All Forum Posts by: David DuCille

Mike H. Just sent you a colleague request that was pretty much asking what you just laid out there.  That was teh best I've seen using hard money laid out.  Thank you for that.  I really hadn't strongly considered it and now I feel like I'm a fool for not!!!  My fiancee is the breadwinner, we moved to Tampa to for her job and it pays fantastic and it has financed 2 of our rental purchases thus far but I'm looking to do a lot more purchases and I'm really thinking this is the way to do it.

good to know!  Thanks.  So the option is sort of a guaranteed fee that will be paid just reserving the right to buy the property.  The purchase price is decided at the start of the term, correct?  my buyer then has to make the purchase at some point during the initial lease or he loses the exclusive option?

honestly, im not well versed in how these work.  I believe he has upwards of 40k cash at his disposal.  Does the option fee get treated like a down payment? Or is this additional money.  Does the rent get applied towards the sell price in a rent to own scenario?  We are open minded to anything.

I am a licensed Realtor working with a buyer that had a divorce and shortsale several years ago. He is well outside of the guidelines for being able to qualify for an FHA loan, however, he discoverd issues in his divorce decree relating to who was responsible for remaining debts and has found that some items are still on his credit report that he wasn't aware of. We have found the next home for his family and hit this stumbling block. He is more than qualified on basis of income and can make a significant downpayment on the property, he just needs to get the credit report items straightened out (currently disputing and will then settle them if need be) Home he is looking at purchasing is appx $275k located in the Lake Magdalene section of Tampa. His hope is some sort of Hard money loan to get into this property and then do an FHA loan when his other issues are sttled. Seller owns the home free and clear so opportunity for an investor to buy and do a lease option to him. He is considering all creative options as he really wants this house.

Reach out to me for more details.

neutral paint is the most expensive paint.  OOPS! Paint is the cheapest!  Every home depot and lowes has gallons of paints that were mixed incorrectly for the customer so they sell them for $5-10 a gallon.  Sometimes there are full 5 gallon buckets of oops paint too.  figuring out creative ways to use these paints can pay dividends.  While neutral paint is rule of thumb, properly done colors can add pop and a higher end feel to a property.

Appliances depends a lot on where you are and how nice the units are but yeah, if you are trying to get higher rents, stainless certainly gives the higher end look.  I also think nice backsplashes add great pop to a kitchen for short money.  redoing bathrooms are great bang for the buck reno's as well.  IF you have linen closets which negate the need for a vanity a nice looking pedestal sink can add a nice look and keep costs way down.  new tub is $125 and tiling a tub surround can also be done pretty cheap.  

fully agree with throwing out dirty blinds and putting in new ones, they are pretty cheap

this is rapidly turning into one of those "no right answer" questions.  I do agree that a tub is not a necessity, as i mentioned before, the only tenants that take baths are ones that are bathing their children.  With that said, doing a shower pan can be a pain in the *** and drive up costs.  I would probably do what I did in the pic I posted above and that is go with a new tub and tile the surround.  tubs are only $125 and super easy to install.  and tiling a surround is quick and easy work for a tile guy.  my tile guy has plumbing skills as well and he did my 2 bathrooms like the one pictured above for 1800.  I did the demo but he did the cement board install and prep, tub install, tiling, and shower plumbing and install.  I could have gotten it done cheaper probably but I love my tile guy and value the quality of his work and his attitude towards doing the work.  he is a pleasure to have around on the job site and easy to work with and that makes him worht the extra $$$ to me.  I also know that when issues come up, he will handle them and not nickel and dime me on them.  The job always gets done right at the price we agreed upon.

first, it's a girlfriend not a wife so her contribution may not be there forever.  2nd, brother as a roommate or any roommate, gets old after awhile so my initial advice is get some reserves saved to make sure that if both of them are gone, you can swing the mortgage without issue.  It sounds like you are already there.  The next thing is then simply looking for the next deal.  if your going to do tradtional mortgages, you will need 20% to put down on investment property and you will pay higher rates than primary residence mortgage but still those rates are around 5% right now so still it's cheap money.  It's all about analyzing the deal to know what you can get in rent.  In a perfect world you will find deals that cash flow now AND have opportunity for appreciation.  Personally, I'm after more cash flow at the moment even if it means limited appreciation because the market is still so relatively low vs 2007 that while my properties may not appreciate as much as I like, they are all bound to appreciate to some degree.

definately counter back to him and let us know how it goes.  I do agree with the others that your counter should be at a market value interest rate.  You have plenty of equity in this property.  Have you thought about simply countering the sale price but keep terms the same  i.e. 775k  with you carrying 10% of that for 5 years at 5%  (i'm a little confused with some of the numbers so I realize you may need to carry a bit more to make things work out for his main lender but my point is that with the amount of equity you have in the property, you are still getting a nice check in the bank at closing and will eek out a little incremental money for 5 years which realistically will only be a year or 2 when he sells his other house.  

Good stuff DL.  Makes a lot of sense.  Glad you didn't take any offense to my candidness, the written medium isn't always the best way to get things across.  My next suggestion would be if it doesn't work out with this seller, pull the listing for 60 days to sort of let it "reset" itself and come back to the market anew.  

Hey, you are retired at 50, you must have done a few things right along the way!

If you built it for $89 a sq ft, how is selling for $150/sq giving it away?  It sounds like you aren't that motivated to get back to the midwest. I don't see how waiting until april to sell it for 750k helps you any more than selling it now for $750k.  

How many showings have you had on this property since putting it up for sale?  Is this the only offer you've received?