All Forum Posts by: Chris R.

Look at your comparables, my paranoid guess is that the 'free' lot is included in the purchase price.

I'm in a similar situation and I currently have 3 units (previously had 5 but was able to 'flip' two of them unexpectedly). What I have done:
1. Find a target area for buy and hold
2. Find a realtor that is always doing business in that area (get a generic email address and subscribe to as many realtor mailing lists as you can, easy to figure out if/where they specialize)
3. Find a property manager that is doing business in that area (in my case, the realtor was the property manager)
4. Wait for a good deal and buy

I haven't done, or even looked into, tax liens, notes, etc.

Thank you all for the replies! Very good information indeed.

After deliberation, we are going to move forward with the court date. I'm not going to refuse money by means of sending it back when I have no proof it is hers, only my assumption.

The tenant will likely have a receipt for cash payment and the judge won't grant the eviction, but the judge will be made aware of her refusal to establish contact (and I'll be $800 closer to the amount she owes, that's less I'll have to chase down). I imagine next month I'll be filing an eviction again, but this time I'll have a blanket rule on the accounts that no deposits are to be accepted unless made by account signatories (I emailed my account rep at bank and he had it done in a couple minutes).

I'll be setting up erentpayment.com as some other tenants have already been requesting this ability.

@Rob, I'm definitely open to trying your suggestion on this tenant. This entire time I've been trying to get a response from her, I can see how a letter with solutions that she can choose from could help.

Thank you all for your feedback, it's been instrumental in coming to our decision.

Chris

Aly, I am in KY and the lease doesn't say anything about partial payments. And Joel, the one decision I have made so far, is to nix the direct deposit stuff.

Direct deposit has allowed tenant to pay partial rent and not tell us about it (tenant refuses any communication). I'm sure if I don't go with option 2 she will show up at court with a receipt for the payment and I would have wasted 10 days.

Thanks for the replies. I'm definitely leaning towards option 2 Ray, but not completely there yet.

Ralph, I wished my bank would have talked me out of it :) I realized today that it is a bad idea. I'll be contacting the bank to see if there is a way to refuse deposit from any one other than an authorized rep from the company. Otherwise, I'll be closing the account and opening a new one.

Hello!

I have a tenant currently in the eviction process and I was hoping to get some feedback/advice/suggestions for dealing with the recent events. Here it is:

- October rent never paid.
- 7 day delivered on 10/6 (5 day grace)
- County backlog means court date not until 11/18
- Invoice w/October rent, November rent, atty fees sent
- November rent not paid
- All-in, tenant currently owes $1665
- Absolutely zero contact from tenant - no reply to emails/texts/phone calls
- 11/4 a deposit hits our account for roughly 1/2 of amount due. However, deposit was made with cash - we have no idea who actually made it, we are assuming it's our 'professional tenant'
- Called atty today, advised of my options, but didn't give me advice on which option to choose:
Option 1: Return money, proceed with 11/18 court date (keep in mind, we have no definitive proof this is her money)
Option 2: Keep money, deliver another 7 day and start over.

I'd be happy to get this tenant out, but, again, our assumption is that the money came from her but there is no proof and I'm not about to call other tenants to find out if they're paying their rent early (the amount does not equal any other rent due). We are speculating the tenant will show up in court with a receipt for payment and the judge will see that as good faith and let them stay.

I'm just hoping to get some insight on what others may do in this situation.

Thanks much!

Chris

My first check is market rent / .03 (I've seen .02 used here but that just isn't enough for me). If there is a chance I can get it for that price or less, I'll then look at rent-ready repairs and subtract them. Chris M.'s formula is very conservative and I like that, I'll add it to my checks. So far, I haven't purchased anything that is worse than (market rent / .032) - repairs but I have had to be very patient.

[Edit] I should maybe add that we are doing 0 down financing (6%, 7 yr) and paying for repairs out of pocket

@james hamling: Those are the ones wholesalers add to their buyers list because they know they purchase with cash

Even though you've received several different replies - they are all right. You can have a $5000 web site with fixed costs of ~$45/yearly or you can have a $50 web site with the same fixed costs. Both can get you the same results. Marketing a site can be easy, expensive, cheap, useless, profitable, and on and on. It depends on how you approach it.

Do research on SEO (search engine optimization) but make sure you get your information from quality sites. Seomoz.com or Matt Cutts with Google are excellent places to start.

Hostgator.com is a great suggestion, I've recommended them many times (they have plans as low as $48/yearly I believe) and with one-click installs you can literally be publishing in a matter of minutes. Use the wordpress.com forums with help in getting your site the way you want it.

It doesn't have to be expensive and it can be a marketing campaign in and of itself. The great part is that it won't cost you an arm and a leg to make changes to your campaign once you have it up and running (try different squeeze pages as Todd suggested).

I'm new to being a landlord, but if they moved in and the carpets did not need cleaning and now they do I'd definitely say no. I like Tom's idea of giving them an upgrade though.