All Forum Posts by: David Fairall

@Jay Hinrichs Hi Jay. Thanks for jumping in on this. Can you tell me a little more about the notary process for out of the country sellers? For example, is there only one US Consulate per country or are there usually multiple consulates throughout the country?

@Kerry Baird Thanks for your input, Kerry. I really do appreciate it. I have used the calculators and according to the numbers this would be a good deal. Problem is, about half my numbers are hypothetical. I only assumed that seller financing would be my main option here because I don't know how I'd come up with the 20% necessary for the down payment. I've since learned that seller financing is typically an option if the owner owns the property outright or has paid the loan balance down significantly. I don't think that's the case here because the owner has only owned the property for 10 years. So I've reached out to my previous mortgage broker to talk through what I want to do and see if he knows of any products that can help me. Haven't heard back yet but I think that's probably the best place to start. I've also talked with the real estate division in my state and learned that if we wanted to do the deal with no real estate agents, we are allowed to use the states purchasing contracts even though neither of us are licensed real estate agents. Someone I was talking to about this thought that you needed to be an agent to use the states forms so that's good that isn't the case. They even have an addenda to the contract if you use seller financing, which is cool. So I think I'm making some good progress toward finding some more solid numbers than the ones I'm currently working with. Again, I appreciate your input. I'll keep working at it.

@Jeffrey Bower Thanks, Jeffrey.

@Mike Palmer Thanks for reaching out, Mike. I did see that but, yeah, it's a little far for me. However, @Jaiden Olsen let me know about all the REIA meetings in Northern Utah so I think I have some options for connecting with people a little closer to me. But I'll never say never so I might check one out some day. Thanks again.

So we just bought our first rental last summer. We live upstairs and rent out the basement apartment. I've been getting hit up through the mail pretty often by these companies that are saying that because interest rates have dropped they want me to refinance with them at the lower rate and they will pay all associated costs. Obviously a lower rate is better but I'm a bit leery of these kinds of unsolicited deals. My guess is it's worth it for them to pay the costs upfront and then collect interest that they otherwise wouldn't have had. 

My question is: Are these kinds of companies/lenders legit and is there any reason I wouldn't want to do this? My rate is 4.5% FYI

A caveat to this is I'm looking into my equity position in my property as I'd like to see if I could use it to get into another property. I know you typically don't have any equity after only a year but the property was listed and appraised as a single family and the previous owners were renting the apartment well below value. We were able to get the rent up and our realtor said once we did that we should look at getting it appraised as a multifamily as the higher rents should support a higher appraisal. 

So with that in mind, would it be smart to use one of these companies to refinance if I may end up going to, let's say, my local credit union and taking a second mortgage out on my property to use to finance another one, essentially refinancing twice within a relatively short amount of time?

Any insight would be appreciated.

I know a property owner who lives outside the US and wants to unload his duplex and I'm trying to find a way to buy it. I'm wondering if seller financing might be my best bet but I'm really new at this so I could be way off. I've been reading as much as I can on here to see how I can do it but I think there are a lot of variables that I'm probably not thinking of because I don't know what I don't know. So hopefully the Bigger Pockets community could shed some light on this.

So here is how I know the owner and all the details I know of regarding his situation that may be helpful.

-My wife and I rented one of the units in his duplex for 7 years.

-He wasn't a big time investor (i.e. owned a large portfolio of assets). He bought the duplex with the intentions that when his sons got old enough to attend the local university they could live in one of the units and have their own space and still be close to home. He also rented his old house that was around the corner from the duplex.

-About 4 years into our stay, his wife got a job offer in her native country and they all moved. He then enlisted a property management company to oversee the property.

-Fast forward 3 years and we are looking at buying a property ourselves. We would have loved to buy his duplex but for a number of reasons didn't think we could (I thought it would have been out of our price range) but we mostly didn't want to tell the owner that we were looking to move as we were paying well below market for the place and didn't want to rock the boat. In hindsight, it probably wouldn't have mattered if we told him (because he ended being really cool/happy about us finding a place) but we just didn't know how he or the property managers would respond.

