All Forum Posts by: Marvin Valencourt

When I went to my first one I made sure I didn't take much money and I knew I wasn't going to buy anything unless it was an absolute steal. I really didn't have a choice since I had limited funds anyway :). I used the first visit to see the process and the "players" and to make myself comfortable with how things work. Not taking much money helps me to resist the urge to jump into the bidding process and pay attention to how the process works. Make sure you read up on the rules and maybe question the clerks in whatever office is responsible for the sale about their procedure.

Based on what happens here the lender reps will bid a little above their final judgement price. If there's someone there that wants to live in the property you'll probably have to overpay for it if you're in a "hot" market.

When I was visiting in southeastern VA (pop ~3 million in the area) a year or so ago the cable company was carrying a 24 hr "barker" channel. Looked to me like a repeating Power Point presentation sort of thing designed strictly as a lead generator for Realtors. At the time I called it a TV version of the Land & Homes magazine that you don't have to turn the pages on. I'm pretty sure it was sponsored by the local MLS and was probably using one of the public access channels the cable companies have to have. There was also a show on Sunday (? maybe Sat) morning that included longer segments and a live host.

I don't live in IL but I just had an appraisal done of the house and it's lot so the refi applied only to that one, then quit claimed the other lot to myself.

A 30 minute visit to an attorney may be worth the fee.

I'm a newb so wouldn't know for sure about "prefabbed" managment software, but I have been messing with PCs for a while and do most of my work in electronic form.... I may also be a bit "prejudiced" against box software since I've bought a lot of it that simply didn't work as advertised or didn't improve on how I was already doing it.

FWIW - You may get a better answer and you may have already outgrown this but my "system" for such things is to simply use MS Excel and a directory structure to hold the various documents. For example you could create a c:\holdings directory with subdirs called c:\holdings\123 Main St, c:\holdings\215 Oak Tree ln, etc and store an Excel income/expense worksheet (as simple or complex as you'd like) and any other relevant docs for the property in it's associated directory. It has the additional benefit of being very easy to burn to CD (or DVD) for backing things up and moving offsite in the event of emergency.

I'll second the notion the "used" vs new will be tough to get a top price out of either as a rental or a sale. I watched this happen in the last subdivision I live in, the "used" houses sat for quite a while (some vacant)and the builder was selling his like hotcakes. Once the builder moved on things leveled out some. If you plan to live in it long enough for the other subdivisions to be mostly completed you should be fine. If you decide to sell before that "critical mass" where there are more buyers than new homes, expect lower rents or buyers to expect to pay a lesser price.

I leapfrogged into another house with owner/occupant financing terms. Essentially I have two mortgages but the current one doesn't require me to live in the house so I went and bought a place I liked better to move into. The old place is on my way to and from work and the new place. Home Depot is too so the maintenance and "stopping by" to check on it shouldn't be a problem.

I plan to use the remaining equity in the soon to be rental as my emergency fund by refinancing with a first and a home equity line of credit to be tapped if/when I need it. This will reduce my cash flow some as I pay it back but should be workable. I plan to reinvest the "extra" cash flow by prepaying the mortgage. I've also lived in the house for 5 years and basically did a rehab on it after I bought it from the bank. I'm relatively comfortable with the condition of the plumbing, electrical and hvac systems since I've had my fingers or checkbook in all of them within the time I've lived in the house.

Just for info, I decided to "retreat" from the other purchase and see how things settle out for a while. I guess I just don't have the brass to jump all at once... :chicken:

Since I'm using this as a first and introductory post I'll warn you up front it may be a long one. ;)

First some background. I'm a newb at the "investing" part of real estate. I've owned my own homes (and lost one in a divorce) for about 20 years in solidly appreciating markets. I was fortunate enough to find a REO deal after the divorce and shortly thereafter the market really took off where I live in FL so I have a fair amount of equity in the property even ater a home equity loan. As further incentive my mother passed away a little over a year ago and left me a small sum of money. Since I have a decent job and credit score and little secondary debt I've decided that it's time for me to start acquiring rental properties to help finance my puttering after retirement in about 10 years or so. After much reading, "observing" and researching the current inventory of possible rental properties I ended up writing a contract on a leapfrog house last week and the financing is pending as I write. I've also made another "acquisition", a real estate attorney that I think I can trust. My intention is to go ahead and rent my current house. I understand that being a landlord isn't the easiest thing in the world but I *think* (remember I've never done this before) that the market will bear a rent ~$300/mo over the costs of mortgage, HE loan, maintenance and taxes and insurance. I also have enough cash left to possibly be able to purchase another low end property - a trailer on 2 lots in an area that I expect to join the "boom" within 5 years - without getting too creative with the financing.

Now for my problem - how to decide if I should just stick to taking the baby step of the leapfrog or go ahead and stick my neck out and buy the second property? I read where most of you have regrets about the deal you *didn't* do and the investor vs. observer thing but I'm still having trouble deciding how to convince myself to leave the relative safety of knowing I can make all my payments to letting other people make them for me and worrying about what happens if they don't later on. Commments and suggestions are appreciated....