All Forum Posts by: Dana Holland

So what happens when you only put down <10% on a $600K house and it's now worth $300K?  You still owe $540K on a house that you can only sell for $300K if you needed to.  So you just foreclose on it? Declare bankruptcy?  Then how are you going to buy another property.  Oh right... with cash!

I just don't understand how I see several people here saying things like "I use my HELOC all the time to make me money". If its making you so much money, why do you have to keep borrowing money? At some point you should have achieved those BIGGERpockets that will now enable you to use your own cash to invest.

The housing market is doing well now.  The economy is doing well now.  So we are all doing well.  When the tide goes out, we will know who was skinny dipping.

@Brent Coombs

I didn’t conclude that it would be good to not pay off the house.  I just was saying what was the point of paying it off to simply borrow against it again.

You all can enjoy your multiple loans and mortgages. Hopefully they make you super rich. If the housing market crashes again I’ll be interested to know how that’s working out for you.

 Taking out a loan is LESS risk than using cash?!?!  That has zero logic.  

Your last line is also totally false. Many people build businesses slowly with cash, and many real estate investors (sensible ones) use cash.

I’m so confused. Can anyone explain how in the world it makes sense to work really hard to pay a home off just to turn around and borrow against it again???  If you are going to do that, why didn’t you just save up the cash (instead of paying off the house) and use it to find a flip?

@Christian Wathne are you really suggesting that using a HELOC is the same risk as using cash?? The risk is that with a HELOC you are in debt to a bank and if for some reason (job loss, emergency situation, etc) you can't pay the bank, they come and take your home. People always say ‘oh that won't happen to me', but it happens every day. Debt is not a tool. I'm amazed at all the comments on this forum encouraging people to go many hundreds of thousands in debt. What happens if we have another housing crash?? I know it's not likely, but what if?? I don't want to owe $600,000 on real estate that is all of a sudden only worth $300,000

Its not smart to use a HELOC. You are introducing a huge amount of risk. You are assuming everything will work out great with the flip, but what if it doesn't? What if the rehab costs more than you planned? What if the Home doesn't sell for months and months?

Why do you NEED the quick cash? Sounds more like you just are itching to get started now. You poured every penny into paying your house off in2 years (congrats!), so why not just do the same for another year or two and save up enough to buy and rehab a flip? Or just buy your first rental? Once you buy the first and rent starts coming in, you save up to buy the second, then the 3rd, etc. Best to do it all with cash. It takes a little while to save up for the first and second, but after that you start to accumulate cash much faster.  Be a tortoise, not a hare.

Wow, you are so impressive.  You "own" 3 million in real estate (but really you don't since you imply that you have 1.5 mil in mortgages.  Yikes).  You tear down some guy who is "slovenly" and "low income" as if that makes him of much less importance than you.  Then you have to come brag about how much more your net worth is than his net worth on an internet forum.  What does any of this really matter anyway?

Perhaps you should go run for President...

I'm selling a property for the first time.  We are under contract with a buyer, and they had their inspection done.  They are asking for some things that in my opinion are really petty.  I'm wondering of the following items, should we have any of it fixed?  (We have agreed to fix some items like a few drywall patches, windows that wouldn't latch, replace burnt out lights).

These are the questionable items:

-Have HVAC unit serviced and have a P-trap installed.  (HVAC unit is 3 years old and runs perfectly fine).

-Apply firewall separation to the attic pull down ladder (metal sheathing or fire resistant drywall).

- Replace flexible type dryer vent with smooth metal type (supposedly the flexible one is a fire hazard?).

-Replace outlets in garage with GFCI outlets.

- Have pool contractor service pool vacuum that is reported to be running sluggishly (pool bottom looks clean whenever I'm there).

- Have chimney swept due to creosote build up.

Thanks for any input.  I want to be reasonable with the buyers but don't want to bend over backwards to accommodate every little item they want fixed.

Tenants moved out recently.  Upon inspecting the home I found a couple of curtain rods and curtains that were moved from one room to another.  I don't have touch up paint to move them back and return the walls to how they were when tenants moved in. Is this something I can charge for?

Note that with 99% of tenants I would overlook something like this. I realize it's a bit but picky, however these were the most high maintenance tenants ever. For example when we had our landscaper go cut the tall trees (on our dime), the tenants called him back the next day because the tops and bottoms of the trees were not perfectly horizontal! This is one example of several crazy things they did.

Tenants moved out at the end of last month.  I need to return their security deposit by the 18th (per local landlord tenant laws).  I emailed them a week before move out to request a forwarding address and letting them know they could either leave the keys in a drawer in the kitchen, or drop them off at our realtor's office.  I never received an email response.  The last day of the lease they showed up at the realtor's office with all the keys.  They verbally asked her to have us leave the security deposit check with her for them to pick up later as they don't have a forwarding address (?!).  Local landlord tenant laws say that I have to mail the deposit via first class mail to the last known place of residence unless tenants make other arrangements in writing.  Should I email them again and ask them to confirm via email that they want the deposit dropped with the realtor?  Is an email considered a written request should this escalate to a court scenario?  Just want to make sure I am covered as I would owe them twice the amount of the deposit if it's not given back to them on time.

May or may not be worth mentioning that these people are manipulative and not trust worthy.  I'm somewhat skeptical that they are playing a game to try to get more back than they deserve.