All Forum Posts by: Brandon C.

anyone?

I was looking at some banks tonight to open an new business checking account, and found one bank advertising the ability to incorporate & link your viewpost.com to your bank account. 

Looks like it is 50 cents to send a payment of any amount. Seems cheaper than the other sites I've looked over. Anyone ever used this service specifically for collecting rent? Thanks!!

Tempted to put an offer on a SFH tomorrow that is priced well, in good shape and should cashflow well. My one concern is that there are a lot of homes that are already rentals in the neighborhood. I'm guessing 30% of the neighborhood is rentals. Any concerns buying into an area like this? I posted an ad on Craigslist with basic home details and general location. I set rent at what I thought was a little high at $1200 just to see how many responses I'd get. I was hoping for 1. I got 4 in about 18 hours. Thoughts? Thanks!

I’m struggling a bit to find my first buy and hold property. I live just outside Nashville in a large and growing college town. I have $50k to invest into a rental property. My plan was to take $20-30k and buy one property now and see what I learn and then acquire another property at the start of next year.

Here’s the problem I’m having….There is a boom happening right now in the county. Homes under $175k are selling quick and many times well above asking. I’m hesitant to “jump in” just because I don’t know if this is a short term lack of demand problem, or something more long term. We just bought and sold a home in the county back in the fall and it was nothing like this. My area never really went thru a major downturn when the housing bubble popped. We just didn’t have much appreciation.

I had thought about buying a duplex, but there aren’t many for sale in our area, and the ones that are on the market are very old. Currently there is one built in 1960 for sale for $120k and renting for $675 per side which is reasonable for the area. My concern with a duplex is being limited to selling to investors and the appreciation not being has high when I do sell.

My realtor suggested I look at something newer since this is my first rental. He said that way I don’t have repair problems and I’d get a higher rent that would weed out some potential tenets. I kind of like this idea because then if I buy and decide being a landlord isn’t for me, I could easily sell in a year or two.

So here’s my questions:

• 1.Given the crazy boom that’s currently happening, should I sit for a bit to see if things cool some?

• 2.There are a couple newly built houses for sale for about $148k. I think I charge rent of 1% of purchase price (which is pretty common here). Plus I should see pretty good appreciate when I go to sell. Concern is that I haven’t read a lot where people buy new homes to rent out. Doesn’t seem quite as common.

• 3.Any other suggestions or opinions? Am I thinking about this stuff correctly? 

I would not do it. I don't do business with friends or family. I definitely wouldn't want to do business with someone who has bad credit and criminal background. "His mother messed up his credit" - how? Unless she stole his personal info and used it, how can anyone let someone mess up their credit. What is his criminal charges? I know people *sometimes* change, but I don't like taking that chance when I have lots of $$ involved. Just based on what little I've read, this guy doesn't make good decisions and makes excuses for them.

I've been on the site off and on for a while. Past 6 months or so have allowed for my wife and I to explore getting into the real estate world.

My wife and I are 34 with 2 kids in elementary school. I make about $75k working in the corp world and my wife makes about $38k as a teacher.

We have no debt except for our house. We owe $250k and house is worth $350k-ish. I put extra $$ to the house each month to get this thing paid for.

We have credit scores around 800-810. $150k in retirement and $25k in liquid cash.

In May, I will receive a lump sum of $50k. I thought about putting it all towards our primary house, but I want to turn it into an income stream.

Since I'm new real estate I don't want to get in over my head. My thought was to buy 2 condos at $100k each and put 25% down on each. I would probably look at getting one condo by end of summer and the other by end of year if all was going well.

If I get $1k a month in rent, a 30 year note would

be $380, minus another couple hundred in ins, HOA and property taxes. In the end, I'm estimating my cash flow would be $350-400 per condo per month.

What would you do if you were in my place? What would you do with the $50k? Looking forward to your ideas!!! Thanks!!!!

I have a unique situation, and since you all are experts in the real estate world, I wanted to get the opinion from knowledgeable neutral parties. Appreciate you taking the time to read my post.

My wife and I live in the Nashville area and have been in our home for about 10 years. We explored selling the home about a year ago. We were going to list for about$165k-$170k. Currently we owe $60k.

Our house is great. We love it. However, the neighborhood is slowly declining. If you ignore the couple yards that are mowed twice a year and the lovely new neighbors across the street that have a rusty old trampoline in their front yard, we could probably stay in this home for a few more years. We have no homeowners association or anything so there’s not much I can do. Every time I turn onto our street I feel like I see dollar bills flying out of our home.

