All Forum Posts by: Sandy Blanton

Robert Perkins IMHO, whole life (or anything other than term life) is just about the worse investment anyone can make. If anyone comes at you with an idea to "invest" in such, run like Hades. No offense to my insurance sales friends. :)

Tim. I now see you're looking to form a PM biz vs. find one to manage your stuff. I got into the PM biz by "accident" if you will. Before I opened my firm I was with a national r/e franchise. The owner of that company shared with me that his PM department generated some $40K a month in commissions and it was "hands off" for him, his son ran it. Unlike real estate sales, which is typically very broker intensive/hands-on, a PM biz is so much easier to run in a more absentee fashion. I would recommend you work for a PM business for two years before opening your own practice. Unless you have some experience managing rentals of your own.

I owned a couple of dozen of my own rentals when I opened my firm, so I had to deal with rental management at least for my units. I think we have 50 or so units before I hired one full time property manager. Our current team consists of one executive, his assistant, a maintenance guy and a bookkeeper.

If you're more interested in commercial rentals, work towards a CCIM; go to I think it's CCIM.com, it's the standard of excellence for the commercial r/e industry.

CPM is a great designation for residential managers. I'm typing here half asleep so pardon my presentation. Certified Property Manager.

In Florida, you'd have to be a licensed r/e agent for two years before opening your own firm of any type: sales/rentals/etc. I'm unsure of your state's rules.

Have a good w/end.

Steven, re: our private chat. I failed to share with you that our "flips" haven't been "true flips" where we buy/fix/sell quickly. I guess you could call them "hybrids?" They were all owned for more than a year, and either my self or my partner lived in one of them OR they were rentals prior to being sold. That being said, our CPA's have treated these as long term capital gains. *Also, neither of us have occupied them over the 2 year minimum in order to enjoy the cap gain homestead exclusion. Thx again.

I've used ETC (Equity Trust Company) for a decade. They had some seriously constipated work flow problems during a year or two period. It was very frustrating. I think the fee for fast/3day? processing is $50 per transaction (extra). They seem to have their work processes back in order as I haven't had a problem for most of this year. I have no experience with other vendors.

Becoming a Realtor is the easiest job to "qualify" for a license. However, I equate it to show business: the top 2% of agents do 98% of the deals. If it were so easy, then 90% of the new agents wouldn't be out of business within two years. It's a revolving door. A seller needs an experienced/powerful listing agent. No new agent can provide these things. Pricing, negotiating, marketing...it's a skill that takes years to develop. If it were so easy, the exit rate wouldn't be so high and the average earnings/number of closed units so dismal. :)

I'm with these guys. How much is the cost of your capital? If you plug that in, it looks like you'll break even IF you sell at that high end of comp value AND your rehab costs are correctly estimated.

We always have a "minimum standard" of profit when we go into a flip. In this price range I wouldn't do it w/o a reasonable expectation to earn $40K after all expenses. If you're using hard money your capital costs will be huge. Based on what I see I wouldn't pay more than $120K for is as the other guy mentioned. Good luck, let us know how it goes.

Samantha, getting a real estate license is an option if you really want to be an agent for a full time job. I would have hated to be my first 100 clients though. Being an investor vs. agent are as similar as being a proctologist and a dentist. Most Realtors are better suited and strive to be "buyer agents" where they spend 40 hours a week meeting people at houses. You need to find someone in your market that is a top notch seller's agent. Being a seller's agent is where marketing and negotiating skills come into play. I would not hire a seller's agent that is selling less than 24 units a year, even in this market. That may sound like not so many, but the average Realtor in this Country is now averaging about 5 closings per year. Here is good sources for top seller agents: http://www.number1expert.com/Agents/. I'm a member,they are the only Realtor site that requires their agents prove they sell at least 30 units per year/I think that's the requirement.

Let me know if I can answer any questions.

I'm new to the site also, but I happen to own a Property Management business that handles 300+ rentals. I'll share my thoughts. Property management is perhaps the most stressful part of the real estate business: the most "moving parts:" everyone complaining: tenants about lack of repairs; landlords about paying for repairs. Landlords getting foreclosed on, our managers are the last ones to find out about this. It's the lowest-paying field in real estate per transaction. A profitable practice has to have a large number of rentals in order to thrive.

I think the firms that get the most complaints are the deep discounted firms. IE: we have a competitor that advertises they charge $50 per month flat fee for each rental with no up front "leasing fee" for tenant procurement. This is less than half of what typical firms charge. WE get lots of their old Landlords who say they couldn't get calls returned, always late getting rent checks, etc.

If you're looking for a good property manager I recommend finding a medium to large sized firm: one that handles at least 200 units. These firms have the infrastructure and systems to be efficient. Avoid the "cheap" firms, this is one area that you truly get what you pay for. Check the BetterBusinessBureau.com site for their BBB rating. Let me know if I can answer any specific questions.

Jason is right on, unresponsive sellers are the reason 80% of shorts sales fail to close. Although we close 30 short sale listings per year as brokers, I personally will never buy one. Too much hassle, not enough discount when compared to buying a repo unit. Also one guy mentioned an "arms length" affidavit: yes the buyer/seller/and both agents have to sign on on all short sales. My advice is to ignore short sale, buy foreclosures.

I'm late in on this game, but as a broker/owner I would have sent your referral fee to your broker and handled the charge back to my agent internally. It sounds like this issue took way too long and too much stress to solve.