All Forum Posts by: Brian L.

Maybe consider an alarm system? If only while vacant. This is obviously an issue in a lot of neighborhoods so it is a hot topic on BP. Take a look here to see what others are doing. That's just one discussion, I'm sure there are other ideas as well. Personally I would put the sign up because they work and then do my best to secure the property.

2006 was a long time ago. The price paid 8 years ago is not very relevant in negotiating a price today but as the other have said the sale history of a property is public information and can be found through your counties assessor's office.

I am not familiar with this group in particular but my overall sense is that all of these "classes" are pretty much the same. I wouldn't say there is no value in these types of classes but what they teach can easily be learned for free on this (and other) site. There are a TON of great REI books out there, you could buy every one of them and still probably only spend a fraction of what you would spend on guru seminars. That's my opinion.

If you don't have the experience, money, time to rehab it and have no emotional connection then I would sell it. $57,000 is a solid chunk of money. You can spend all kinds of time worrying about whether or not the value of the home will go up but if you can't rehab it then the price probably won't budge.

Thanks @Herb Dorn

Welcome Adam! I'm just down the road in Westminster. I am just getting started in REI as well and I have found this community to be amazingly supportive and of course there is a ton of great info.

I have absolutely no input on this topic but I grew up in St. Charles, IL so I just want to say hello. Good Luck!

Good choice! Pay $1000 so that you can work hard to find deals that you'll only see a fraction of the return on? Sounds like a bad dael to me. I mean, I guess if they actually taught you something it might be worth it but....

Thanks for sharing, looks pretty good.

Hello @John Cardillo and welcome to the site! I am new to REI myself and I just got done reading a wonderful blog post about how to find a mentor. Of course, I was going to leave the link here for you but I can't find it even though I just read it like 5 minutes ago. Oh we'll I guess, if I come across the post agiain I'll try to find this post so I can leave the link for you. You're going to get hit with a bunch of emails from the BP guys that are full of great articles, posts, books, and other resources. Take a few days and read through the beginners guide and all of the other stuff and it will kind of give you a good sense of the scope of this site. So far I've seen that there is a TON of useful information and a TON of helpful people on this site. Enjoy!