All Forum Posts by: Jim S

The alternative is to find another agent who is hungry for business. We use an agent who is willing to place as many offers as we want and makes his $$ off of my purchases. He sells my completed homes at zero cost for me. I just pay the 2.5% buyers side commission and taxes. He says it well worth it for him as we do volume and he meets prospective clients at our open houses.
Win/win.

That was several years ago. Those charges were thrown out of court.

Anyone have a good source they can recommend? What is a good price?

This is a bad subject for me. The government has section 8 to primarily help the innocent children of the lazy/bad choice makers/ unlucky. I feel sorry for the kids and animosity towards the parents.
It's too easy to get $$ from the govt in my area. One of my employees in my retail store is a single 55 year old male. He has rented the same condo for 15 years, owned a car and made ends meet. 8 years ago he signed up for the section 8 lottery in an adjoining town and recently got notified he was selected. He took the $800 housing allowance, moved out of his existing condo ($850 rent) and moved into a much more prominent place ($1200). This is a guy who never chose to work any overtime, called out sick on Mondays with a weekend hangover and never chose to get a 2nd job. He always bought a pack of cigarettes and a 6 pack of beer every night on the way home adding up to approx $360 per month. But he survived just fine. But the govt in their infinite wisdom thought he needed to some free rent assistance at the taxpayers expense.
I think the abuses of the system will become more highlighted as budget cuts become more prevalent. Although Section 8 will always be around. There are 3 or 4 generations of families that know nothing else. The cycle will be hard to break both at the govt level and the recipients' level.

My business partner & I always have this same discussion. He is a real estate appraiser and when we are listing a property for rent he will always evaluate it like a good appraiser does. I always laugh at him and jack the rent up about 25% above his max rate and I usually are able to sign a tenant. I always argue its not the market and the MLS that sets the average gained rents its the section 8 recipients with their vouchers. Its like free money to them as it is based on number of kids and how much (or mostly little) they work. around here, 2 kids gets you $1500, 3 kids $1800, 5 kids 2500. I can easy rent a TH for $1800 that usually goes for $1400 when you rent it to people who actually work for a living. The $$ are deposited in my account every month and so far, I have had minimal trouble with the tenants. They know a good thing and don't want to be kicked out of the program. When they sign the lease we highlight on the first page...no pets, no smoking and we sent reports and problems back to section 8 concerning tenant issues. Besides the inevitable "I know you said no pets but can we get a PittBull" question everything goes mostly smooth.

Heres to section 8. The thought of it really pisses me off but it makes my bank account happy.

The funny thing about security deposits:
For the landlords it's never enough.
For the tenant it's always too much.
I guess it depends on who's the owner of the property and who's the destroyer of the property.

I always collect a deposit equal to the last months rent. The last month is potentially the highest if you have any escalations built into the rent. We used to collect an additional $500 pet deposit but now we do not allow any pets.
Jim

http://www.reoconsummit.com/

I seem to average around 14% discount at Lowes. I usually do not buy any drywall or lumber as I leave that up to the contractor. If I need more supplies for the job a few days later I just show them the bid and they honor the bottom line discount on any extra supplies.

As a side note, I have been having issues with receiving items that were previously returned by someone else. Sometimes with duct tape all over the box. Last time it was wood flooring boxes dropped off at a jobsite that were filled with missed cuts and ugly wood. 4 out of 15 boxes. You would think the guys at the return desk would catch this stuff let alone they not pull and deliver it to me.

Beats my $585 for 3 months. Sounds like they nailed me :oops:

You can also go online to plasticjungle.com and buy Home Depot gift cards for a 7% discount. While I was waiting for my last flip to settle I accumulated $18,000 in HD giftcards for $16,700. Add that to the contractor desk discount and it adds up to about 20% discount. Ka$hing!