Last year when we looked at moving, we went through the loan process. Our credit score was 738. I’m about to accept a new job that will increase my salary. My wife has been staying home with the kiddos for the past 5 years, but just last week accepted a teaching position that will pay about $35k starting in Sept. This will put our combined income around $110k. Last year we were approved for a loan of $300k. Loan officer said we could go much higher, but I wanted it capped at $300k. Financially, I think we are ok. Right now, we are in savings mode to boost all of our cash, and this will continue till we get settled in our new home. We have no debt except for a car payment that we’ve been paying down on. We do have about $140k in retirement accounts, but I believe we are restricted from using that, and I’d prefer not to.

The plan has been to start looking at moving in May of 2015. Next May, I will receive a $50k lump sum payment from an annuity settlement. I know it’s best to take the lump sum rather than annuities but my parents’ chose this years ago, and I can’t change it (I just spoke with the ins company).

We are in no hurry to move. I want to make sure we find the right house for us, because we will probably be in it for a while (hopefully). I’m fine if we officially begin the search and it take 10 months before we find our house. Therefore, I don’t want to put our house up for sale until we have a home. I’m ok carrying two house payments for a while. I DO NOT want to sell our home, move to an apartment for 3 months and then on to another house.

I always assume the worst case scenario. I have this crazy feeling, my wife and I will find the perfect house in January. Sure, we could tap our emergency savings and put a little down on the house, but I wouldn’t want to deplete saving too much. We are looking at homes priced between 225k-300k, but prefer to stay under $275k.

My questions are – What are my best and cheapest options to get $50k or so to have available to put towards a house should we find one before May of 2015?

Here are the options I think I have:

1)Take out a home equity loan for $50k and set it in a savings account in case we find a house. CONS – Expensive fees, and I believe there are prepayment penalties. I would pay this loan off as soon as our house sells, or May 2015 arrives.

2)Refinance the house, for ~$120k and set the $60k in savings. CONS – I assume this is possible, not sure if this is overly expensive.

3)Put down $10k-15k, and then when the house sells, throw all that money towards the mortgage, and then next May do the same with that money. Once we pay down enough to have 20% equity, the PMI will fall off. Latest this would happen would be May of next year. CONS: Not sure if I can put that little down towards a house.

4)Refinance the house, for ~$120k and set the $60k in savings and use it to put towards the next house. Then RENT our current home instead of selling it. I spoke with a property management company and they estimated I could get $1,325 a month for my home. The concern I have is the declining neighborhood.

5)Not do anything until May 2015.

Again appreciate your help!!

Ok, that helps. I think they would have trouble selling it. How do they create a deed to hand over to the property group? Does that require a lawyer or is it something I can put together for them?

Hi Jon,

That was the first thing I checked this morning. Tennessee has a great property data website and yes, they are listed as owners of the property along with a Parcel #.

Do you think a quiet deed is what they need? I'm always hesitant to take advice from the fox when he's in charge of the hen house. =)

I've been reading the forums for a while, but never posted. My in-laws told me about a situation they are going through and this was the first place I thought to post to seek advice. I just heard about this this morning before work, so I don't have all the details but here's the situation. About 10-12 years ago, my in-laws bought a small plot of land in rural Tenn at some campground. They don't remember what they paid, but they think it was around $2500. They financed it over 2-3 years. Just as they paid it off, the property group went bankrupt. They paid the lot off, but the company never sent them a title. About 6-7 years ago, they decided they were going to try to sell the property since they rarely use it. When they called the office, that's when they found out about the previous company going bankrupt. The new company has no information on the lots and said they were unable to provide a deed. Tax on the property is like $6 a year - yes, 6 bucks! They have always paid that. About 3 years ago, they called again to try to get a deed or something. Again, the new company said they couldn't help and that it wasn't their problem. My in-laws said they weren't going to pay the $125 a year assessment fee if they couldn't provide evidence of ownership of the property. Fast forward to today. The property group sent a letter saying that if my in-laws didn't pay the assessment fees for the past 3 years wihtin the next 10 days that the property would be foreclosed on. If they didn't want to pay it, they could surrender the property to this company. My MIL said they could have the property, but the company told her that she needed to contact an attorney and get a quiet deed before they could do that. My MIL asked "How can you foreclose on property that you have no evidence that I own." Their response was that she had been paying taxes on it. Any suggestions on what my in-laws should do? They were going to get with a lawyer and get a quiet deed and be done with it. I told them to wait, because I don't want them to pay a bunch of attorney fees if they don't have to. This is the first time I've dealt with anything like this. Would appreciate any advice you have!