All Forum Posts by: Chris Da

I think I am going to walk away from this place. It is very nice looking, and like I said, the fellow did a fine job fixing it up. Over did it if you ask me. ANyway, he won't sell it below 180k. It isn't worth it to me. Also, today I found out that all three units have a hot water heater that the landlord also has to pay for. Heat and hot water in a 4300sq/ft building powered by oil @3.04 gallon as of now, and going higher. I think someone else will have to take this deal.

I was wondering.. I see alot of guys that purchase not so wonderful houses and rent them to a lower class of people. They get the houses for next to nothing, do as little as possible to them, and cash flow almost right away. Maybe it would be better to buy a 45k 2 unit that the owner doesn't have to pay for anything but sewer/cold water and loan. Hell, I could by this outright in a market like this, and if I made a few buck on my money, maybe I would be better off.

I guess one way to fix the oil problem would be to have it zoned if possible. My other sone is an HVAC tech and has installed many units.
I just wonder how you would do it with one boiler for 2 of the units. The 3rd unit has a gas unit.
Maybe charge an extra amount on top of the rent to cover oil. I don't know. Maybe spend 3k on a small boiler and instead of having one unit, run 2. I would have to look, but if everything is out in the open, you could just cut some pipes and run the loop into the new boiler, and rewire the t-stats from the other unit. It would take some looking into, but the intial out lay for the new boiler and tank might be 6k. That might make the deal work. I will have to look more into this.

This is a tough one. I wanted to do this for my son, as he is very handy,and hopefully someday if it worked out he would buy me out and keep it for himself as a pension type income(if all worked out.)
The city of Reading has gone down hill over the years, but this area close to Albright College is still decent as of now.
What I would like to do is rent it to college students(females) being as the boys would destroy it. There is a shortage of dormatory space at the college, and this is across the street.
My concern is that this area could very well go down hill as well, and my building will be worthless, or shall we say impossible to sell to someone else and make a return someday, and I would have just been better off investing in a lost cost Vanguard Mutual fund instead.
What I am not interested in doing is putting money out of my pocket every month to run the place. I will put the money down needed to make it work, but would like to keep it to a min.

Thank you. I also like the 122k price, but I am afraid he won't consider that price. Do you think if I was able to get it for 150 it would work, or should I walk away?

I am unable to open your document. Could you send it again, or maybe in a different format. What program do you use to open it?

Thank you for the quick reply. In your opinion with the numbers you just showed me, would you think the property would be interresting? The roof is 6 years old.(Forgot that part.)

I am looking to invest with my son. He doesn't have the cash, but I am looking for something that I can help him with, and in return he can do the repairs, managing ect.

He currently has a townhoude he rents Section8, and has been blessed with a wonderful teneant who keeps the house PERFECT. He has a partner in this venture ( not myself.)

He seems to enjoy it, but has had is easy so far, because his rent is payed buy our government.

What is your opinion on this.

I am sorry, I should have asked if any of you have a simple program that you use to input the numbers in to find out if the property is worth buying, ect..
If you do, send me an email, or send a copy of the program attached to the email. That would help me out alot. thank You

Hello all. I have a property in mind, and I would like to give you the details of it, and have someone with some experience give me an honest opinion please.

Located a completely rehabbed property across from a college in Reading Pa. The neighborhood in the 3 block area is decent (mind you Reading Pa.) in my opinion has really gone down hill over the years, but this is a nice area of the city I think, only because of the college.

Anyway..here it is:
3 unit 4300sq ft brick 2 story house on a corner lot.
2-2br apartments and a 3 br apartment and a 2 bay garage.
84 years old. Oil heat (boiler w/steam radiators)
The inside of the building is truely done well. Everything is new and they are large apartments as I am sure you can tell by the SQ/ft listed.

There is public water and sewer and 4 NEW 100amp services. Was just inspected by the city, and passes all city codes, U&O permits ect.
They guy did a really nice job of re habbing this unit. Also ALL new windows, capping paint ect on outside. (He bought it 1 year ago at a sherrif sale with intentions of flipping it. Payed 15k for the place, but put alot into it.

Anyway..He is asking 199k, which I am not going to pay.
Rents would be 650,650,725, and 150 for the garage total of $2175

I figure expenses at yearly: heat 4000,my electric 1500, sewer trash water 2500, other expense approx 1500. total of $5540
Taxes are $3988 year. Puts me at $9528 if I am correct about my expenses.

Mind you this is a very nice property, this guy didn't cut any corners rehabbing it.( I do some rehab work.) It has been on the market for 9 weeks, and approx 65 people have called to rent it(It is that nice.) but the guy needs to sell it, as he is not a land lord, and doesn't want to be. This is his 1st sherrif sale purchase / flip, and in my opinion he tried very hard and overdid it on making it so nice.

Here is the deal.. People have tried to buy it, but seems like most people don't have ANY CASH for a down payment. 20% at least.

I am really interrested in it, and money on my part is not an issue, but at the same time, I don't want to lay out alot of cash, that I could just as easy invest in the S&P 500 as I have done for many years, watch is grow as it has time and again for the last 40 years( ups and downs ).

I was thinking of putting out no more than 30-40k in cash. I am able to purchase it out right if I had to, but have no real desire to do so, nor reason.

I was going to make an offer of 140k and see where that would get me. I figure if he is aware that I am able to get financing, ect it might be interresting.

Do any of you have an opinions or thought s on this. Please give me feedback if you would.

I can give you an answer to your question as of today. I purchased a nice townhouse this afternoon. When I spoke to the home owners, they we 80% packed. They are moving into thier parents house. I felt bad because of the 2 small children. The part that really bothered me the most was the high end furniture and the plasma tv on the wall, and all the high end stereo equipment. I don't know about anyone else, but if I was in a jam like that, the plasma and the stereo equipment would have beeen on ebay a long time ago. JMO
In all honesty, they were very nice people, and I even offered to letthem use my truck to help them move. I hope they are able to save up enough and get another place someday.

You are correct. That is an ignorant staement I made. There was more to it than I explained other than my staement about Bush.. I do feel the Grenspan was and always was a puppet for what ever president that was in office. He was very political, and now still is and makinf millions at it with his speeches that continue to shift the market. The bottom line is that Bush wanted to make it so many Americans could get houses. That is what happend, and they are now losing the houses. I agree that the lending practices were far to creative, but then again the Federal Reserve could have put more strick rules in place....Which they are now attempting to do under Uncle Ben...