All Forum Posts by: Jason F

Just because someone didn't own the property doesn't mean they can't sue you for it. Yeah, the claim to title may be completely ridiculous but it will still have it's day in court. If you aren't a lawyer you are probably going to need to hire one which is going to be far more expensive than $700.

Fact is, I could sue you right now for that property even if I never owned it. Will I win? No. Will it cost you money to fight it? Yes. Title Insurance pays the attorney's to fight the good fight.

I will NEVER buy a property without title insurance.

Now property insurance, that's a different story.

I think putting them in homeowner's yard would be a good idea but I know code officers here in Gainesville seem to be more strict about what goes on in SFH's then they do about the side of the road.

I know you can have a sign selling or renting your property but you can't have one advertising your business.

But hey, this all is very contingent on wher eyou live.

well a website would work if everyone had the internet, or knew how to use it. i would be surprised if most potential sellers that call me knew how to use the internet.

i use RingCentral. it's $119/year. I get a 800 number as well as different extensions. they also do a good job at call forwarding and you can set up your rules accordingly. if you don't want to get calls to your cell phone at night, while your at home, you can set up the answer rule to send it to your house phone depending on the time of day.

it's also nice because your phone will ring and it will say, "you have an incoming call, to accept, press one" so you pick it up by pressing one or you just listen to the message to see who it easy, you can interrupt at any time.

this is good for me because i use my house line as my biz line. sometimes i'm too busy to take down the info of a seller, so it let's me know it is someone calling the 800 number and to let it go to VM.

there is nothign better than actually answering the phone.

it sounds like you are just as anal when it comes to perfection as I am on my houses. that's why it's even harder to find someone.

i do a lot of dierct marketing and i just completely stop when i am working on a house. therefore, i'm only really looking for the best deals in the market while i'm marketing, rather than all year around, which is how it should be. i've realized that you should never just stop looking for deals, you should just turn more away if the market is bad, you don't have the money or you don't have the time.

thanks for the advice.

I'm a young rehabber and up until this point have done most of the work on my properties by myself. It takes me a long time but I know the work is good and I get it done cheap (the cost is my time).

But now I'm starting to realize it might be beneficial to have the work done by a professional, get the house done a lot quicker and move onto the next one. I've realized that while I'm working on a property, I get home at 8pm and spend absolutely no time marketing for the next property. Therefore I'm always either busting my *** on a house or looking like crazy for a deal.

I'm wondering when everyone decided to make the switch from doing the work themselves to hiring a contractor? Also, did you hire guys for each job seperately or just hire a GC to take care of the project.

I have a project now that I got a great deal on and it has the room to hire someone, it's just so hard to pay someone to do the work you know you could do.

know what you are good at and more importantly, what you are not good at. i can lay flooring and paint, but I cannot do drywall. i can hang doors and do electric but I cannot do plumbing. do what you can. and the rest, get a professional to do it.

i think it depends on how long the tenants will be in the house for. people are okay with dirty carpet, as long as it's their dirt. when showing a house, if the stains are someone elses, then that's a huge turn off.

i have a college rental and put tile in the common area and carpet in the bedrooms. that way, i can charge seperate students seperately for the condition of their carpet. if one kid keeps it clean, he gets his money back, if not, they pay for that carpet 3 times over.

the key is to learn how to replace each flooring (or find a cheap flooring guy). most of the cost is in the labor.

The 2% rule seems like a very consevative way to value real estate. I'm not sure I would have ever purchased any rental using that rule.

What is costing you $600+ per month per unit in expenses for an apartment building every month?

I want to set up an excel spreadsheet to calculate my IRR on purchasing a note.

I have on the spreadsheet how to set up the loan terms to spit out a payment for each period (1-360). I'm looking for the forumla that will allow me to calculate my return on investment for each period assuming the note is paid off on at that time. Basically something that takes into account the monthly payment, as well as the equity received if the note is paid in full or refinanced. I want to be able to drag the formula down for each period.

Does anyone have an example formula or spreadsheet they could send me? I've tried the "IRR" function through excel but it is very confusing and I can't get it to work.

Didi,

I don't think they will be able to take your actual home regardless.

What kind of entity did you own your houses in?