All Forum Posts by: Charlotte Dunford

It's surprising that you have not run across anything talking about reserves. Reserves is a must and always included in the underwriting process. Every year, you need to budget a certain amount of reserves on top of the original reserves you have. 

Here's what I believe - Mediocre ideas with super execution powers is MUCH better than an awesome idea with mediocre execution powers. You have to pull trigger and you should not wait for the perfect moment/plan/idea to act. You will miss your opportunity that way and you would end up moving too slowly.

Cash out refi or HELOC

I quit my full-time corporate job last March to start my own company. Banks wanted 2-year tax returns and I didn't have that because I just left the corporate world. I used seller-financing to acquire mobile home parks. Partners and I purchased 54 lots, 3 parks to date, and the portfolio is growing rapidly. All on seller financing. 

What I do is following the deal for a long time, make offers, updated offers once in a while. It all comes down to sellers' motivation. And their motivation changes as time goes on. You need grasp the motivation, take action, and negotiate.

If the issues are petty, give them advice and tell them to fix it. Here's a conversation I had with my tenant once. 

Tenant: Is there not a cable outlet in the master bedroom?

Me: No. There are 2 in other rooms.

Tenant: So what am I supposed to do about this room?

Me: If you want a cable outlet. Your internet provider can put it in.

Tenant: Ok.

Read your state's landlord tenant law and see what repairs the landlord is responsible for.

You cannot refinance your LP's out of a syndication. That's not how it works. Your LP's took risks, believed in you when the asset was not in good shape. They were in the deal, come higher or hell water. Now that the asset is in good shape and is making money, they are absolutely entitled to participate in the upside of the deal. (The operating agreement should have addressed this) That's what syndication is about. 

I think what you have in mind is more of a private loan, instead of a syndication. For a private loan, you can certainly pay your investors back through a refinance but not in a syndication. 

@Andrew Wilkins Try seller financing. I've done seller financed deals multiple times. Although I have good credits, but credits weren't really brought up. 

@Timothy Hero I would stay where I am. I am in the mobile home park space and when an economic recession hits, mobile home parks actualy get more phone costs as people are moving out of fancy apartments and moving into affordable housing.

@Mike Gabrysiak As someone who's bought and closed on 5 deals in the past 19 months, once you go under contract, the battle of due diligence starts. The best battle plan is to leverage the due diligence expiration date. The period before due diligence expiration, you hold all the power because you still have your earnest money and the seller is tied up. Once you pass the due diligence period and remove contingencies, the power dynamic switches. The seller then has all the power. You need to find all the issues with the property prior to the due diligence expiration use them as bargaining chips. Do that 3-5 days before DD expiration.