All Forum Posts by: Ann Watkins

@Kozette Feaster

You go girl! Don't let anyone discourage you...stay smiling at folks who say such idiot things, and then laugh....all the way to the bank!

I love her show...hated her voice at first, but now I hate to miss a show. I actually learned not to throw away old materials by tuning in.

Indeed it is...you put a good not great tenant in a great property and they will stay for years. Yeah from time to time I've had to replace mini-blinds, door locks, broken windows, and every year it seemed like for a while smoke alarms...but I'm talking same tenant for 7 years and another tenant going into her 5th year.

One thing I do is I always put my S8 on the MLS. Reason being when you're showing comps for what your home leased for should you get ready to sale it, you can show how your property produced income vs. other rentals which were private pay. S8 tends to be higher than fair market rent. Don't ask me why, it's the government...and wouldn't you know I never argue with that one!

They want to pay me $1300 when everyone is getting $1000...who am I to disagree...right?

Early on I did partial rents where the city paid a portion and the tenant paid a portion. I no longer do that they will always have excuses as to why they don't have their part. I've been lucky to get 100% vouchers here in Houston.

I love the direct deposit as some have said and as @Sharon Tzib

stated the city can be extremely picky on inspection items, you will get an "owner failed" just for a missing window lock...all of $1.95 at Home Depot, and as @Rolanda Eldridge mentioned you have to do your homework. Screening tenants will save your life...possibly literally.

My biggest tip is drive by the potential tenants current resident, this is the best barometer for how they will treat your property. If you see what looks like a club parking lot on a Friday night, junk cars, too many cars, or you can hear the pit bulls barking from the street....application declined!

There are many threads here with great information on S8 as others have mentioned. Good luck!

@Brant Richardson

Lol....you sound like me. I'm always telling my family how many BPOs I just spent on them.

"You need to stop that...no one is ever going to pay you to drive around looking at houses" - An Ex...obviously.

"But you just bought a house a couple of months ago...you need to wait at least another year" - An Ex-Real Estate agent.

"Don't put your houses on S8...they'll just tear it up" - A non-investor. By the way my S8 tenants are some of my better tenants.

Some of the tools you can use is google maps to see what the property may look like or may have looked like at the time the map was created. There are also other websites you can go to to check ownership such as . You do have to have a subscription to this site, but if you plan on doing this, it's money well spent.

To find out if there are possible mortgages on a property, go to https://www.mers-servicerid.org/sis/index.jsp

Brightest Blessings!

That is going to depend. As Joel pointed out if you listed it for the bank you will not be able to buy it, as that would not be an arms length transaction. But listing it yourself you are not representing the bank, so it may be okay.

The problem is going to come in, in getting the bank to go with your offer price. I work for lots of banks doing BPOs to determine the value and validity of the short sale listing price. If it's good and you can show that's what the market will bear, again you may be okay.

Getting them to then agree to your offer price when you determined the listing price...could get tricky.

Yep scale down to build bigger. I'm a lot like @Sharad M. every time I get close to having closing cost it's like a giant magnet and I'm just drawn to it. I can't think of buying anything else because I already know if I sow that seed I will reap much bigger returns that whatever else I could buy with it.

@Account Closedand @Sharad M. thank you for the encouragement!

I did not report her and she is her broker, and it was too long after the fact. When this happened I was not a realtor and no longer living in Houston. So when I moved back here and became a realtor is when I was able to figure out what she had done.

I won't lie...it still bothers me, I drove by that house today and thought how elated I would be to say I still owned my very first house. I've even approached the current owners about buying it but they don't seem interested. Which is where I have to separate sentimental feelings from business. The house looks like it needs a lot of work. There are multiple window units so I'm sure the HVAC is gone and they've added all sorts of rickety looking sheds in back.

Not to say I wouldn't address all that if I could get it back at the right price. It's in a very strong working class neighborhood or let's make that WCN (thanks @Lisa Phillips girl you Rock!) and I own two other homes in that neighborhood, so if I could I would.

It's one of those places you can buy a foreclosed home for $40-$50k ,put in less than $10k and rent it out for $1200...and I have for years. But BUT...the homes retail for high $90s as they are all brick, mostly 4-2s with big yards and very close to I-45 thus downtown. So it's a very desirable location.