All Forum Posts by: Donna Smolinski

Shari,

Sorry I didn't respond to your questions. I've been in Vegas for two weeks wrapping up a couple purchases and I've not been on the computer much. Others seemed to have answered your questions, but I'll also add a little of my own opinion.

We just purchased two Summerlin homes. BEST area in Vegas (IMO). Buyers and renters seek this area for high quality schools and a quiet family community. Terrific shopping, golf courses, restaurants, etc, without all the hustle bustle of most other parts of Vegas. We're actually considering retiring here. We just love it!

Don't worry too much about the HOA & SID. It's the strict HOA that keeps Summerlin beautiful. And I do mean strict! With all the foreclosures & distressed homeowners, neighborhoods would start looking pretty bad if the HOA didn't step in. They site properties that need landscape or exterior maintenance and the banks usually take care of the violations when they take over a property. If not, the new owner must do so in a timely fashion.

We've noticed that rents in Vegas are quite low on medium to large size homes. You can rent a 3000 sq ft house in Summerlin for approx $1800-1900. Now what's hard to understand is why condos/townhomes with approx 1100-1200 sq ft are renting for approx $900 a month (of course this depends on area too). Many Vegas condos are selling for 40-60k, so not a bad return for buy and hold.

We spent ALOT of time doing research in Vegas before buying. Also, my brother has lived there for 25 yrs and is in construction, so he has a bundle of knowledge regarding specific communities, crime areas, etc, etc. Yes, it's a hot market there right now, but still a good place to invest. JUST DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND FIND A GOOD REALTOR THAT UNDERSTANDS YOUR NEEDS.

Sorry again for the delayed response. Good luck to you.

Las Vegas is REALLY HOT right now. Be prepared to write alot of offers before catching one. We got lucky on one 45 days ago, but wrote about 12 offers first. Been trying to buy a 2nd one for the past 45 days with zero luck (I won't pay full market value). Like Will said, it's a numbers game on the MLS.

If you are buying to hold, you will probably be just fine to pay full market value. Check into Summerlin. One of the finest Master Planned communities in the Las Vegas area. It's beautiful, well planned, great neighborhoods, and you can still buy a very nice home under $100 per sq ft (these homes were selling over $200 per sq ft at the peak). Good luck!

If you want a great place to stay, check out The Suncoast in Summerlin. Great prices, good restaurants, nice casino, movie theater, bowling alley. Absolutely everything under one roof and on a golf course too!

It's funny.... in a hot market, only SOLD comps are considered but in a down market, based on my past experience, pending and listing comps are seriously considered in BPOs and even appraisals. The banks keep a very close eye on the declining rate.

You might be in luck. Sounds like it's tenant occupied. Hopefully it's not extended family living in it. Check the Tax Roes if you have access. In CA, it shows the mailing address of the tax bill. If it's different from the property address, you can be pretty sure that the owner's aren't residing in it. The tenants might be VERY happy to hear an Investor is buying it who wants to keep them as tenants. Yes, I would knock on their door and talk to them. Good luck! :)

You shoud get a bid on the demo before you make an offer. Keep in mind, that most cities aso require a demo permit. Talk to the bldg dept to find out how much for the demo permit and what the requirements will be for the demo. You should be buying this property at a pretty good discount for the illegal addition. Once you do your due diligence on demo costs, you can determine a reasonable offering price with supporting documentation to give to the seller. It's usually challengig for a seller to sell a property with illegal additions, unnless they are willing to reduce the price accordingly.

Hey Will.... I belong to the BEST REI club. It's called BP :::)))

Very informative, lots of members with ALOT of good input, close to home, etc, etc. And the price is right too!

I'm curious to hear from rehabbers that use PML for short term financing. Are you paying the same as two years ago, or have the rates & points become more competitive?

Two yrs ago, nobody would care about 10-15% and 3-4 Pts because there were big profit margins in rehab/flipping. Things have changed, now that the inventory is so low and everything is being bid up to almost full market value. It's really tough to make a decent profit on a rehab right now (I'm in SoCal). How is this affecting the PMLs? If profit margins have shrunk for rehabbers, then it doesn't seem that Investors could afford to pay the high rates and points anymore. Are most Investors now using their own cash? We only financed one of our properties in the past 2 yrs, profit margins were bigger then, so it made sense at that time, but not anymore.

Curious to hear some input from you all :)

You're pllaying with fire on that strategy Andy (and you know it).

Dan... don't be too upset. Consider yourself lucky. This proves you found yourself an honest, ethical agent who will always be there looking out for your best interest as a Seller. As a buyer, you need to remember that her primary fiduciary duties are with the seller. She is obligated to bring the selller the highest & best offer possible. AND it is very unethical to reveal the contents of any other offers received.

Chill out and have a beer :). It's a rough market right now and alot of us are getting beat up. I know I have some black n blue marks!

Watson,
I just closed on a REO 35 days ago (Freddie Mac owned). FNMA & Freddie have rented some of their properties, You will need to write your offer up based on exterior drive-by, BUT subject to "interior" inspection after acceptance of offer. In your offer, state that seller is to provide you with a copy of the lease or rental agreement within 7 days of acceptance. They use a property mgmt company, so I found it pretty easy to obtain. The listing agt should know if occupants are previous owners or tenants (hopefully not previous owners). If he says he doesn't know, then compare the names on the lease with the foreclosed owners names. You will need to honor the existing lease (it's usually month-to-month).

BEWARE... FHLMC addendum states that no rents will be prorated on "single family residence". They only prorate rents on Multi-units. We closed on the 6th. They already got their rent for the month, but they refunded the proration back to the tenant instead of to us (dumb)! Anyway, it takes them forever to process the proration chk to the tenant, so of course the tenant doesn't want to write a new rent chk to you until they receive the refund (30+ days).

The tenants of our house were month to month. We gave them a 30 day notice to terminate tenancy but extended it to 45 days. We plan on rehabbing to flip. They are moving next week and they have been very nice to work with, especially since we gave them 45 days instead of 30 days. We got a good price on the property because of little interest from other buyers with tenants in place, and lack of being able to investigate interior.

Good luck..... if you have more questions regarding this, I probably have the answers ::))

I had a property EXACTLY like what you are referring to (expanded living room to the rear). House was built in the 60s, no permit on file for the expansion made many yrs ago. We were doing a MAJOR rehab, so we had city inspectors going thru the property. The living room expansion could NOT be grandfathered in. We had to make modifications to bring it to "current" code. My general contractor originally told me he thought it would be grandfathered in (wrong)! GCs don't know everything when it comes to current code because the codes are CONSTANTLY changing (at least in my area). Anyway, this addition cost us an extra $6k over our budget to meet city code, plus a 20 day delay in work for permit processing and drawings!

All cities have different code requirements (even within the same county). Some are VERY stringent, to the point of being almost insane. Others can be pretty easy to work with. If you aren't really experienced in rehabbing and city permit processing, you might want to think twice about taking this on. It "could" open up a whole can of worms.

And don't think about making structural modifications without permits! As the previous poster stated, you will need to disclose that when you sell! If you want to talk to someone at the bldg department, ask for the building "administrator" to get an idea of what he will require. Don't talk to one of the clerks behind the desk.

Good luck.