low priced project. Problem is there's still a title issue which my friend, who is one of the people on my very short list of people I do trust implicitly, says is just some sort of error regarding a former owner who's also a family member of the current owner and he's been assured by the title company is something that will be worked out within the next few weeks, if not sooner. However, this issue apparently caused some problems for whoever the buyer had cobbled together his/her financing through and the deal fell apart. The house will be available for showings again soon, we're just waiting for some solid confirmation on the title issue before we start spending our time showing the place.

So, if anyone is interested in this property/project, send me a message here on BP and I'll let you know that I have your info and once we get the final go ahead regarding the title work, I'll contact everyone in order of your contacting me. I can also send you an email with the mls listing including pics for this house as well.

Finally, for full disclosure here-I am a WI licensed real estate broker and work with North Shore Homes in Milwaukee. Thanks!

I'm not necessarily attempting to "thread jack" here,interesting how this employee vs independent contractor issue really does tie into this and mark my words, this is something we're going to hear more and more about because as I mentioned earlier, once the IRS and/or the states find ANY field or area of business where there's a good amount of tax cheating going on, they start to whack it hard because it is easy money for them. I've had so many contractors (always the smaller ones or the one man operations) look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them I only pay by check and send 1099s, which leads me to believe it is rampant around here. @Matthew 

@Matthew Paul you're IRS pdf is interesting and check these two pages from here in WI and our DWD dept:

https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/worker_classification/ui...

That one deals with the "6 of 9 rules" test I mentioned earlier, but then I also just saw this next one that seems to say that you must meet ALL 9 of these rules:

https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/worker_classification/ui...

So, reading through some of this, it sure sounds like if you were operating here in WI @Wendell De Guzman  and you crossed paths with the state, your idea about "whoever writes the check writes the rules" could land into some very hot water with the state!

I wish I could vote for @J Scott 's post about the employee vs contractor issue 10 times over! Now, I just typed a detailed response about several issues I've had, including a recent state audit, accidentally hit some combo of keys on my laptop and erased the whole darn thing! AAARRRGGGHHH!!! I've got to run, but basically wanted to add that besides the IRS, you have to worry about your state's rules as well! Here in WI, they have 9 rules, a contractor must meet 6 of the 9, or else you better get out that checkbook and make it payable to "State of WI"!!! 

As a former accountant, I can tell you that the IRS started cracking down HARD on that issue over 20 years ago and they (plus each state) LOVE to find fields of biz that are ripe for he picking and whack them hard, over and over and the flipping/rehabbing, etc field is apparently one of the hot ones now! For the last maybe 10 years, they've been going hard after tipped servers, bartenders, etc because they found them to be cheating big time on reporting tips and now they see with the "flipping boom" that MANY operators are playing fast and loose with things. Problem is that even those of us who play by the rules (I pay ONLY by check, send out 1099's at year end, etc) and know the rules of employee vs contractor can easily get caught up and can get whacked hard with fines, interest, etc. 

Anyone not totally familiar on this darn well better read up on it now, as one of the "rules" both here in WI and for the IRS is that you aren't supposed to be able to set contractors hours and that's a slippery slope to me!

Hi Matt,

First off, take whatever the city of Milwaukee assessed value is, write it down on a piece of paper and then burn that piece of paper-the city's assessments are a JOKE! Since it is a 4 fam, my usual line about people getting WAY too wrapped up in ratios, %'s, etc doesn't apply as much here as it would with a duplex, I think those "rules" become more valuable as the # of units goes up, but again, don't forget about the intangibles, such as WHAT part of Milwaukee it is in, as there are some parts that I at least see an OK future for and other parts that seem to get a bit worse on a weekly basis!