All Forum Posts by: Brandon Cline

@DJ M.  They very well might tell us to pound sand, but we can still ask.  And if they do, we need to decide if the additional costs we find are still worth continuing with the purchase.

@Scott Johnson  Totally agree in most cases.  The only thing with this particular property is the 4 units are all rentals and my assumption was the seller didn't want to either 1, let the tenants know he was selling or 2, want them to be disturbed every time a potential buyer wanted to come see the property. I can see how it would be a pain to try and coordinate 4 walk-throughs for every "buyer" who ends up not being serious.  I bet that would get old fast for all parties involved.  We'll see next week how it shakes out.

We're in contract for a property that has two duplexes on it.  The seller wouldn't allow anyone to view the inside of the units until there was an accepted offer, yet has stated on the listing "being sold as is". It puts a potential buyer in a bit of a predicament because naturally we'd like to assess the condition of the property and base a well reasoned offer off of that.  In this case it wasn't feasible and so we offered full asking in order to get it under contract. I can see why @Dustin P. said this type of thing drives him crazy, it would bother me too.  Unfortunately, without being able to see the property (per seller's request) they opened themselves up to something like this. 

Of course the listing agent has reaffirmed to our agent that they're selling this property as is...in an effort to let us know they probably won't want to renegotiate if we find anything during inspection.  Our agent let their realtor know that we are aware that the roofs need to be replaced since they can be seen, but as far as ANY other condition or defect it's impossible for us to guarantee we will not ask for any consideration before closing.

Like what @Trevor Emmett referred to in Oregon as far as the meaning of "as is", I believe it's the same, if not almost the same, here in California.  We'll have our inspections next week and if something is discovered that significantly changes what we view the property to be worth, then we'll absolutely ask for some consideration. The sellers will then have to decide what they want to do.  I also don't believe asking for the consideration is one sided.  If we come to terms with a price reduction, it may be in the sellers' best interest too...now they don't have to relist, disclose what was found, hope for a better offer (including the subsequent reduction), risk a softening market, etc.  I will say that if we get into each unit and there's some chipped paint, stained carpet, or missing cabinet hardware we won't be petty and ask for a price reduction.  I feel if you're reasonable with your request and present it in a polite manner, then there is no harm in asking for some consideration if you feel it's warranted..."as is" or not. 

Hi all, has anyone had any success converting a single family house to a duplex?  There is a neat looking Victorian in my market that has 6 bedrooms, but needs a fair amount of work. Seems like there is close to the same amount of square footage upstairs as there is downstairs so was thinking of maybe converting each level to it's own designated unit.  The house is located in more of a commercial area with offices and just a few single family homes here and there. For those of you who have done the conversion to a two story, did you install an exterior stair case to a front entrance for the top unit?  Leave the existing front door as a common front door so upstairs tenant could use existing interior staircase and figure a way out to put a separate front door for lower unit inside the entryway somewhere?  I'm open to any and all suggestions or thoughts on this.

Headed down to city planning tomorrow to even see if I can do the conversions, but thought I'd check with you all to hear some feedback.

@Michael T. Thanks for the response!

Thinking of buying a property that currently has section 8 renters in there. Property is in California.  Any concerns I should keep in mind when it comes time to giving them their notice of termination?  They're on a month to month lease and I've heard that instead of the typical 60 day notice, I need to give them 90 days.  Anybody out there have any experience with this?  Also, any reason I couldn't offer them a financial incentive to leave earlier? Thanks!

I'm looking to purchase a duplex that basically needs a full renovation, but I want to see what some of you have to say as the best way to go about tackling the heating/cooling situation. Currently each unit has a swamp cooler unit on the roof with one duct to the inside, but they're  pretty much toast.  Each unit has a wall heater. Each unit is a 2 bed 1 bath and 900 sqft. And the entire roof needs to be replaced.  For those of you who have some experience with this, where do you get the best return when comparing going all out and putting a new furnace, ducting, and forced air to leaving the wall heater and replacing the swamp coolers? Since I would be doing a full reno, is it just better to get the ducting ran, the furnace installed in crawl space, eliminate the wall heater, and bite the bullet now? Kind of nice to punt those major cap ex down the road, but it is a rental and I don't want to over improve the units if that's not smart either.  Another option I looked at was maybe installing one of the ductless mini coolers, but wasn't sure how those perform and if it's just one more thing to be sticking out of the wall and risk being damaged.  One thing to note is tenants pay for gas and electric, owner pays for water.

I'm an AC rookie because where I live we don't need it, so I'd appreciate any feedback from the investors out there that have any advice. Thanks!

@Brandon Sturgill Thanks for the response.  Yeah, I'm not sure if it's registered or the listing agent is just really nostalgic about the building in her small town.  I've heard horror stories about historical buildings when trying to make changes..like you can only replace the glass and not the entire window itself if there's an issue.  I'll look into it more, but again, thanks for the response.

Hi guys, I've found a property that is intriguing to me, but it's listed as a Historical Home.  For those of you that own, have bought, or dealt with a historical home, do you have any advice?  It looks like it's been broken up into 4 units, two of them are finished, 2 of them are unfinished (still waiting to find out why).  I've heard that that there can be a lot of headaches dealing with the appropriate agencies who control what can and can not be done on historical buildings, but from those of you with first hand knowledge, how bad is it? 

Thanks for the time!

@Blake Edwards and @Jerry Puckett....  Thanks for the responses!  

Hi everybody, first time poster here. I've been flipping for a few years now and just found this site, wish I would of found it years ago. My question for those of you who have experience in identifying a potential property to purchase and sending a letter to the owner, is have you ever done it in two languages?  I live in California in a city where a large part of the population speaks Spanish.  I've had luck in the past knocking on doors, talking with the owners and leaving my information, but this particular property I'm interested in is a duplex with renters.  I've found out where the owners live and their names, but I'm not sure if they speak both English and Spanish.  I'm a little unsure how to proceed.  If I send a letter in just English and they're Spanish speakers then I'm not going to get anywhere.  Conversely, I don't want to be presumptive and write it in both languages and offend the owners just because their names are Hispanic.  Any dual language speaking owners out there have advice on what you would want to see?  

Thanks for the time!