All Forum Posts by: Steve Smithy

I have one, it pushes air out the middle of the roof and draws it in through the vents at either end. I'm not sure how big of a difference it makes to be honest. When I first moved in the thing never turned on, so I set it really low, but with the heat we've had it runs all day and night, which defeats the purpose I think (air is too hot so it just runs).

I thought my fan had 2 dials on it, one for temperature and maybe the other was humidity.

Regarding the fire issue, if there is a fire in my attic I'm not going to notice until it gets lower in the house, and by then there is ridiculous damage to the house anyway.

I have a unit that is a tiny studio, it rents for $300/mo right now. This is in a building I bought only a few months ago, but a new tenant moved in and about 2 months later they were approved (and had my unit approved) for Section 8. So the property manager wants to go with the program, since its $450/mo and she has trouble renting this smaller unit. I've heard lots of bad things about section 8, but mostly about the tenants.

My question is, should I go for it? I was thinking of just letting the tenant move out and break the lease without a fee or anything. I didn't ask the landlord to go through the Section 8 process, she just did it. Since the tenant is already there in a way it isn't much worse. Thoughts/Questions?

Buy the building in your name, so that the mortgage is in your name, then file a Quit Claim deed to the LLC. I have personal and commercial umbrella insurance on top of it so they can't get out of the deal. This way, the place is insured no matter how you look at it.

The seller is already getting far more than $8k, they are GETTING RID OF THE BAD MORTGAGE. The bank is losing money on the deal, why do they expect to make money?

I mean that they are completely renovated buildings with tenants and property management setup already. Yes they are profitable, they easily meet my 2% rule (my first building is 3% with a new roof and everything. Some areas of Terre Haute are run down, but my strategy is student rentals so they rent again easily.

I invest in Terre Haute, right near the university. My vacancy rate has been higher than expected, but overall I've got a good deal. I have 2 properties that I bought from a local flipper of multi-units, he has many other deals that I think for an out-of-state investor are good, he rents them and everything before he sells them to you so you don't have to do anything.

I see in the news today Obama has plans to build 2 new nuclear reactors in Burke County GA, so I was thinking this might be a good time to buy in that area since they will probably have a small housing boom there. Thoughts?

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/02/16/obama-nuclear-loan.html

Well that's great that you have no skin in the game, but consider these points:
+ what happens if you can't rent it for a few months? Are you willing to pay the mortgage on this place from your paycheck just to own it?
+ Is this your only property? If so I presume its in your name and not a LLC/S-Corp, I assume you cant' justify/afford a $1M liability umbrella policy with the proceeds from this if you get sued.
+ Are you managing it? What happens if you need to hire a property manager?
+ is there anything coming to the area that would drive the value up in the next 5 years? If not you're not likely to make money off this property!

If it were me, I'd try splitting the duplex into 2 units (if thats possible) and do a light rehab and sell it for a small profit. This would take work from you though.

I can't get a commercial loan even though I have 100% down, because my corp hasn't been around long enough! So I want to give them the 25% down to buy places but banks won't lend to me, so now I am looking for cash-only deals.

I'm about to close on my first property, a 4-plex. I plan to buy more in a short while, and I thought one of the main benefits of a corporation was that you pay taxes LAST. So I thought if I bought another property with rental income from this first one later I wouldn't pay taxes on it since I didn't pay myself. Is this not the case? If not why?