All Forum Posts by: Eric Mayo

Welcome Eric, 

You are correct about the supply of homes. The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors report for January said the months supply is 1.7, which is down 26.1% from January 2015. I work in a Real Estate office (not an agent) and see a lot of bank owned properties. One of our brokers has 13 listings currently active and another 13 under contract. It seems most banks are doing repairs like paint, carpet & appliances before listing the properties and pricing accordingly, which really eats into the flipper's profit. It is most definitely time to be creative. Good Luck to you! 

@Brock Leinberger if you're coming in the next few weeks, remember your time at UND and bring a warm coat, hat & gloves!

@Zach Romashko, you might want to look at the Blue Earth county website and go to the Taxpayer Services page then go to Property, Taxes & Maps. From here select Beacon Property Information System and then select Comp Search on the bar at the top of the page. Check the Occupancy box and select property types you're looking for. Note that you'll want to either do only one type at a time or select an area of the city because it limits the search to 200 entries & there is tons of redundancy. There is A LOT of info including owners names & mailing addresses, history of building permits and more. This should give you plenty of owners to contact.

@Giancarlo Canessa, I work at The Realty House in Edina (Non-licensed). One of our brokers owns a small Mortgage Brokerage firm as well. I will talk to him and private message you his contact info. 

Eric

Welcome Kelly. I'm in the Metro but I'm finding that there are some decent deals south. My wife is from Mankato & still has some family there (Dad - CPA downtown, cousin - a cop, etc.), so I keep my eyes open for investments. It appears that as a college town, Mankato properties are at a premium compared to other cities in that area of southern MN. I found a duplex on the Mpls MLS near West HS that if purchased for $11K under asking and raising rents just barely cash flows since I'm using financing. Not what I'm looking for compared to other opportunities in other cities.

Maybe we should start a group for Twin Cities investors of southern MN properties. Good luck & good learning on BP!  Skol! 

@Dylan Barth, I was getting frustrated finding properties in the southern suburbs, where I live. Nothing was cash flowing since a good chunk is going to pay the financing and prices rocketed up this spring. So I'm looking south. Have you thought about looking closer to home? There are 2 multi-families in Mankato on the MLS, and with the right price and ability to raise rents a bit, would be decent cash flow properties.

Welcome Craig. You'll definitely find a lot of helpful people on BP, especially among the Twin Cities members. 

Skol!

Eric

@Miller Josh, I would look at it this way. Are you ever going to do a deal (Buy or Sell side) for anyone else (not for you or your company, however you title your Limited Broker License)? If not, for the LBL you'd pay $180 for the license and $120 for renewals. You don't have to take the 30 hours of classroom education, a test or complete annual continuing education (Big $$ Savings!!). You can also get full MLS access by joining the Realtor Association as a Limited Broker. On the flip side, getting a RE Salesperson license would allow you to assist anyone in a transaction. You do pay $115 for the license & tech fee and $60 to renew the license every 2 years, however, as said earlier, just to get licensed you have to take a class, take the test and then complete continuing education every year. Once you associate with a broker, the company will charge monthly fees for voicemail, MLS access, website, and the privilege of saying you work there. Think somewhere around $125-150/month to start. Now when you complete a sale (either Buy or Sell) you'll give up at least 10% of your commission to the broker plus pay E&O fees, etc of close to $50 per transaction.

So in a nutshell, if you are only going to be buying & selling for your investments only, go with the Limited Broker License.

@Eric Bate 

The City of Mpls handles water/sewer & trash. 

Here is the URL for the Utility Billing:  https://ub.minneapolismn.gov/iwr/user/login.seam?c...

Select Standard Access and type in the property address. This will give you what is currently due as well as a history. With Standard Access you don't need to be the property owner to get the info. 

Hope this helps.

Angie, check the MN Dept of Commerce website under licensing. Here's the URL:  https://mn.gov/commerce/licensees/real-estate/

Look at the Limited Broker license. If you are only going to be buying & selling for your/your company's own portfolio, and not anyone else, this is something to consider. No tests, no continuing education. Application fee & renewal fee are higher ($180/$120 vs. $100/$60) but the licensing classes, testing fee and fees for continue ed. would be much greater I imagine.