-A few weeks into our property search we put an offer on a property and it got accepted. We talk to the owner about what we can do to break our lease. We agreed to terms. He was very gracious and congratulated us on buying a home. During that conversation I tell him that the home we bought was a duplex and that we were wanting to buy more properties in the future. So I casually ask if he would consider selling his duplex. He says why didn't you ask me sooner? He tells me that he's actually been wanting to sell it because he doesn't want to file taxes in two countries ever year and it's a pain. Plus his kids aren't coming back here for school now so the reason he bought the property isn't a factor anymore. I proceed to feel dumb.

-He continues to say that he wouldn't ask market value for it and since we both know each other and we've lived there for a long time and know the property we could do it without agents and save some money. So here I am, with an accepted offer on one place and this other potentially appealing offer. The short of it is, he was in the middle of another move across his current country and couldn't really give me a number he's be willing to sell it for and I had an accepted offer on my own property so that's where it ended. I did ask him to let me know when he was ready to sell it because I'd be interested.

I'm not sure if all these details were necessary so sorry if this was long. I just wanted to paint as much of the picture as I could. So here are the main factors I see from the owners perspective to take into consideration.

-Owner is out of the country and doesn't want to file taxes in two countries every year

-Original motivation for owning the property is gone

-Wants to leave real estate agents out of the equation

Some of you may want to know if the numbers make sense. If not, then don't bother with this exercise. That's the other tricky part about this. I don't know what the owner has in mind when he says he'll sell below market value and I'd like to have my finances in order before I approach him again. I've checked two different sources to identify approximate value on his place (zillow and relator.com). I know their numbers should be taken with a grain of salt and it's especially true in this case as there is nearly a 200K difference between them! However, the thing that makes it worth it to at least pursue is the potential to have instant equity if he really does sell below market value and my knowledge of the property. We've had hardly any issue there during the time we lived there so I don't believe there will be much, if any, deferred maintenance. I believe based off comps in the area that I could still get more rents out of it without being unreasonable. As far as my contribution to a potential deal is concerned, I have at least 10K, potentially a few thousand more, in cash. I'm also currently trying to see if I could pull some equity out of my current duplex. The short of that is it was listed as a single family with rents well below market. We've since raised rent and want to have it appraised as a multifamily. The potential there is about 20K. 

So that's what I know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how I can best explore this further.

I know a property owner who lives outside the US and wants to unload his duplex and I'm trying to find a way to buy it. I'm wondering if seller financing might be my best bet but I'm really new at this so I could be way off. I've been reading as much as I can on here to see how I can do it but I think there are a lot of variables that I'm probably not thinking of because I don't know what I don't know. So hopefully the Bigger Pockets community could shed some light on this. 

So here is how I know the owner and all the details I know of regarding his situation that may be helpful.

-My wife and I rented one of the units in his duplex for 7 years.

-He wasn't a big time investor (i.e. owned a large portfolio of assets). He bought the duplex with the intentions that when his sons got old enough to attend the local university they could live in one of the units and have their own space and still be close to home. He also rented his old house that was around the corner from the duplex.

-About 4 years into our stay, his wife got a job offer in her native country and they all moved. He then enlisted a property management company to oversee the property.

-Fast forward 3 years and we are looking at buying a property ourselves. We would have loved to buy his duplex but for a number of reasons didn't think we could (I thought it would have been out of our price range) but we mostly didn't want to tell the owner that we were looking to move as we were paying well below market for the place and didn't want to rock the boat. In hindsight, it probably wouldn't have mattered if we told him (because he ended being really cool/happy about us finding a place) but we just didn't know how he or the property managers would respond. 

-A few weeks into our property search we put an offer on a property and it got accepted. We talk to the owner about what we can do to break our lease. We agreed to terms. He was very gracious and congratulated us on buying a home. During that conversation I tell him that the home we bought was a duplex and that we were wanting to buy more properties in the future. So I casually ask if he would consider selling his duplex. He says why didn't you ask me sooner? He tells me that he's actually been wanting to sell it because he doesn't want to file taxes in two countries ever year and it's a pain. Plus his kids aren't coming back here for school now so the reason he bought the property isn't a factor anymore. I proceed to feel dumb.

-He continues to say that he wouldn't ask market value for it and since we both know each other and we've lived there for a long time and know the property we could do it without agents and save some money. So here I am, with an accepted offer on one place and this other potentially appealing offer. The short of it is, he was in the middle of another move across his current country and couldn't really give me a number he's be willing to sell it for and I had an accepted offer on my own property so that's where it ended.  I did ask him to let me know when he was ready to sell it because I'd be interested. 

