All Forum Posts by: Sean Butterfield

I appreciate all the feedback, Adam Johnson we kinda like the idea of manage-to-own situation, we'll give that one a try and see what he says. This will be a full time job for me to replace my current job, and the seller will be staying on as an assistant, so to speak, until we have the wheel. My wife has 12 years of property management experience so the paperwork will be taken car of by her. We'll also be keeping on his 2 handymen to assist with maintenance. Again, THANK YOU for the feedback!! Much appreciated!!

He's selling for health reasons mainly, but also cause he's just tired of it. We feel that we can eliminate some of his current headaches with better tenant screening and better maintenance of the properties. I didn't say we didn't have ANY money, we just don't have a million bucks laying around. Why is it pie in the sky?

Haven't posted in a LONG time so bear with me here. My wife and I are trying to purchase our ex-landlords rental properties, which is around 50 SFH, an 18 unit apt bldg., and a 12 unit apt bldg. We need a $1.2 million down payment and frankly we're are unsure of how we're going to get it. Any suggestions on how about getting a down payment this big? We just bought our house in Feb of this year, so equity isn't there. The business is very profitable, so we won't have a problem paying the loan, we're just unsure of a way to come up with this amount of money. On the surface hard money and/or private investors don't seem like a viable option, but am I wrong for not considering private money? We basically don't want to get tied up in a financing deal where the investor(s) get too much of a say in OUR business, or can call on the loan balance prior to the end term of the loan. ANY help and/or guidance would be VERY helpful!! Thanks in advance!!

Thanks Matt. We'll definitely start looking into info on cash flow. Me thinks financing might go smoothly just because we'll be using his bank, he grew up with his bank's president. Btw Matt, your last name was my mother's maiden name, I'm going to take that as a good omen.

Well we're not going to do it unless it works out financially, both in buying and running it. As far as property management goes, he'll be helping us out on that as well.

Thanks Marco, I'm not too worried about the acquisition of the business, as he knows we JUST bought a house, and down payment isn't happening lol. I'm more worried about the actual running of the business, as in rent collection, maintenance, etc. We both work full time so that has to be considered. We're pretty sure that our net profit will be MUCH higher than what we're pulling in now, but I guess I'm asking what would you do if rhis was thrown in your lap?

Our ex landlord has proposed to us the sale of his 40-plus rental properties as he is in declining health, and as he put it, he's just tired of it. The bulk of his properties are single family homes, with a few du/triplexes and 12+ unit apartments. He's been at it for 15+ years so I can understand. What in your opinion would be our biggest hurdle in acquiring and running a turn-key operation like this? He stated that he would "stay on" in a consultant/mentor role until we got the hang of it, but we're not sure how long that would be obviously. Has anyone have ANY advice/thoughts on how we could pull this off?

Thanks for clearing up the 50% and 2% rules REI. I understand it now.

OK here's all the info I have: Two properties w/8 fully rented units, $3890 gross income/month, seperate utilities. Annual taxes $1486, ins $1780, maint $1000. Asking price is $99,900-recently was priced 25K higher. Was looking at previous posts about rental analyses but am not grasping the 2% and 50% "rules". Now I assume I would need rental history, utilities, why the recent discount, also $3890 divided by 8 is like $483 and some change which is kind of an uneven number. Plus all the other stuff like prop cond, liens and the like. What do you guys think? What else should I be looking at? This is a prop advertised by a local realtor by the way. Is this something I should proceed with cautiously or grab it quick? I hope I'm giving you guys enough info and sorry for all the questions but right now my head is spinning from searching this forum to answer my questions.

Also check with your local Chamber of Commerce and Dept. of State. I'm in the same boat as you and am looking behind every rock I come across just to get all the info I can. If the only assets I have are a couple of dimes to rub together I sure as h*ll don't want to lose them. Remember you can be sued for whatever reason someone can dream up. Even if you don't lose the case, lawyers aren't free.