All Forum Posts by: James Bynum

So I've been a renter for a very long time and this was incredibly odd to me but it worked out in my favor so I'll take it. I recently moved into an apartment complex in Spartanburg, SC and I moved from out of state so I just showed up after doing most everything online and was given a website to go to so that I could get renters insurance, and they said if I got insurance through this website I would only have to pay about $100 for my deposit!! I had never heard of such a thing, so I went to the website they gave me and sure enough, I first had to pay my renters insurance, which was $157 for the year or $13 a month, so I just paid for the full year since I got stuck in a 15 month lease. (Whole other topic in itself!) and then once I paid that it sent me to another page to pay the $100 fee to be covered for $400 worth of deposit, and that was it.

Has anyone heard of this kind of thing before? Maybe something to look into in the future. But I'm just trying to figure out how the apartment complex collects and how hard it is for them to collect, I would just rather take the check for $400. Maybe this is a way to get lower income people into the property so they don't have to put so much money down up front. It's definitely not the cheapest place in town, but so far I think I'm way overpaying for the crap whole this place is.

Will do my best to be there!

Yeah I fully understand that, you don't want to put in all that time and effort just for someone to go behind your back and work with someone else. But their agreement says that even if I find something myself off MLS that I would owe him a fee still even if he wasn't involved at all in the transaction.

Is there ever a situation as a flipper or buy and holder that you would ever agree to sign an Exclusive Buyer Broker Agreement?

I've been working with this agent for a couple of months now and he just brought up the Broker Agreement and wants me to sign it. The thing is I'm new to this business and so is he. He has been working his tail off to find me deals and even working to connect me with vendors, even though nothing he's brought to me has looked very good, he's still trying and tweaking.

I just feel like if I sign something like this with him, I would really be limiting myself and causing myself unneeded loss of income if I end up finding something on my own, ie Craigslist or yellow letter, and then have to still fork over a fee to him and his broker for doing absolutely nothing.

I don't want to lose the relationship as he's a good guy and he's trying, but if it came down to it, I think I would just have to walk away. Now I would be willing to sign some sort of other agreement that if he brought me a property I would use him to close on the deal and then when I'm ready to sell use him as the selling agent. I think that would be a fair trade-off, or would the broker not go for something like this?

I don't know what those other landlords are doing but this is the norm in South Carolina. This is why I'm very worried about investing in rentals, unless you can be evaluated at a great price, and get crazy good rent, which I haven't seen either, you are stuck paying South Carolinas ridiculous tax rates!

I'm really not sure why owner occupants are exempt from paying school tax, I just don't get it. And that is why your taxes are so much higher. If you were an owner occupied, your $199,000 house would only be about $1,000 per year. Now if you contested the appraisal and got it down to $175,000 you would be paying about $3,200 a year, which isn't a huge savings but can help.

http://www.kershawcountyscauditor.com/RealProperty...

Here is a pdf of the sates millage rate broken down by county:

http://sccommerce.com/sites/default/files/document...

Thanks for the humble response @J Scott, while a little annoying, like I said, it was awesome! I couldn't put it down. I read it over the course of about 2 weekends and I hate to read books. The last book I read was almost a decade ago so I think that says a lot about your book! 

Didn't mean to be harsh or insult you. I had just finished reading it, so it was fresh on my mind lol. I'm still gonna buy your next book on estimating rehab costs. :)

Just finished reading this book myself, and wow, this is definitely a must read, I'm so excited to get started and now I know what to look for and how to do it. 

If you want to start flipping this book is a must read, @J Scott is a genius, as long as grammatical errors don't infuriate you lol. Bigger pockets needs to hire a better editor, but even still, GREAT READ! 

Thanks @Jay Hinrichs

@Russ Scheider I will definitely be giving you a call tomorrow!

@Jane A. I'm not completely sure about the downturn, but can speculate that the tourism industry suffered during the recession, but seems to be rebounding pretty well now.

I was just throwing it out there on posting those properties. I just wanted to look up some stuff quick to show my point that it's affordable. Although those properties are at the center of where most tourists would want to be, but that's just a guess.

This post might help to see how active it is. (Pretty much all year round)

http://travel.usnews.com/Daytona_FL/When_To_Visit/

There is always Florida, right now Daytona Beach prices are cheap because the area started to suffer, but I think it's trying to make a comeback, there are cheap deals all over the place and even right on the beach.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2102259165_zpid

This place will even manage the rental of your place for you, not sure on all the details but it's only $54k for the unit

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/67192333_zpid

Or this that's only $30k and is on the ocean with an ocean view

There are deals everywhere but do your research in this area, because there are some really bad neighborhoods, some right in the beach.