All Forum Posts by: Effram Barrett

I'm a residential appraiser. My comments are re: a normal house, condo, 2-4 unit.

Appraiser is providing an unbiased opinion or estimate of market value for their client, usually the bank. Not you. Unloess you hired them.

Agent has a fiduciary responsiblity to their client, the seller or buyer. Hopefully they do not rep both,  it is or at least can be a conflict of interest.

Building inspector looks at the physical structure. Is it safe, sound secure etc? What repairs may it need now or soon? This is usually for the buyer.

Appraiser, inspector, agent. All different jobs. Don't mind FHA or VA who try to muck up appraisers with inspector work.

Another site that does is erentpayment. I know I just said a dirty word but I have had good service with them.

http://www.experian.com/rentbureau/rental-payment.html

Kudos to you for taking a chance with a person who was facing many housing barriers, yet was worthy of your trust. Kudos to her for doing her part. Glad it's working well for both of you!

You can set it up an account with Cozy (a third party who has credit reporting capability) for your tenant to pay her rent through a them.  https://cozy.co/for-renters/pay-rent-online/  We like Cozy for a number of services they provide. We are slowly transitioning more of our operation to this online platform and so far have been pleased.

There are other third party companies that will provide the credit reporting service too, but not all are the same. Some can be initiated by the tenant, some by the landlord. A google search will show you some other options.

@Greg H., the house is in Lufkin, TX.

I have no idea where or what Lufkin is to be totally honest with you. This is obviously a small town but the sale prices range a great deal for a small community to my surprise. Based on the purchase price and rent, I have been assuming that this must be C type of area. Purchase was 54k, rent was 700. But only within a 2-mile radius there are plenty of 100k+ houses that are also all rentals.

I am just afraid that they won't give me that much bc technically the house is still standing - only the back of it was impacted by the fire. The firemen came from the front and damaged the rest of the house with water. And the smoke obviously did its own damage. So according to my PM, the house is totally uninhabitable, but that may not be what the insurance assesses.

Hey Cosmo,

I would say this is just an OK deal.  Its not a home run, but its not a crap deal either.  I wouldn't worry too much about the taxes that you pay.  on a per deal basis.  This is why getting an entity set up is so important.  You will roll those profits into the next deal and your taxable amount could be reduced IF the money is working for you.  

Maybe a mindset shift is necessary as well.  Every year i have to write a fat tax check, its because i have an even fatter bank account.  i work hard to reduce my taxable income as much as possible but at the same time i love writing fat tax checks!

I think your commission number is low and closing cost number is high.

Maybe for a first deal (im assuming here) this may not be the best deal.  FInd one that is closer to 75% of all in cost and requires a smaller rehab.  Big jobs eat money and create more opportunity to take a loss on the project.

Good luck!