I'm not sure if all these details were necessary so sorry if this was long. I just wanted to paint as much of the picture as I could. So here are the main factors I see from the owners perspective to take into consideration.

-Owner is out of the country and doesn't want to file taxes in two countries every year

-Original motivation for owning the property is gone

-Wants to leave real estate agents out of the equation 

Some of you may want to know if the numbers make sense. If not, then don't bother with this exercise. That's the other tricky part about this. I don't know what the owner has in mind when he says he'll sell below market value and I'd like to have my finances in order before I approach him again. I've checked two different sources to identify approximate value on his place (zillow and relator.com). I know their numbers should be taken with a grain of salt and it's especially true in this case as there is nearly a 200K difference between them! However, the thing that makes it worth it to at least pursue is the potential to have instant equity if he really does sell below market value and my knowledge of the property. We've had hardly any issue there during the time we lived there so I don't believe there will be much if any deferred maintenance. I believe based off comps in the area that I could still get more rents out of it without being unreasonable. As far as my contribution to a potential deal is concerned, I have at least 10K potentially a few thousand more in cash. I'm also currently trying to see if I could pull some equity out of my current duplex. The short of that is it was listed as a single family with rents well below market. We've since raised rent and want to have it appraised as a multifamily. The potential there is about 20K.

So that's what I know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how I can best explore this further.  

@William Hochstedler Thanks for your advice. We did get an inspection before buying the house. We used a lot of the recommendations listed in it when we had a bunch of electrical work done after moving in. I don't think we've looked at it since then. Thanks for the reminder to refer back to it. To be honest, I'm kind of nervous to because there are probably more things on there that need fixing than what I have listed on my original post. HaHa.

I think I'll take your suggestion to get some bids on the sprinklers. I've got two manual valves for the back and two manual valves for the front of the house. But then I have these two really tall sprinkler pipes (about 3 and 5 feet respectively) on the side of the house that don't turn on with either set of valves. I guess I should say that only one has a sprinkler head. The other has been capped off. I'm not sure if it's cause their broken or if they've been removed from the current system and no one bothered to removed them. Anyway, I'd rather not go poking around when I have no idea what the original system even looked like. Thanks again for your thoughts.

@Theresa Harris Thanks for sharing your thoughts. We are planning on renting the upstairs when we get our next place so while some of these things we can live with because it's our place, a tenant may not want to. You've got some good suggestions that are on par with what I'm hearing from others so if I put them into action I should be in good shape. Thanks again.

@Amy Kendall 

-We've been working with the same company since moving in for all our electrical work. They've already replaced some GFIs for us so I know approximately what that is going to run us. 

-I wouldn't mind taking a crack at replacing the windows myself. I've liked working on things around the house. The problem I've run into is the house is old so things that should be pretty basic/straightforward usually are not. I've found it hard to solve old problems with modern solutions. Anyway, would you mind sharing where you got your windows?

-Repairing only the heads that are broken right now is probably the least expensive way to handle the sprinklers right now. But like @William Hochstedler said, I'm dealing with an old system and don't have any experience with it so I may just have someone come out and let me know what I'm dealing with first. Some people I've talked to said not to worry about the sprinkler timer but I think you're right, I want to have that automated so it's one less thing the tenant has to worry about. If I'm going to put effort rehabbing the lawn I certainly don't want to leave it in the hands of the tenant. I probably don't have to worry about it so much while we live here but I definitely want one installed when we move out.

-There's no way we were going to try to keep up with the color scheme around here so we are going to simplify and pick one color. We've already painted a bedroom and like the way it turned out so we're going to stick with that.

-I posted this on another forum and between here and there most people have said I should be fine if I just try to fix what I can fix about the cabinets and just repaint them. So that's probably what I'll do.

-Ever since I had my first experience with the clogged gutters I've been very vigilant about cleaning them. I've had to do it about 5 times in a year. That's way more than I want to do that so I'm going to take care of two of the main problem trees and then monitor from there. My house is surrounded by tall trees so I feel like if I don't want to be cleaning gutters several times a year then I need to remove more trees or find a gutter solution. 

I really appreciate your insight into this. Like I mentioned in my original post, I feel like I know what should get prioritized but I'm still really new at this and maybe my guess is way off. I wouldn't know. So thank you for sharing your experience. It's been very helpful.