All Forum Posts by: DAVID GAGE

J Scott That was kinda my thought exactly. I could of had the house inspected but highly unlikely the inspector would have spotted all the problems with out the water being turned on. There was quite a few problems due to being frozen. I will dig deeper to see if I can find out exactly when the house was abandoned....100% sure I will have to eat it and chalk it up as a lesson learned.

Well we closed on our 4th foreclosure this week. This one being our first HUD. The others have all gone off without a hitch. We had our HVAC guy come out to fire up the heat and got some very bad news. The house has baseboard steam heat well there was several lines burst which is not a big deal but time consuming, then the pump was cracked. still just a bump in the road. Then we find out the boiler itself had burst. We also found the water meter to have burst. Another issue I have is I was charged $140 for a locksmith fee at closing to have the locks changed. I get there and only one key and it only works on one door. So now I'm getting Pissed and starting to wonder if these contractors really give a crap. The house has stickers and signatures everywhere from the inspectors and the contractor that winterized the house even left his business card on the counter............My question is would I have any recourse and whats the probability that I would ever see any restitution?.........boilers 20 yrs old so I don't feel so bad....just can't tolerate half a$$ work.

Ben,
I kinda went through the same thing this past year. After trying get funds from several banks and being rejected I finally found a small bank that can't seem to give me enough money(scares me a little). That said I think I made a long term relationship with a great finance officer. I told him my plans and he seems more than willing to help me achieve them. Persistence pays off so never give up.

I bought this book yesterday. What intrigued me about it was that it has a copyright of 2011 and it seems to go into good detail about what happened to the housing market in the last bubble burst and whats to come in the very near future. I was wondering if anybody else has read this yet and what their thoughts were. I'm not a finance guy so this book might be redundant for the educated minds but so far I have to say I am enjoying it.

SHHH! is right. I too am living proof that it really is a great time to be a landlord in the rust belt. I bought 3 houses last year all for under 20k and all are rented for 600 to 650 a month. I post the house and get a dozen calls a day. There are a lot of good people that are looking for houses to rent right now. Most are people that walked away from an upside down mortgage. I like these people because they take pride in your property. They know what its like to own a house. My houses are in a rural town 80 miles from Detroit so no war zones here. The economy is coming back here but if gas prices get up around $5 a gallon for any length of time you will see a full blown depression here.IMO

Mark thanks for the help. I have another question for you. Do I still need to still have the parties involved served the judgment even if I choose to use the collection agency method you described? Also would you please email me their info. Thanks you.

Here is how the Michigan law reads.....Once a money judgment is awarded, the prevailing party, through a lawful collection process, can garnish wages, garnish bank accounts and garnish tax refunds. The prevailing party may also be entitled to another remedy-executing the money judgment against personal property(car,fine jewelry, collectibles and the like)...................That said the deadbeat drives a beater and has know fine jewelry however he did have a nice collection of pop cans.LOL....so it would seem my only hope is the Tax refund after all and I know he has already filed this year. If I can make sure this sticks with this POS on his credit report then its worth the effort to me. I want him to remember me and tell his friends so they avoid me like the plague.

I made this same mistake. Let a few co-workers know what I was doing and received 2 pay cuts in 3 months at my J.O.B.(even more reason to hate a job). First cut was across the board second was only a hand full, me included. I feel I received the second cut only because they knew that I could afford it. From that point on I never talk about my REI or any other victories of wealth with anyone from work. I will say that its made me even more driven to achieve my goals of getting out of the rat race.

Had a tenant evicted last week and he owes over $1k. We have a court order for him to pay but I was curious if I'd ever see my cash. Hes changed jobs 4 times in 7 months so I see wage garnishment highly unlikely. Will they go after his tax returns too like they do for child support? Anyone know what the Michigan laws are on this??? And what are the chances I will see my cash? These kind of people spend their whole life running from responsibility so I don't think it looks good for me.