All Forum Posts by: Chris Luksha

Truthfully I am not sure I am either @Thomas S. for the extra feedback as well.  

Thank you @Chris Mason and @Account Closed

Being my first ever potential deal (currently two in the works) I am not sure about the contract.  To be frank I need some hand holding.  What do I need in the contract that says I am willing to buy it contingent on the actual money statements? 

This particular seller seems amazingly motivated to sell before the dead of winter which sends up some red flags for me. What little I can see on his initial blurry statement is that he is spending anywhere from $10-$13k in oil a year and $2-$3k in electricity.  I am guessing this place needs some serious window replacement etc.

I will look around for a decent purchase and sales agreement but again, I need some hand holding on the contingencies as I don't have a lawyer as of yet.  I would like to put something together for the lawyer to review verses write up himself.

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I will also ask him about the non-disclosure as this might be a good course for this seller.  He is seemingly very unsavvy and I don't want to screw up for both our sakes. I don't want to lose out but at the same time I don't want to inadvertently rake him over the coals either.

Just keep moving forward. Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.

Hi All, 

I just wanted to say that the concepts behind the old adage "think and grow rich" are finally coming to fruition in my world.

It is exciting to be looking at homes that could be bought and held, flipped, etc. Just this last month a friend of mine who I have been telling about my desires to build rental income etc. has approached me with the potential to flip using his HELOC.

Now I wasn't looking at flipping to start but have come to the realization that flipping may be my only real entry into buy and hold, as the rental industry in my area (where I want to focus to start so I can drive by if needed - even a couple hours away,) is not so great right now and certainly takes capital that I don't have.

So now I have the potential to flip my first property from auction in the dead of winter.  It has potential to be anywhere from a $10k to $50k flip depending on the route we take. We are not in it to make a quick buck, but to at least make a buck after paying ourselves to do the flip. 

With that said, we are looking at a ranch house that someone attempted to PLOP a second story on top of.  It looks goofy and is one of those "There's a buyer for every house" mantra houses. It would be a hard sell.

However even if we decide to make a little on the sale and help a family into their first home etc. we would be overjoyed with that.

So here is the predicament.  As we did our first walk through we saw the poor job the last person did at plopping a new story on the ranch.  It is half finished and has leaked in the past - the entire roof needs doing over. There are many many things to play with but I was wondering if anyone has deliberately devalued their investment property before?

We figure it would take us about $65-$70k to finish where the last guy left off as the grounds need a decent amount of work too. OR we could spend about $30-$40k and remove the entire second story and only do the first floor over with a new roof. This would bring the home from a potential $140-$160k 3/2 home to about a $100-$120k 2/1 home. We think we might be able to get the house for $33k.

To be honest I would love to see someone get a new home and be a part of it. 

Thoughts from the world of successful investors.....

Hi All,

I am looking at a property that is a couple hours from where I live and before I go travelling to look at it, I have done preliminary research on the community etc.  At the same time I have been asking the seller for a rent roll and other data to back up his cash flow claim.

I have been given jpegs of a quicken rental manager report, but it could be rigged in oh so many ways.  I only question it because his claims are a bit too high to be realistic unless he was a poor manager of the property, in which case I don't want it.  No matter how I run the numbers, I can only cash flow half of what he is claiming

Anyway - does anyone out there use Quicken rental property manager and know what I can tell him to get me the info I need from the system? I don't want an accountant's copy because it will probably have all his personal finances as well and he would be crazy to offer it up like that. 

Is there an account or two that he could potentially export for me to import into a trial version of Quicken rental manager and get a better realistic look? Are there particular categories that anyone knows of that I request are included in the data?

For example the image he gave me simply says annual rent equals $nnn. However there are 6 units and I want to see the history of them all - not the lump sum. Another would be a line item that says "other maintenance" but doesn't show what that other maintenance was.

Anyway - if you know what I am looking for it will be obvious to you.

Thanks in advance all.

Chris

I currently use the free listings for my area and have found that like most of the foreclosure sites out there - they do not work to clean up their list.  I am constantly getting properties sent to me that have been sold for months.  (Which is why I went back to the free option.)

I find this is the same for the couple that I tried a couple months of paid service to as well.

It would seem they are depending on the listing agents who put the properties online to also go and take their properties offline - else these services simply keep pushing long gone properties.

That is my experience over the last 5 months of trying different foreclosed listing services.

You will have to try and see.  Spend the money for one month on one, the one month on another then another, and check every listing you see - not just the highly potentials.  You may find they are better at cleaning data in Illinois.

I hear the Chicagoland area is picking up again.  You have thoughts on that living in the area?  My sister in law lived in downers grove for a few decades.  I like the area out there.

Blessings,

Chris

Thanks @Account Closed. I wasn't so concerned with the amount as I was with confirming that B of A did in fact buy it.  That was the last deed on the property that I could find.

I'm still new to reading deeds - but it looks like 3 minutes tells me that B of A bought the property from HUD for $1. Does that sound right?

Wow!  Thank you all for the feedback.  I will spend an hour or so looking for deed of record etc. and seeing what is up then move on as mentioned.  I can afford the time ;)

What great information you all gave, I appreciate it so much!

Blessings,

Chris

Good morning all.

Recently I came across a property in town that has a weatherization sticker in the window. I went to the town records and found the taxes are being paid by Bank of America. After going to B of A's REO search I found they do not have it listed. After that I called B of A's REO line on their website. That gives me the run around.

Then I went to my local realtor to ask how I might get in contact with someone to talk about buying the property.  He said he could not help me. Being that I live an hour from the nearest B of A - I don't have many opportunities to visit a branch (no excuse I know.) 

My question is: does anyone know someone at Bank of America that I might talk to about the property or know of a direction to go in that might bet me more information and an opportunity to buy the property from them before the end of the year?

Thank you all and Merry Christmas.

Chris

I am wondering how you came up with $2k a month in rental for this? I have been looking in that area as an out of town investor and I can't seem to see anything suggesting a SFH in that area would get that much in rental. Unless maybe you were considering college rentals in Orono or Old Town. Then I could potentially see it. That is what I have been trying to develop from out of state.

 Because she is already retirement age, the whole 'lower tax bracket when you sell out, so lower capital gains" idea is somewhat out.  But you could always bring that too her attention, the less she gets from you up front, the less she gives back to Uncle Sam.  Just a thought.

Anyway - I hope it works out for you. Keep us up to date on how it goes.  Do you know any 'currently investing' brokers or realtors up there?

Blessings,

Chris