All Forum Posts by: Harrison Cook

does your total mortgage payment include property taxes and insurance? What is your interest rate?

1224 SF 2 story single family home.

I think it is a stick build but i am not sure what you mean there.  It is a wooden house with aluminum siding and a flat roof. There is no attic. the basement is unifinished. the home is connected to a natural gas line.

built in 1960

no updates to the building envelope

old cast iron radiators

black iron

I do not plan on not opening any walls.  The house has pretty good bones. I plan on painting it getting rid of all the cosmetic deficiencies and reconnecting all of the utilities. the city should be reconnecting the gas next week as it was cut off at the street when the house was foreclosed. 

Hi all,

This is my first post but I have a question. I dove into my first project back in April. I still have not decided if I should flip it or hold it. I like the area and believe there is a strong possibility of appreciation and feel that getting the experience of land lording will be a good learning experience. However I need to make the place habitable and do to do that I need to install a new steam boiler the old one is broken.

This is where I ran into my 1st hicccup. The town that the property is in wants a heat loss study done. This will apparently cost me $1,500 dollars. The installation of the boiler is another $6,000. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing where in order to replace an existing boiler with one of the exact same model you have to pay an engineer $1,500 for no reason? what is my actual downside on trying to replace it without the study?

I felt like the heat loss study was such a pain that I should look into a central air and furnace system. The house has no ducting or no attic so that is eliminated. I am now looking at a mini split system which would give me AC and heat and be very efficient. I got a quote that said it would be $26,000 to put this system in.  Now I guess the question is would the mini split system raise the value of my house by more than $18,000 ($26,000-$8,000).  

There is 1 more hiccup. The pipes in the house are relatively old and the house was winterized and thankfully there have been some very minor but fixable leaks, however, the radiators look like water has come out of them I cannot tell if they are in good shape and the technician said the only way to know is when you hook up the boiler. So I am worried that if I hook up the boiler I am going to have broken radiators and god knows what that will cost to replace. I am looking for any guidance here.

thanks to everyone on these forums

I have been looking at this one. I do not have the appetite for it at the moment but Port Chester is a great market with very low vacancy and only a 25 minute express train ride from the city.  Also if you are raising money in a GP/LP structure do the LP's need to be accredited investors or not? if not do you just go to a lawyer and draw up the documents? Happy to talk more about port Chester if you are interested.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Port-Chester...

So i have been looking at a foreclosure in a suburb of NY.  I went to the property today to see if i could speak to the tenants as it appears to be occupied on the evening when i drive by it.  I asked if i could see the inside after speaking with a man who was returning home from work. he appeared to be a day laborer and spoke poor English.  my Spanish is not very good and after speaking with him for 10-15 mins i was informed that they are paying 3k per month to the current owner and cash and were largely unaware of the foreclosure going on on Friday.  

does anyone have experience with stuff like this?

the place is very dilapidated.  I planned on bidding 70%-less fix up costs but am strongly considering walking away now. any thoughts or opinions would be appreciated

Hello BP i am new to real estate investing but i think i have a great opportunity on my hands.  There is an occupied duplex in my town that is going to foreclosure auction on Friday.  I am nearly certain that the owner does not live in the house and that both units are occupied. two questions.

1) if I win the auction is there any reason I would have to evict these tenants? i would ideally like them to stay and stat with a cash flowing property immediately.  Perhaps i am thinking about this wrong but would appreciate any advice anyone has on the subject.

2) Since i have not seen the inside of the house would it be a good or bad idea to try to speak to the current residents and ask if I could look inside to get a better idea of what I am buying. I have heard that if you speak to residents they think they may be evicted and can be proned to trashing the place but i am not sure here if anyone has any thoughts on that subject i would like to hear that as well.

thanks for your help BP!