All Forum Posts by: Don Chambers

Quote from @Clayton Silva:

So you have to think about what their alternatives are. If I can afford 30% down, I can likely get better terms from a bank for a 30 fixed blanket loan. 30% down is going to put someone in the mid to low 7% range on a blanket 30 year fixed DSCR, so what is their incentive to take your terms? Blankets don't generally report to credit, they can close in their LLC etc.

Plus what is the win-win? Is your goal to avoid tax consequences? Have you considered an installment sale or other vehicle? 

Hard to give tips without a bit more context as to the goal. Could you get a higher premium listing them individually on the MLS? Are you listing yourself (implied by the broker comment).

I am considering other options
I just wanted this thread to be about selling with owner financing.

I don't have to sell them. It's good cash flow and not very time intensive since I have employees. I'm just kinda wanting to move on.
 

It would be very difficult to sell them one at a time.  I have two W-2 employees; a manger that gets a percentage of rent and handyman.  Once I have sold a significant number I couldn't keep the staff, and I'd have to work myself.

I'd prefer just to sell them outright but I don't have anything to do with the cash. If i could owner finance them I'd be making the interest rate. However, if I had to go down 8% or so I wouldn't do it.

I dont want to list them becaue it ties up my options with no guarantee they will sell. I dont mind if an agent brings me a deal, and I'd pay a commission, but I don't want to commit without a deal. 

I am thinking about selling my portfolio of 70+ houses with seller financing.  I'd like some advice on what is realistic.

The entire portfolio is worth about $8.5 million. The properties will come with existing tenants. I will not sell to owner occupants - investors only.

I dont want to sell them all to the same person.  I'd like to break them up into a few packages to somewhat diversify the income stream.

I'd need a sizeable down-payment. Mainly because some of the hosues have loans that need to be paid off.

I'm thinking I'd like about 30% down. Is this reasonable?

When i break up the houses, what is a good package size to have a reasonable number of interested buyers? $250k, $500k, $1m, etc.

I may consider interest only payments for a few years. Is this a mistake?

How would you market this? I don't think using a broker is reasonable.  They would want a commission on the sales price and I may never collect all of it.

I'm thinking my terms would be 30% down, 10% rate, and a 30 year term. The monthly payment would be about 55% of gross rent.

Ant tips?

Please take my real estate investing survey.

It's only 3 questions and it's anonymous.

If I get enough responses I'll use them for an article.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/S6R8J6P

@Reed Rickenbach I never take money out so I guess I do hold that back. Over 6 years my expenses are about 41% of the rent, and they were 39% last year. I had to get 7 roofs 4 hvac units and 2 houses had to have the pipes to the road replaced.

When I sold some houses a broker told me that the industry average is 40%, which is what prompted me to check. For the blog, I found an academic paper that says the same thing - about 40%.

I purposely made a basic looking site. I was going for a design like investopedia. But now I think its too bland and I'll eventually change it up.

Thanks for the input.

After an 11-year hiatus, I am resurrecting my blog about my adventures in real estate investing. I'm not a writer but a small-time investor with 70 rentals. It's free. I'm not going to try to sell you anything.

At this point, it's mainly targeting rentals, but I'll eventually expand it. I am never going to add anything that I don't do. In some posts, I share actual data from my books.

Please critique it. 

Is my approach or investing advice wrong?

It's called The Real Estate Adventurer, and I can take negative comments (I hope). 

I looking for opinions about software to manage my properties. I've read several posts, buy a lot are old and features change.

I've been using QuickBooks but I think I'm outgrowing it. I'm over 70 properties now,and continuing to purchase.

My accountant recommended AppFolio, and an attorney suggested yardi. I don't think either of them has actual experience with the products.

I need it to handle all the accounting and replace quickbooks, unless it has an automated QB integration.

I own the houses so it's more than property management. I need to track depreciation, loans, and all tax data for both ownership and property management.

I also need integration with bank accounts and credit card companies. I have a lot of transactions and don't need to do this manually.

I'm also interested in your experience with data migration. I have a lot of data to move from QB. I don't want to start over tracking metrics from scratch.

Any advice?

Is anyone doing their own SEO and AdWords?

I would like to discuss some strategies with people I don't compete with.

I am looking into buying my first property at a tax sale.  This is a tax deed sale in Georgia with a 1 year right of redemption.  I am an experienced investor, I'm familiar with the laws, and I have an attorney helping with the process.  My goal is to acquire properties to add to my rental portfolio.

If the property is redeemed, I will get what I paid plus 20%, plus any additional taxes paid.  I expect to pay very little, so the 20% will only be a few hundred dollars.  This means if I do anything to the property I run the risk of not recouping the cost.    I will need to neglect the property, no cutting the grass, no insurance, etc.   I am sure the city will send me letters for not cutting the grass, and maybe fine me or put another lien on the house.  What if someone is injured an sues me?


How are you handling the holding period when you buy at a tax deed sale?

Also, any gotchas I may have overlooked?

I have a manager that works for me for a small base salary and a percentage of rents and flip profits. The pay structure aligns their incentives with mine. This year I would like to hire a handyman to reduce and stabilize costs. I have been using contractors and usually have them to include materials so I don't have a good breakdown on labor costs.

I have 66 rentals and do 2 or 3 flips a year. I want to hire a handyman to do maintenance calls and get houses ready between tenants. I can't figure out how to pay the handyman. I want to reduce costs, pay them fairly, and try to align their incentives with mine.

Some days (or weeks) there will be little or nothing to do. Some weeks we will be swamped. Sometimes I get another rental and it has to be renovated. Sometimes I have a flip going. I dont mind bringing in contractors to augment the handyman for special projects.

If i just pay by the job I might as well use contractors like I've been doing. I don't want to pay hourly where I end up paying them to sit on a bucket all day. I want to provide a stable salary, not give them busy work when there is no work, and expect them to help when we are swamped since sometimes they get paid for nothing.

I've done pretty good aligning my managers incentives with mine. I want to crack the handyman issue this year.

Any ideas?

What kind of overhead do you mean?

I am looking for an employee so I handle all the overhead.  Phone, printing, etc.