All Forum Posts by: Jake Roland

@Cole Sonner I have done both, you can definitely still find good deals on the MLS, plus if you have your license by then, you will get the commission which will start to contribute to your taxable income and will allow you to borrow more in the future. You can find good deals with absentee owners as well, and you can also write your commission into the offer to them as well. That's just something I bring up because I wish I had focused on more getting my taxable income up because a couple of years ago I was writing off as much as possible to reduce my taxes, and then when I started to ask for loans it was a lot harder because it looked like I made basically no money. I'm in a college town as well and though I haven't rented to students, it seems a lot of other investors I know do well doing it, and you can definitely get more rent if you do it by the bedroom. Good luck!

@Anitra Sanders Home Warranty companies will always find a way out of it, just like any warranty on anything they pretty much always suck in my experience. 

Depending on your home insurance you could try a claim with them, my State Farm policy has a home systems protection that has a $500 deductible for any systems that go out they will replace (HVAC, etc). 

@Tiwana Merritt If you didn't put a deadline on your repairs addendum and it just says "prior to closing" I would suspect you would be right, they could complete the repairs just before closing and it would be fine. If your contract says you as a buyer have a right to a final walk through inspection prior to closing, you could do that and then if it's not satisfactory push back the closing until they do all the agreed upon repairs. It sounds like you want out of the contract even if they do the repairs though? Unfortunately if you already requested renegotiation of the contract for the sellers to do repairs and you both agreed to the items that need repairs, if they do repair the items you probably don't have much recourse for getting out of the contract and getting all your earnest money back, unless there's another contingency still (financing, etc) you can use to your advantage. 

Fortunately, at least where I am, for earnest money to be released to either party, both buyers and sellers have to agree and sign the release. So, typically the worst you can get is splitting it half and half since that is sometimes the only thing both sides will agree to if they both think they are right. 

@John Bell Is the seller wanting to back out of the contract over the $2,000? Or are they just complaining and still going to go through with it on Thursday? It doesn't sound like they have grounds to back out and would be breeching the contract if so. 

@Justin Rivers I recently took over hosting a quarterly real estate investment group for the Auburn/Opelika area. The next meeting will be early next year. We have a good group of around 20 or so that come. I can add you to our email list if you'd like? 

@Frankie Betancourt I have used a credit card to send money through paypal before to turn it into "cash", I don't neccessarily reccommend this, but if you have no better choice there's a fee of 2.9% to do so. 

@Nathan Witte The first thing you could do is connect with a local agent and get some auto emails set up and have them looking out for discounted properties in good areas. If you see a house for sale for $80/sqft in a neighborhood that houses usually sells for $110/sqft then that would probably be a good one to check out. Purely visual unappealing things are great and usually easy to fix, so look for houses that are discounted because they need painting, a face lift in the kitchen, new flooring, etc. Make sure you get an inspection, and make sure you factor in all of your selling costs, (holding costs, commissions, taxes, etc.) when running the numbers. I would look for something built post 70s if possible, at least to start, so you don't have as much to worry about,  it's less likely anything structural would be bad, it probably won't have any plaster walls, electrical with no grounding, asbestos, etc. 

Good luck with everything!

@Andrew S. You can try to tell your agent to nag her about it until she gets it done if it's really just the other agent's fault, but honestly if the current owners don't really want to close early or don't care then the seller's agent might not want to push them to close early. If they aren't using E-sign documents then that kind of stinks, but if you're talking about the final deed and everything then that's also up to the closing attorneys to mail those documents to them for closing. Honestly though in my experience both sides have to really want to close early for it to actually happen.

@Terry Huang Jr You can do a lot of this remotely. You can certainly get prequalified for a mortgage from where you are right now. I'd go ahead and figure out your financing first, then talk to property management companies. While your finding a good agent in Rochester, you can speak to agents about property management companies, as well as try to speak with other investor-clients of the management companies to find a good one. Then, you can see a lot of potential properties online, and go ahead and let your agent know what you are looking for so they can be on the lookout for properties that fit your criteria as well. Set up showings for properties, meet with the management companies, etc while you are in Rochester. 

@Dallas Sullivan I think the answer to your question is just experience. Driving for dollars, learning the street names and the neighborhoods. I hadn't even been in a lot of my city until I started real estate even though I grew up here. Frankly, there's not much reason to go into a lot of residential areas and neighborhoods unless you're interested in real estate. So get out there and drive for dollars, go to the local meetups and start networking with local investors, agents, mortgage brokers, etc. Start trying to find the first deal and go from there, you'll always be learning more about your area.