All Forum Posts by: David Krulac

I was a co-author and wrote of the Bigger Pockets book "Real Estate Rewind" which is a FREE download here at BP.  In it I said that if I could go back in time I would have bought FEWER properties, eliminating the ones that didn't make money or made money but were too little money to make them not worth the effort, time , money or risk involved.

" How I Turned $1,000 into Five Million in Real Estate" written by William Nickerson; taught me that an average person with average intelligence can succeed in real estate. I consider Nickerson to be the Godfather of Real Estate Investing. The book is 578 pages and filled with gems of real estate investing starting as a part time investor. I started with buying that first property as a house hack (described in Bigger Pockets Podcast #82) and went on to by and selling more than 1,000 properties.  I got the opportunity to meet William Nickerson, hear him speak and talk with him. He was down to earth and very humble.

@Scott Allen and @Drew Sygit  Just bought 3 brand new houses, obviously Class A, they are/will be positive cash flow because of low interest rates (for investor) of two at 4.25% and one at 4.75%.  Also bought 3 other existing houses, $60,000, $70,000 and $123,000 below appraisal, which will be monthly rented at 1.48%, 1.0% and  0.7%. 

A little off topic, but I've seen the trash out companies for foreclosures take everything that's not nailed down.. Thinks like screens, storm windows, doors not attached, etc. all get swpet up and trashed no matter if in good condition and part of the house.  I think their instructions are "throw away everything not nailed down."

@Charles Perkins  One key factor is how high are the coindo fees, many places have high fees.  Also watch for extra fee to cover a big upcoming expense.  And at some condo they either have a limit on rentals, like no more than 10% of the units or they prohibit rental totally.

We've bought land, houses, condos, and notes in our IRA. We've never used the checkbook IRA LLC method, buy have borrowed money privietely by individuals or their IRA to fund these purchases with non-recourse terms. I forgot the exact figure but a custodian representative told me that something like a third to half the funds they hold for the IRA are not deployed in an active investment.

We've owned many condos as rentals, never occupting ourselves. The grounds maintenance and the building maintenace (like roofs and siding) arer covered by the condo fee.  And often there are also some some other utilities or insurance incldued in the condo fee.  At one condo development where we have owned 7 individual units, the condo fee also includes trash and building insurance.  In the first build section there the heat and hot water are also included in the condo fee.  Units built there subsequently have seperate heat pumps and hot water heaters so there the condo fee does not include heat and hot water. In that development there are only 1 and 2 bedroom units and as a result there are very few children and the population is young single people, couples, and senior citizens.  The condo fee is based on the square footage of the unit so bigger units pay more condo fees.  There are also amentities there including swimming pool, club house and tennis courts. We have always had no problem renting the units or selling the units.  Which brings up another advantage of owning condos.  You can sell individual units, which you can't do with apartment building without condoing them. (we did condo an existing building but thats another story.)  And the second big advantage is that the buyers of the condos are largely owner occupants who pay more more per unit than the investor buyer poays for apartment units.  We of course are not buying at retail of the 7 owned there 3 were foreclosures, which were bought at below market prices, then rented for years, sometimes as long as 20 years then sold to mostly owner occupants.  Two others that we bought there were from long time owner occupants who moved on to bigger single family house and we purchased at below market due to the economy at the time and updates needed.  We've owned other condos in other developments as well as apartment building and have done well with both, and there are advantages to both. 

@Joe Villeneuve agree 100% and have said the same thing here and other places.  There are deals on market and off market.  And it doesn't matter what's going on in the economy, its true in up markets, down markets and stagnant markets.  Recently bought an on market house listed since July, paid $123,000 less than appraisal and a formerly listed on market price.  It was still on market and got the big discount due to days on market.  3 other brand new houses, listed on market were bought from builder and got through the builder below market 30 year moprtgages of 4.25% interest and 4.75% interest.  Also bought a property at Sheriff Sale, obviously off market for about $60,000 below market value. So there are deals both on market and off market, but the key is you need to know what the value is.  If you don't know vlaue you can not know what is a deal or not.  

yes we would usually offer an incentive, but depending on the overage, that might be more than enough overage.  Sometimes the overage is plus $50,000 to $100,000

We have bought over 200 tax sale properties. We have gotten Quit Claim Deeds from the former owner, or filed Quiet Title Actions if former owner was not found or decesed, and we have also owned for over 21 years and claimed adverse possession. You will find that many former owners have NOT received notice.  The must recieve all 3 notices. One is a certified letter which many don't bother to pick up. The statue of limitations does not start until the former owner gets notice.  If the owner is deceased, then the heirs need to be notified also.  We had one property where there were 21 heirs, and the former owner had died in 1910.  It was a massive amount of research and costly Quiet Title Action.  Another case we had to Quiet Title a person who didn't sign a deed from 1897.