All Forum Posts by: Daniel Green

I wonder what the cost would have been if you had a contractor do it.  Did you ever get someone to quote it out?  I'm guessing roughly around $50K?  Looks like you closed up the bathroom window as well.  Bathroom $8K.  Kitchen $15K  Siding $10K  Roof:  $7K.  Drywall and misc: $10K.  I'm no expert that would be my rough guess....

Just search reviews on Yelp for Equity Trust.  The reviews are horrible.  I don't use them but it was enough to make me look elsewhere.

I simply send an email to my tenants and tell them their lease expires on XXX date and that if they'd like to sign a new lease their rent will be $XXX an increase of $XXX over their current rent.  I also let them know they need to give me 60 days notice if they intend not to renew.  In reality, 30 days is all I need since I typically can't get tenants to lease 2 months ahead of time.  They always respond.  If they ever wind up not responding, I would send them a certified letter saying the same and then telling them if they don't respond I will assume they are vacating the premises and will be putting the apartment on the market etc.  I try not to be too formal but I do give them proper notice in writing.  When they say they want to renew, I send them a new lease with the new rent amount

I started about 6 years ago.  We bought a 3 family in Weehawken.  Lived in one of the units and rented the others.  We then moved out to Cresskill NJ (we have 2 kids and the schools here are stong) and bought a home and continue to rent out the entire 3 family.  To be honest we don't make much of a cash flow profit.   However we don't spend anything out of our own pockets for the property and prices have gone up considerably in the area.  I plan to bump up the rents a bit more so they cash flow stronger.

I don't have any other investment properties but would love to invest more. I've come to realization that finding a fantastic investment via the MLS is extremely hard- you have to really look at bank owned properties and it seems you need to offer a mostly cash deal at or near their asking price. I've placed offers on a few REO's and I lost them because my offer was too low.

The other way is find motivated sellers before they go into foreclosure and that requires mailing out to those owners and other marketing which I'm planning to do eventually.  I'd like to pick up a few properties this year, rehab them and then rent them out OR put them on AirBnB.  I've heard some good things about cash flowing that way.  Anyway good luck.  I'd love to hear other people's stories...always helpful.

BTW- This week I started Real Estate class so I will get my license as a Real Estate Sales person.  I don't intend to do it my career but figure it will help me as I buy and sell property.

Here is more info on my mailing and seller question cheat sheet:

 I plan on sending out first class postage,... $0.47. I'm printing at home with labels, paper and envelope figure another $0.10- $0.13 All in around $0.60 per piece.

Here are is a bullet list of major questions to ask of sellers that I put together:

1) How did you hear about me/us? - Just need about 5-10 minutes of your time. No obligations just info.
2) Just in case the call gets dropped, what is your preferred phone and email?
3) What address are you calling about?
4) What’s the situation with the house? Their motivation may come from any number of reasons, such as getting divorced, job loss, relocating, inheriting the property, a retiring landlord

Test the seller: Why not do the following? (Negative selling- we can’t buy every house)
Have a real estate broker sell it?
Sell it on your own?
Rent it out?

5) How much do you owe? Would you take what you owe on the house? “What is the least amount you will take for the home and still achieve your goals?

6) What type of condition is the house in?
7) What would you like to do with the house?
8) Set expectations - No is okay. We can’t buy all houses. - I’ll inspect the house. It will take 30 minutes. - If I come out, I may be able to provide a cash offer but I’d need to know if you can give me a yes or no answer fairly soon. Anything that would prevent you from doing that?

9) Any liens on the property?

10) Set a meeting/follow up

I've just started to do my first mailing

- Purchased the list off of ListSource.
- Filtered by owners who have received Lis Pendens over the past 12 months.
- Restricted my search to just a few towns:  Englewood, Dumont, Bergenfield, Fort Lee, Leonia, Hackensack, Leonia,   These are all close to where I live.

- I only had about 250 matches.  So sending out 250 direct mail pieces- standard letter, yellow paper, not handwritten but hand signed

Just wanted to be truly transparent.  I don't know how many other folks are mailing out in the area or if there is a lot of competition.  Obviously other investor may not exactly be thrilled with letting me know they operate in the area.  I send to send regular mailing to these folks.  
- I have cash and I'm getting a Home Equity Line of Credit plus a cash out refinance on a 3 family property I own in Weehawken.
- I've talked to a few hard-money lenders but I'd like to try to use my own cash to quickly close on a property and flip it or rent and refinance after 12 months.

Love any advice as begin marketing.  I'm taking action but kind of feeling my way.

- Not sure about my list search- Lis Pendens over 12 months might not hit the right people.  I could have also searched for non-owner occupied properties.

- I'm sure there will be property owners that if they do call will be out of my price range.  I don't have unlimited funds to pay cash.
- I'm feeling like I may very well get no responses from my mailings...but I do want to see if it actually works.

Love to get perspective on my approach.  

I own a 3 family home in Weehawken which I don't live in.  My insurance has gone up from around $2.5K a year to $5K a year.  Is there anyone out there that knows of a good broker or insurance company that I can speak to about finding more affordable insurance.

So I'm looking at a house in Bergen tomorrow in which the broker said there was a "murder/suicide"  It's actually not in a terrible area but clearly unfortunately circumstances.  The broker said he is legally required to tell me that there was a murder/suicide.  Which begs the questions-  if I buy and rehab this home am I legally required to do the same?  Wondering.....

Thanks so much Kerry. Good to know about the timing of things. I've heard back the "seasoning" required but didn't know that was a variable thing. I heard it can be as long as 6 months....which means I would have to pay interest to the HML for that time....so something to consider in my calculations.

Title Company

So I should have a title company first, then when I have a seller sign, I simple pass the contract to the title company.  

Post Close
Understood some HML will provide the first installment for the contractors at closing. That's good to know.

Thanks for your help.  Very much appreciated!

Thanks David. Glad to hear from someone who is in NJ! Doesn't appear to be too many on this board. I put an application to a hard money lender. They are saying they will loan 70% of the appraised value...not the ARV.

I assume you work with investors mostly?  Is my process right around the offer- that's what I'm confused about.  You have the seller sign the sales contract but don't I put in some earnest money- say $1,000 to hold the property?  And who does that money go to?  Do I use my own escrow service?  Just confused by that part....