All Forum Posts by: Cherie Ganesh

How much is owed in taxes? Can you pay off the taxes and put a motgage on her house? Is there a current mortgage? If she can't pay taxes how will she pay you rent? Do owners have the right if redemption in PA after a tax sale? if so even after a tax sale she csn't be forced out of her house for some period of time and if taxes are paid along with interest the house can be redeemed and given back to her. That could give you more time to help her find a solution to remain in her home.  I would check with the taxing authority to see what the legal process is and at what point the resident is forced out of the house.  Good luck in helping her out.

I would look at appraisal and see how he treated the repairs that are needed. There are some lenders who will do a short term loan for the estimated amounts of repairs if those will pull the value up to where you need it to be and then merge the original loan and the "construction" loan together into one loan. If it's insurable by FHA I believe they have a program that might work for you since they're used to buyers of foreclosures having to do repairs and you are planning on living in it for at least a year.

I have some info I'm sending you today.

The bill board companies typically have their own leases which are definitely favorable to them and hard to cancel should you ever need to.  Prices tend to be all over the board so it won't be easy to get a good number. I'd be glad to see if anyone in my network has recent experience with leasing locations for billboards or cell phone towers in CA who might be a good  & more local resource for you to consider talking to.  There are definitely specialists in those areas of commercial real estate.

Thanks for the helpful vote.

First I'll disclose that I'm a commercial broker in Memphis who doesn't do apartments.  However I have had significant formal training on investment analysis during my career and by teaching it in the classes offered by the CCIM Institute to standardize methods of investment analysis and to provide a professional designation as a CCIM (Certified Commercial Institute Member).  I highly suggest that as a budding investor that you take some time to take at least the basic course in that curriculum which can be done online or in a classroom which is a four day commitment of your time. I have had many investors take the courses just so they develop a strong understanding of calculating alternative investment opportunities and learn how to analyze a market for forecasting rent increases or possible decreases.  I would also highly recommend that you pick a specific market area to focus on initially and find an experienced multi-family investment broker to help you look at various alternatives.  It can be very difficult to try to start out doing everything yourself.  I am always very conservative in any acquisition analysis I do which is usually retail and if there is more than 5  tenants, I build in a property management number even if I think I can do it myself.  At least I have given myself room for miscalculations I may have made instead of paring down the expenses too much.  As you add more properties your experience will assist you a lot in knowing how tight you can squeeze a projected budget and how to recognize when a seller has left items out of the budgets they initially provide you.  Once you're able to see either certified property records or tax filings, you'll see either the real expenses for the property or the fluffed expenses LL has included to get better tax treatment.  I love finding that stuff since he's now immediately lowered the value of his property and now I guess I have to use his higher expense number in my budget!!  Wow, looks like lower case flow on the property.....

Good luck in your endeavors.

I'm a commercial broker in Memphis and have done lots of tenant rep work over the years.  I believe it's in your benefit to find a good local commercial agent who can show that they have experience in leasing activities.  As a broker I usually also recommended that the tenant use an attorney to do a review of the legal terms in the lease and let him explain those to the client.  You will find a lot of very confusing language in most commercial leases with insurance language being some of the most antiquated language in existence.  I even suggest that they ask their insurance agent to review the insurance clauses to assure that you can actually perform under the language or will the cost be prohibitive to you as the tenant.  There are also many different types of commercial leases: net leases that have base rent and tenant is responsible for their share of taxes, insurance and common area maintenance; gross leases that have all costs built into rent and a base lease year rent increase calculation is set up to deal with increased landlord expenses; and blended leases that can mix these two basic types of commercial leases.  Language involving what improvements landlord will be doing and what you will be doing and what info you need to provide landlord has to be negotiated along with what is actually included in common area maintenance.  In addition to commercial brokerage I did store development for a national retailer for ten years and can't tell you how much crazy language we saw across the U.S.  It's never as simple as a residential lease so you need a good representative helping you with landlord negotiations of the business points of the deal and then a good attorney to review the lease to assure that there are no onerous requirements in there "just because" landlord has used the same lease for 50 years.  I am a CCIM which is a highly respected certification a commercial real estate person can obtain.  I know there are good folks in St. Louis who can be a assistance.  I highly suggest you check out possible agents by going to www.ccim.com and look for a member.  It gives you the opportunity to search in your market area and also by type of agent.  I would look for folks who show they have retail experience then look at their profiles that appear when you click on their name.  If you don't easily find someone, please let me know and I'll see who might be someone for you to call.  I know this is long, but hopefully it will help you see how complex commercial leases can be and this has only scratched the surface.  Good luck in your endeavors and I hope all goes well for you.

In additional to probable ordinance violations, nothing was mentioned about the liability issues that could cause your insurance company to cancel your insurance if they find out that many dogs on on the premises.  Although landlord is not directly the responsible party but is definitely the deep pockets should an attorney get involved.  You end up having to deal with going to court to try to prove to a judge that you weren't who owned the dogs.  However, you did allow the tenant to have the dogs and most likely allowed an ordinance to be violated.  We have very strong pet language and even restrict certain breeds and restrict the tenant from chaining the dog to a post in the back yard. Since we live close to our rental houses, we typically find out what's going on by going by to do some type of maintenance review like making sure they're changing air filters in the HVAC units.  Any excuse to get into the property and see how things are going. Usually just a notice to our tenants have resolved issues before they get out of hand.

Thanks so much. Was thinking about that as an option.  I've been told that private investors can get a quit claim deed signed by borrower that can be recorded if mortgage goes into default.  Have you ever heard of that to make foreclosure easier?

Here are the applicable IRS publications which should be of assistance.  You may be referenced to other publications.  If you go to https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/formsPublications.html you can find these publications:  527, 544 and 550.  The last one guides you through the capital gains process.  Make sure to add all capital improvements you made to the property that you might not have deducted previously on your tax returns to get the proper basis for your property.  Hopefully this helps.  If not I highly suggest finding a good tax advisor who can assist you.