All Forum Posts by: George C.

The neighbor could be broke & six months behind on his mortgage. He might not have a penny to pay or care. Most average folks don't have $5-10K to whip out to pay for something like that, they'd sooner use that for a vacation . Count on paying for it yourself.

Worst investment was in 1998 starting a restaurant from scratch, a whole lot of blood sweat & tears went into it. I figured that I could afford to gamble about 30K and that it was a gamble...what I didn't figure was that it would end up costing ALOT more by the time the dust settled. We were borrowing money just to keep running so I pulled the plug. To clear the debts I sold a two family that I had for eleven years. I sold it in 2000 for $260K, in 2005 it sold again for $550K....all because I thought that I could afford to gamble $30K...

I regret selling every property that I sold over the years, too. I only go after real good deals, so yeah I made great money on selling, but not having them now stinks. I sold one after I took a whoopen in the restaurant business, to wipe the slate clean. That one I sold in 2000 for $260K, it sold again for $550K only four years later!I sold a couple of excellent properties to have enough cash on hand to start building spec homes. I made great money doing that and that was my favorite line of work so far, but spec building is dead in my area since 09 and for the foreseeable future. The one property I sold would've been long paid off, netting about $50K a year... I could've feathered my nest nicely with an extra $50K worth of feathers every year!

So my mantra now is to buy & hold forever, don't do anything risky that would require selling anything if things went sour.

Modulars are just fine, in fact their energy efficiency is a huge bonus. The ones I put up came with 2X6 exterior walls & R19 in the walls & low glass everywhere standard. You can add or change the plans for a charge of $50 with the factory I went with. I built my last home, a 3300 sq foot colonial on a a full height walk out basement (12" block) all for $218K, that's without the land or septic system. That works out to about $67 a square foot in NJ.

As far as holding up to tenants, they are the same as any other home out there. If you don't want OSB for subfloors or sheathing, you can upgrade with plywood, I don't see the need...

My $67 a foot includes extras such as, 9' first floor ceilings, wood burning fireplace, high hat lighting, upper tier granite kitchen & bath tops, hard wired for alarm system. The added onsite porch roof & columns are in that price, too. The columns alone were about $13K by themselves. If I was paying retail for it by having it built by another Builder, or for a site built, it would've cost another $100-125K for their profit in there just on the house. I've stick built entire homes with my own two hands before, I don't see the point anymore when I can get just as good for a good price and without breaking too much of a sweat. Now if you ask local tradesmen about them, they'll all badmouth them, sure no wonder? They are losing work to modulars. This one didn't sell back in 09, but it will eventually. I figure to make about $200K profit off it when it does, that's not appreciation, that's just the for bringing the house & land all together and making a package out of nothing...poof.

I worked as an electrician for a licensed company for a few years out of school. We got calls like this from people when a string of outlets / lights got interrupted. Most times it was due to a recent device (outlet / light fixture) change and a connection wasn't tightened good enough that came loose over time, or a device failure. I've never seen a wire fail between devices , not to say that it never happens. When splices / junction boxes are hidden in walls during a remodel (against code), that's where hunting a phantom interruption becomes bedeviling. A "professional Electrician" should've been able to hunt down an interruption or a failed device within three hours.

As far as finding violations and making extra work, threatening to call in the county / building dept., I call B.S. on that one. That's where I'd go nuts. No contractor would want that kind of a reputation, ever. Could you imagine him finding that all over the internet someone posted telling everyone how super safety conscious he is, that he'll report any & all violations found to the city while working on your home if you don't let him fix them on the spot. How long do you think he'd be welcome into any potential customers homes or businesses? In this day of the internet where anyone can leave a bad review, especially if they have an ax to grind, you don't want to be in that mix there as a contractor or any other kind of business.

Sure we'd find other problems, some nasty, we'd mention it to the home owner verbally but would never think of threatening "violations" for extra work. You don't need to protect your livelihood / license that way. If your sent to find a short, you're looking on that circuit, not all over an attic, you're not there to do an "inspection". There is no assumption that you should've saw something should a place burn down even the next day. Fires are rare, most are caused by people. Even in the nastiest places with all kinds of violations, they are still open buildings & homes that are standing without issue or repairs.

I think you got screwed by both, they saw you as easy pickens being 800 miles away and unfortunately you kind of are, especially when you are notified after the fact.

I thought my last primary home of 15 years would be my last, it's been a rental for 5 years now. Always buy with the intention of making money on it if you had to rent or sell it. I've always bought well, doing so with my primary home made the change of it into another rental work. If I had paid a "retail" price, I would've lined someone else's pockets instead of my own. I bought it years ago off the MLS, it was an estate sale property and I paid 60 % of it's value. My neighbor was shocked / irked at how low I bought the house for :) Twenty years later it still warms my heart....

Porter, buy well & cheap, doesn't have to be a fixer or an REO, could just be an estate sale. Even properties priced near retail on the MLS can be low balled if the situation is right.

I'd offer to keep it at the $875 and not go down to renew two year lease. A bird in the hand... I also send a gift certificate to a nice local restaurant for brunch to good tenants after they renew a lease, that creates a lot of good will.

Buying right cures most if not all "what ifs". If you hold out and buy only the best deal, you will be able to handle any dips in the economy and rents, be able to sell down the road if you have to sell cheaper than the market around you and still make money.... but only if you buy it right.

What J Scott said about local jobs / economics & management is key, screen for good quality tenants, stay ontop of repairs and learn all that you can by reading this site.

There's nothing like other peoples money to feather your nest! I love that about REI.

Somebody in the local tax authority should've used their head for sure.

The buyer didn't pay $6, he paid over $116K for it, why would he owe anything to anyone else? The story claimed the house to have a value of about $280K, really? I find that number suspect, there is usually good reason that the house sold at auction for $116K or whatever. The delinquent owner is due to recieve the overage over the $6 owed, it's not like she lost her house for $6 and got nothing out of it.

There's a lot more injustice that goes on around seniors in this country that *is* legal and goes unchecked. My friend's grand father died just months after his wife died. The home health aid married him, ran up all his credit cards, deeded the two houses over to her son in the few months before the old man died so there would be no estate or will to his kids or grand kids. This woman stole everything, but because he married her, there is nothing anyone or any state agency can do.

Crap happens, at least that old lady in the story is getting $116K less $6 & costs back.

In NJ you can pull any permit for any trade as long as you are an owner occupied, unattached single family property owner. If not, be prepared to pay through the nose if you need to get permits & licensed trades in there. Your partner needs a Home Improvement Contractors license & insurance in NJ to even paint or even to be a handyman. It's crazy here in NJ.