All Forum Posts by: Don Levy

Welcome to the forum Adam,

I've found that a good direction to go with rentals is to turn them into lease options either with the present tenants or when the property goes vacant.
Good luck,
donrock

I've found that some properties that don't cash flow with a renter in them will when you do a lease option or rent to own. Not only will you get an upfront fee that's non taxable and you can use to help make your payments, but you can get higher than market rent and a higher than market price. To get an even higher rent you can credit them a percentage of their rent and subtract it from the sales price. It works well for both parties.
donrock

You might want to try a lease option. A short explanation of one is you lease the property with an option to purchase it down the road. It ties the property up so only you can buy it. It doesn't normally take much cash to do this and gives someone time to save for a DP, work on credit or whatever.
To get a better idea of it go to my blog and see the Lease Option page. The URL is below in my Sig. There is a lot of RE info there and you can pickup a free foreclosure and short sale report also.
Good luck,
donrock

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome the two of you. Are you going to be investing in California or Minnesota? Hopefully you are writing this from CA because it way too cold back there.
Check out my blog to find out a lot about all aspects of RE and while there see my request form to get my free Foreclosure and Short Sale report. These will give you an overview of different types of investing. The blog URL is below in the Sig.
Good luck,
donrock

Depending on your credit and ability to make payments I'm sure there will be more programs to help you. Once the RE crisis has settled down the local, state and federal governments will come up with some help.
In the meantime FHA has 97% loans and normally you don't have to have a 700+ credit score.
Find yourself a good loan agent and have them search for first time homebuyers and government assisted loans.
You might want to think about doing a lease option if you need to save for the down or work on credit, etc. Go to my blog and see the lease option page to get an idea of what its all about. This is a great way to get into a home now and buy it later. See my sig below for the URL to the blog.
Good luck,
donrock

Anyone needing more information on lease options, such as how to find them, how to buy them, how to sell them can find it in a free report on my lease option blog page. The URL is below in my signature.
Lease options is one of my favorite ways of investing and a sandwich lease option is fine as long as you have good tenant buyers.
Good luck,
donrock

What part of the country are you in where you can get $1,600 rent for each unit in a duplex and then another $1,600 for a maid's quarters. Before you jump into this you had better do a good rent survey of the area. Make sure you aren't comparing apples to oranges such as the rents including utilities or some other concessions. When estimating rents be fairly conservative and don't forget to take into account a vacancy factor.
If these things check out it sounds like you have a good deal.
Good luck,
donrock

As a retired mortgage broker who was an appraiser for 20 years before that as well as being an investor let me throw my 2 cents in here.
I agree with you folks that there are a lot of bad appraisers out there. I was a review appraiser and it never ceased to amaze me at some the things the so-called appraisers did.
Any appraiser that pops off with a remark about what your property is worth before he has done an appraisal on it should be shot.
Just because they are FHA appraisers doesn't mean they are right. If you are certain of your facts about some other comps you may be able to challenge the value by doing your own appraisal or getting an independent one. Try to get a copy of the appraisal and have another appraiser look at it.
A lot of owners don't realize that when they buy a property and put new carpet, paint, appliances or whatever that they are just bringing the property up to the standard of the properties around them. Just because you put $20,000 into it doesn't mean its worth that much more.
Having at least a drive by appraisal might be worth while before you buy if you are having appraisal problems.
Don't be afraid to help the appraiser. Find some good (and I mean good) comps for him. Although most of the comps agents and owners gave me were worthless every once in a while I got some that helped me help the owner.
Appraisers are kind of like lawyers, everybody hates them but they are a necessary evil.
Don

Owning real estate is a matter of timing. If you bought a piece of property in a lot of places in California in 2000 and sold it in 2006 you may have doubled your money. If you bought it then and still own it today you're still about 40-50% ahead of the game.
Many people saw the handwriting on the wall and sold at close to the top, moved into an apartment and are now ready to buy a better home than they sold and still have money left over.
Like everything in life real estate is also dependent on timing. Better timing equal better results.
Don

Here's a method that works well if the property doesn't look very good. Take a picture of it and send it to the owner of the property with a note saying he is probably not aware of the condition of the property and rather than him having to fix it up you would like to buy it. This is about all you have to say with the picture doing most of the work for you.
I've bought several properties like this especially when the the renters are behind in their payments.
Good luck,
Don