All Forum Posts by: Kumar Tummalapalli

What uncommon "rules of thumb" / heuristics do you use to decide if it's a real "deal " ?  

The ones I use : ( these are not uncommon though :-) )

1. AVM like zillow / realtor and so on

2. Tax Assessed Value ( know the equalization factor for your county ) - and when was this assessed ?

3. A very similar comp on the same street or of it's a condo ( Full comp analysis is always there but that's more time taking and sometimes with the same comps - diff analysts arrive at diff prices)

4. Keywords from description such as "investor special" and so on 

Got it.. Thanks for clarifying that - Good rule of thumb to quickly chk if a particular listing is a "Deal" . But just to add , the listing price itself didn't tell that it's a deal , because there might be a bad roof or whatever , once it came in your radar , you took a look at it and from viewing the property you found that it's a true deal - is this a fair understanding ?

 @Michael Hicks - How did you find this in your search and how did you find the right address? Might give some ideas to search for in our markets :-)

To add to this discussion - I often see Realtors bashing Posters on trulia and quora - irrespective of the qn they say "get an agent" - As though that is the end of all problems and as though your agent is experienced in all areas. 

I do get that , in any profession , we have only few who are really knowledgeable , but is more obvious in the case of real estate agents

One of houses my colleague was looking- the agent kept saying you have to bid 5k to 10k over listing price as she could not get the offer accepted . I know there could be many reasons for this but the agent just tried to mislead . So I had to get MLS access through some creative way and then pulled a report for past 6 months - and compared "original list price" vs "sold price" - there are only 2 properties which were sold over list price. I had to spend 30 mins to show her how to get the report from MLS

@Bruce Runn  - When you say "Assessed value" - is it the Tax Assessed value ? Also when 1-4 unit is considered residential , will the two duplexes be not "residential " - Thanks

@Jeff Kehl  Great Advice , Thanks , will consider that . I have to do something creative..:-)

 ok - In 2006 I bought a $100 cash flowing condo in chicago for 250k , right now the max I could get is 175k , I cannot hold it forever.  

To the OP - What I am trying to say is - its not black and white , "Positive cash flow is good , negative cash flow is bad , california market is great "  - when you hear some one making these statements run away . I also observed that this theory is correct in many other areas of life . Whenever some only says , just the positive side of something or just the negative side of something , be wary.

Definitely a great idea - I do some mailing already for probates as part of my wholesaling set up , but the whole rationale behind this strategy is to use fha to put very less money down and grab a reasonable priced REO through firstlook program .

There is no way I can compete with established investors - who have their contractors/agents and money lined up . so the firstlook is the only way I get some competitive advtage and finally I am getting a chance to get something (from govnment)  in return for paying 50k in taxes from my w2 job since 4 yrs 

Yep right , 203 k rehab loan is my only option here and yes its allowed , The reason I can only leverage this as my first purchase is to take advantage of the first look program by homepath where investors are not allowed to bid for the first 20 days - These REOs are very competitively priced so that's the rationale....posting the link for the program https://www.homepath.com/firstlook-program.html

Waiting for fourplex is something I am considering , but we could understand easily why this is more competitive as its residential , so the only way to get a leg up is to pick something which is slightly complicated - I have heard of things like converting one of the unit as storage or something like that , but need to find right guidance as you know I am scared to death :-)

Hi There - I am targeting to buy a 4 plex and house hack and take advantage of home path first time buyer program , however I don't have any such things in market currently , but there is one 6 unit in Market . Is it a feasible project to try to convert to fourplex and go for a loan ?  

Anyway to creatively structure this