All Forum Posts by: Amanda Hensley

That is exciting!  

There is a volunteer chapter of the SBA, called SCORE (service corps of retired executives) - they have chapters all across the US.  I think it would be worth your time to give them a call and see if they can meet with you - I found their experiences very helpful in my own business pursuits.

You will want to evaluate portions of the business differently.

Inventory

Real estate assoc(if any)

Financials and track record (last X years revenue/exp, trends, debts, etc)

Business "goodwill"

You will also want to make your own assessments as to 1) the value of the employees and training they've had and a forecast on how much turnover you will experience as a result of the sale (because you can count on there being *some*)

You will also want to assess the economic conditions and potential future of this business to see if the value will go up or down.

All of those factors should play into the price.

Also, sometimes - depends on the loan, but you can assume a loan in this scenario.  If that is the case here, then perhaps you can assume the $150K loan and borrow the rest from the sellers on some kind of owner carry deal...

Best of luck to you.

Holy cow, @Linda Weygant - that co-worker seems like a real piece of work!  Sorry you had to endure that.  

Myself, I have a pretty demanding job, which was one reason why we bought out of state for our rentals at first and use a prop mgmt company (I made myself do that so that I would not be trying to control everything like I really want to).  Teaching myself to lean on others and manage the mgmt was a good skill. 

One of my former co-workers is also into real estate so we talk fairly often about it, but most of the people I know, don't seem to be interested, so I don't bring it up, unless someone asks.

I have a tenant who pre-paid for six months, and it's worked out OK so far.  He was using student loans to pay the rent (as they were often late with it before).  This is the last month that was paid, so I'm very curious to see if they will continue to pre-pay since it's the start of a new semester, or if they will be late again (or have to be evicted). 

My guess is that they're waiting on appreciation.  We have several commercial owners here in my area that are keeping old buildings empty on purpose, waiting on a developer to purchase.

Thanks for responding. I understand where you're coming from. If you truly need a place to live, then that doesn't seem unethical to me. If you already owned a house and were just going to move into this one in order to 1) get OO financing, which is usually way better than investment financing and 2) follow your city's laws on tenant eviction / rent increases (I'm assuming you have those), then to me personally, that would be unethical (although quite legal). There are plenty of others who would disagree with that and say, it's just business.

Kudos to you for getting started!  I wish you the best of luck!  A fourplex is a big undertaking as your first property, but many others have done well with those.  I'm sure you will, too!

Do you *really* need a place to live, or are you planning to owner occupy the under market unit in order to be able to raise the rent to market?

I personally would feel badly kicking out an elderly person on a fixed income just so I could raise the rent to market...  You are not doing too badly on this deal with the rent on that unit where it is....

That eviction is too soon - this tenant would not meet my criteria.

Bamboo is extremely invasive.  Only way I know to get rid of it, is to dig it out, and you'll be doing that every year for several years.

Unless the competitor realtor that this client has hired spins his review of your property in such a way to downplay the home in the hopes of pulling this client from you.  I'm not saying that WILL happen, but people are not always ethical.  I don't think that should change how YOU do business though.  If you are selling a quality product, another buyer will come along.

Look for certified property managers in your areas - that would be the first place I'd look, if you don't have any personal references.

I think this is the right link:

http://www.irem.org/about-irem/member--amo-directories