All Forum Posts by: Mark Elliott

hi corey. i have done it myself. one room, it came off like melted butter, the other damn near took an act of God to get it off. depends on what is under it i guess. i used just straight water on it, but the vinegar and water might do the trick as well. yes, some of this stuff does contain asbestos. i had a sample tested before i even started it. found out it contained no asbestos, so i did it myself. yes, it does make a mess, but in a rehab, you are gonna have messes anyway, right?

hi edgar. i have never bought from the court house steps here in buffalo, but i sure am interested in checking it out. i have been doing flipping properties for quite a few years and would like to add this method to my resume. i have been in the court house and checked out the upcoming places on the board they have there, but have never attended the auction. i am a home inspector here in the western ny area, so i feel pretty confident that i could buy there with great confidence as to what i would be buying. always looking for another contact here on BP as well. 

hello, KJ. its a noble idea, but not a financial practical one. there are reasons these areas of any town are in disrepair. its because those who live there, treat where they live and how they live with just as little concern as they can. they also look at paying their bills in the same manner. there is a reason most of these people are on the section 8 program. they have little intrest in doing anything to better their lives, and they will treat your rent in the same manner. i applaud you wanting to break into the real estate world, and i recommend that you do so, but find better areas. you will pay more money for sfh's in other areas, but you will have less headaches

feel free to contact me anytime, jim. i have bee doing real estate investing for many years in this area and i am also a licensed home inspector as well. 

all very good advice. add to that a trip to www.annualcreditreport.com. by federal law, you are entitled to one free credit report from all 3 agencies each year. this is where you can get it. and, yes, it is free as opposed to the free credit reports websites which are anything but free. in this website, you can dispute any negative information that you do not agree with. many peoples credit report will contain things that are not theirs. these agencies are NOT accurate by many means. they mix up stuff with people with similar names, close social security numbers, etc. go to the website and check things out, you can improve your score easier than you think. and, by all means, please accept and use the advice of the people who have answered you back prior to myself. it is good advice

that is true, joel, it will NOT hurt your score to use annualcreditreport.com. by federal lawy, you are entitled to once free copy of your credit report from all 3 agencies per year. using annualcreditreport.com is a means of getting that credit report for free. beware, not all websites are free, but this one is. 

all good advice, assuming all municipalities are the same, which they are not. here in western new york, every place is different from the next. one government may allow you to do everything without a permit and couldn't care less about anything, and the very next will have regulations so bad that you wouldn't drive thru the damn place, let alone buy a house there. i do whatever i want, whenever i want and the less these people know about what you are doing, the better. sounds like i am doing something " illegal", but if i own the place, i have paid my dues and i should be able to do what i want with it. i bought one house that had an added on room on the back, and it was so bad, i was quite sure it was " unpermitted". well, long story short, i talked to the building code guy and he said that it was unpermitted, and i would have to get a permit to tear it down, as was my plan. i asked him why i would have to get a permit to tear down something that they didn't even know was there. he decided to let me tear it down without a permit. these people can be worked with if you treat them right, but personally, i will try to get away with as much as i can, but then again, thats my nature

well, you have some good advice here alex. but there is more to the story. not only do you have to get your credit score up, but you also need to set it in a position that allows you to do what you want to in REI. first, what is your score? where do you want it to be? paying off the car loan helps with the debt to income ratio, but if your score is low now, no one is going to loan you money anyway so what would the debt to income ration matter anyway? second, raising your debt limit on that credit card will help increase your score by increasing your avalible borrowing limit, true, but you could do the same thing by paying off a smaller portion of that debt. you do not want to pay off the card entirely because a lender will see you as not being willing to use your avalible money and that actually hurts your credit score too. the magic number is about 30%. here is what i would do. if your score is good enough to get a loan now, go refinance your car, use some of that money to pay down on the credit card, not all the way down, just down by about half right now. then, go get an increase on that credit limit on that card. that will make your usage level at about 30%. then, on that new car loan, make sure that you borrow no more than about 30% of the value of that car. some credit agencies will look at that in the same way the credit cards are rated.

go to annualcreditreport.com. dispute ANYTHING negative on your credit reports, all 3 credit reports. it doesn't matter if anything negative is true, dispute it anyway. i will tell you why. when you dispute something, the credit agency is required to contact the creditor associated with the reported account. that creditor has 30 to 45 days to respond back as to whether or not it is true. if they do not report back, then that account is removed from your credit report as though it never existed. that will also boost your credit score. this is how the credit gurus do it. its not " dorky little ways" that they use, it is something that YOU can do yourself. whats " dorky" about it is that people will actually pay someone to do this for them when they could do it for themselves. good luck in your adventures, and let me know if i can help further.

negativity in this world is far more common than an honest politician. when you are swimming up stream, you are going to find more hurdles and pitfalls than if you swan downstream. going downstream is easy, any idiot can do it. its those of us that swim upstream that have the courage and foresight to reach our goals. if all you wanted to do is just exist and go about life until you are dead, well, then follow the crowd and swim downstream. pretty soon you will find yourself just as unhappy and negative as they are, but comfortable because you are barely eeking out an existence with minimal work involved. sounds just a tad bit boring to me. those of us who are willing to swim upstream meet challenges, hurdles and negativity along the way, but we also have the biggest stories to tell because we have had some damn great adventures along the way. its not the reaching the goal that gives you the stories to tell, its the journey getting there. you can have the thrill of achieving your goal without the hell to go thru in getting there. that hell gives you some incredible stories to tell along the way, and if you wanna try it again, well, now you know what to expect along the way and the next journey won't be quite so hard. let those little people sit in their cubicles along their way and have nothing to show or tell about it in the end. i would rather have the journey to talk about when i get to my goals. 

property managers can be very useful, especially to out of state investors. obviously, living in a different state puts the owner at a serious disadvantage to knowing what is going on with their properties at all times. thats where the property managers come in. their job is simple for the most part. keep the tenants happy while keeping the owner happy. that requires providing good housing at a fair price and maintaining a certain level of expectation for the tenant. of course the property manager gets paid to do that, but too may property management companies are ripping people off buy saying a property is vacant when it isn't, charging for repairs that were never done or needed, and over charging for services. you have to watch out for these people. there are a lot of them. when you find one that does what they are supposed to do and doesn't rip you off, keep them. you have found that rare manager. you have to shop around and do your home work when looking for a property manager. unfortunately, you will probably go through many before you find that right one. i suggest a good real estate attorney. ask them who they have had the LEAST amount of court time with. any property manager that is decent and doesn't rip you off, hasn't spent a lot of time in a court room against the other attorney.