All Forum Posts by: Greg Carrier

Couple of reasons one it is easy as we know the area and neighborhoods intimately so know values better and we also keep a lot of houses as rentals and Rahman some and my contractors will but prefer not to drive an hour we also no code enforcement in our cities so that makes things easier last we still buy inflorida and have purchased liens in teller county co so would not eliminate other places but are very efficient when most are neat how about you? How do you approach it?

Nope.  If you are buying with enough gap, Zillow and other on lines will do.  I started in tax sales where you don't see the inside of the house so am a bit more cavalier than many others out here though.  I used to buy all over but now have a smaller geographic area I deal in and can guess house values as well as anyone at this point in my neck of the woods.

I have 19 SFH's right now. We do basic 2 or 3 1 bath homes 750 to 1000 SF. I am not sure why I would ever need anything like that. Things work fine without me having a camera on the front door and I think Tenants would feel I was in their space if I had that. Here is something though that is more important. We fix everything that breaks in our houses, but I don't want to make it so incredibly easy to make a maintenance request that whenever a door sticks due to humidity, someone is calling me. For that reason I do not visit my rentals. I own some I have never even been in. That said we have had incredible tenants and I have no regrets. One other thing that others may find a bit cavalier is that I do not meet people to show our houses as we bring on new ones. I give them the lock box and if they want an application, once they fill it out they can email it to me or leave it in a locked box in the house. Then I head over and pick up multiple apps at the same time and only meet people when we sign the lease. If something is broken we have others do the work. I only work on my houses prior to the first renter. I want/need some distance between me and them as I have a hard time saying no to requests. Sorry for such a long reply

Welcome to BP  I am located in Granger and we buy 10-20 houses a year in St. Joe, Elkhart, Laporte, Kosciusko, Starke, Marshall in Indiana and Berrien and Cass in Michigan.  If you ever want to wholesale a house or want input on a deal you have (to see if it makes sense) just let me know. :)

A lot of counties are on line and the auctions for many of them are run by the company at this website: 

https://www.tax-sale.info/ there used to be a 10 percent premium to buy on line and so after my first auction, I always attend in person.  I presume the 10 percent is still in effect this year.

I know other people have people bid for them, but I really like the auction and adjust my bids relative to other buyers.  So live works for me.  Also there is an online delay sometimes and I lost a house once during a delay. 

A couple of other BPer's and I are meeting in Novi tomorrow afternoon around 4:00.  If you are available and would like to meet up.  text me and when they tell me the place I can text it to you.

Greg

I purchase houses at tax sales in Michigan (and buy liens in Indiana).  What specific questions do you have?

Look at lots and lots of those liens and don't get attached to any particular one.  If your patient, you will find good deals.  Also I don't go for oddball houses just because the are cheap.  Stay away from the worse neighborhoods and houses that don't match the neighborhood.  We look at hundreds of houses each year and buy between 15 and 30 liens from them.  I like the hunt so don't mind that part of it.  Good luck.  If you have any specific questions let me know.  I do not do lake county, but there are people here who do.

I agree with @Ryan Pyle. I have 20 SFH. Started in spring of 2014 and should get to 30 by the end of the year. I do not yet need a PM as I get very few calls. All my tenants are good ones. Nothing is perfect but I could not have asked for this to go any better that it has. Expecting to add a part time person at around 3o units as we expect to continue growing at this pace or quicker.

I do one amount for every house so I never have to think about it.  It is slightly less than one months rent in my case

Does wearing a suit really do the trick?