All Forum Posts by: Marco Harris II

@Crencenthia F Brown

Cool Durban has blown up since I left I wish I would have gotten more while I was there.

@Joy Omenyi

I got started with the brrrr strategy as well, I bought a 3 unit on North and Broadway for cash the refinanced it and bought the next two and did the same. I then bought 2unit that I live in and rent out. The city is hard to deal with as a municipality but there is plenty of opportunity as far as stating from the bottom and working your was up if that what you’re into.

@Joy O. 

Good luck! Sending positive vibes your way!! 

All of my properties are in the City. 2 East, 1west, and 1 downtown, I’m looking to grab a few more single family rentals in the city to take advantage of those low price points you mentioned, then start to transition to larger multifamily properties and other types of investments and maybe flips here and there. I would really also like to start focusing on particular communities and try to develop as well. 

@Joy O. Hey Joy welcome back! It looks like we have taken similar paths! Congrats on closing on your first rental! What areas and types of property are you investing in?

@Crencenthia F Brown

Hello, my properties are in near NCCU and off of Main in East Durham. I do use a realtor up here in Baltimore. 

@Crencenthia F Brown

Hello Crecencthia, 

Yea I'm still investing. I moved to Baltimore so I'm mainly focused down here but I still have two properties in Durham NC. How about you?

Hello all,

Can anyone in NY city who is familiar with the probate process please help me?!?!? I have a good friend whose father passed away in 2011. He has been contacted by the property manager of the building where his deceased fathers’ condo or co-op (I don't know which one it is) is and the property manager is offering to purchase the property from him for $70k. I looked the address up in the NY tax record database and based off of that it appears to be worth a lot more. From what the property manager said, there are back maintenance fees and some other fees that need to be paid as well as lawyer fees that have to be paid in order to get the property placed in my friends’ possession before the sale can take place. The property manager referred my friend to a lawyer and said that he would pay the lawyer and all of the fees associated with getting the property available to sell. I told my friend that this sounds like a conflict of interest and that he should try to collect as much information about the property as well as the process before agreeing to sell or even have a lawyer retained on his behalf buy this guy who he doesn’t know. The problem is neither I nor my friend know where exactly where to begin to get this information nor exactly what information we need to know so that he can make an informed decision about what to do with the property. I made a short list of all of the things I could think of that he needs to know and the list is as follows…

Does your father owe the bank or anyone else any $$ for the property.

Is the property a Co-op. or condo?

Who is the owner of the building that the property is in?

What are the city/state taxes on the property,

What are any and all fees associated with the property

Co-op/condo fees...

Maintenance fees...

What are some of the other question that we should get the answers to so that my friend can make the best informed decision. And where should we start to find these answers? Both my friend and I live in Baltimore MD so we would be doing this from afar.

Thanks in advance for any and all insight.

Marco II

OK here goes...

I have a foreclosed 3 unit property under contract to purchase for $35,000. I qualify to receive a 5 year forgivable grant in the amount of $36,000 (33,500 from my employer, and 2,500 from Baltimore city) that will go towards the down payment, closing cost and principle as long as I live in the house which I plan to do. But in order to use/receive this grant money I have to purchase the property using a loan. The property doesn't need much work at all. It could use a few upgrades but all systems are functional and 2 units are rented out at a total of $1400/month. Most loan products I have looked at require me to borrow a minimum of $50,000 to do a conventional mort. Wells Fargo could do an FHA loan as low as $15K but after down payment, closing costs, and principle pay down there still has to be $15,000 of Debt remaining for them to do the loan. so that means I could only use about $20K the grant money after down payment and closing costs. leaving me with a $15K mortgage for absolutely no reason. I thought about purchasing the property with cash but at closing placing it in a business associates LLC then selling it to myself under my name for $50K and use all of the incentive $ available from my job but I was told this would raise red flags due to a flipping law. I was also told that I would have to wait 90 days to re-sell it and would need documentation of improvements that would justify the $15K raise in price. I don't want to wait 90 days and I don't want to do unnecessary work just to justify a price raise that I am only doing because banks won't lend me the $ in need to do the deal. I don't want to lose the deal and really want to take advantage of all of the incentive money available to me. does anyone have any suggestions as to ways to make this happen. Oh and I though about using an FHA 203K rehab loan to raise the purchase price but then I will still have conjure up repairs and do unnecessary upgrades just to get the price up to $50K or whatever the minimum is required to do a loan and I feel like I just shouldn't have to do that. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I would say it definitely depends case by case house by house, tenant by tenant. I have a property that I have rented out section 8 on 2 separate occasions. In the first the tenant kept a neat house and didn't tear anything up until she started making demands that I make improvements that weren't warranted. When I refused she then became a problem and things went south. The current tenant is an old lady who also keeps the house in good shape and rarely calls me for anything. I actually have to check with her to make sure everything is good with the property. Of course I hope she lives (in my house) forever.

In my opinion the housing authority employees are worse to deal with than the tenants. The employees aren't of the highest quality and for some reason feel/act as though they are not in the customer service industry. It takes a lot to get anything "paperwork" or otherwise done in a timely fashion and good luck getting the actual person who is handling your file on the phone when needed.

But you do get higher rents than most would be willing to pay directly out of pocket and the payments do come consistently and on time.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Al,
Same question. For the situations where you gave your investors a check each month until their principle was repaid. Was there a set interest rate that you agreed upon? If so, how did you come up with this figure?