All Forum Posts by: Joe Doxsey

Most people have a tag below their name that says something about them.  How do I add that?

Generally once a year for a general inspection.  You should have a standard check list for this to document findings.  On it you should have things like:

House keeping
Window glass
Rodents
Plumbing/Water
Carpet
Smoke Detectors (Change the batteries too)
Drains
Toilets

You are trying to do a few things:

Document/correct on going damage

Find immediate issues that need addressed (water leaks, broken glass, infestations, house keeping issues etc) so you can issue lease violations or perform maintenance.  

perform ongoing maintenance (furnace filters, smoke alarm batteries etc)

Document everything is fine hopefully!

The last one is key.  When you have a tenant get behind on rent and retaliate by calling hud or the health department to say they have no working toilet, smoker detectors and there is a bed bug infestation you will be glad you did that check 30 days ago that said all was well!

Not to mention certain issues won't be reported to you but can be important to know about, specifically in a multi tenant building.  If you go into an apartment to do a check and find bed bugs for example, while that sucks, it is something you want to know about before you have to treat an entire building.

The one thing I want to know here is if you have forced air HVAC you should be changing filters more frequently than you do an entire inspection.  

I'm curious why you wouldn't? I would understand not wanting to deal with past debt/tax liabilities on an LLC and that head ache but for a new llc just to hold a property it doesn't seem like an issue to me. An llc per property actually is something you may want to think about doing regardless of how it is sold.

What is your relationship with your dad like?  It sounds like he is happy holding it and is maybe trying to give you a deal to help you out, but is also happy with his tenant and the way things are.  Why does your dad say he won't do seller financing?

The easy to find deals may be close to home but its not really worth screwing up your relationship with your dad over this.  IMO move on until you can acquire it in a conventional style or he agrees to help you finance it.

What is your dads thoughts on this entire thing, particularly if this tenant gets ejected as soon as its sold?  More so if you just flip the thing?

Hi I am new here.  I actually saw a discussion regarding Ohio Real Estate laws I wanted to comment on and started checking out the rest of the site and got sucked in.

A little about myself- I hold a license in Ohio which I also practice with in Kentucky.  I deal in commercial properties specializing in investment real estate (mainly multi-family/retail strips/office etc).  I also do tenant rep for office/retail, over see some property management, do non appraisal valuation (BPO etc for banks), and provide related services.

Over the past few years I've mainly been focusing on distressed markets commonly taking over management from receivers and selling properties to resolve them.    

I love what I do an am always eager to talk about it and answer questions.  Outside of that I also love to talk to others who are into these types of things and look forward to learning from all of you.

Looking forward I am trying to get more into property development specially regarding vacant land that hotels and other incoming producing properties can be built on.  If anyone is working in acquiring land or building new hotels I would love to talk with you just to gain a bit more understanding on where you see the market needs currently and in the near future.

 I am not a lawyer but that seems key to me in this entire debate.  Intent seems to be a large portion.  If you are entering into a contract where the only way you can be compensated is to assign it, than I don't think its unreasonable to say you are selling on behalf of another.  You can play all kinds of word games as far as this is or isn't violating the law based on loop holes, but at the end of the day you only get paid from a sale which seems like the kind of thing that you need a license for.

Your fight is potentially against the state with a basically unlimited legal budget and they can levy multi million non dis-chargeable fines against you too.  I'd much rather be in that fight saying "Hey I had the cash to close this, I just chose not to because of whatever reasons" vs in a position of only being able to get paid if I found a buyer.  

Someone mentioned it up thread, but I think a business that rehabs, does rentals, and yes wholesales when they decide to is much more defensible than someone who has no means to fulfill the contracts that they are signing.

I am going to repeat again that I am not a lawyer and highly suggest anyone doing anything that could result in millions in fines should be having an active relationship with one, but I think land contracts are worth looking at here.  I'm not sure I agree, but the common suggestion seems to be that actually taking title eliminates much of the liability here.  The key problem seems to be many folks don't have the cash or do not wish to pay the costs to use someone else's to do so.  A land contract with no prepayment penalty largely eliminates this and legally gives you a lot of legal standing as selling on behalf of yourself.  While you do have a lot of equitable interests in a contract (you can challenge zoning and file lawsuits based on this for example), it would seem to shift a future ownership role to a current one.

If I was into assignments this would concern me.  Honestly they might go after a big fish to make a big splash, but the big fish have attorneys and can pay a $100k legal bill.  They also have a better defense as they typically are involved in numerous real estate investment activities.  The state may decide to nail up a few small guys who can't defend their self to make a quick point.

Simply put, if your only compensation in a deal is contingent on it selling than you probably need a real estate license, no matter how you structure it.  Get one, its not that hard.

The better question is why do you want them to be off market?  What are you hoping to achieve?

There are a few ways to find off market properties:

-Go through old listings that did not sell. The obvious question is why didn't they sell?  Maybe they had a bad broker.  Maybe they wanted too much?  Maybe the property had poor financials and lending was impossible to get on it?

-Search county land records for properties about to be up for refinance.  Most commercial loans work on a balloon system.  Five or ten years after a person buys a property is a good guess but it depends.  Look at these properties shortly before they need to refi and discuss selling with the owners vs going through appraisals etc.

-Look for properties held for 20+ years.  In particular look for ones that are professionally managed but performing poorly.  The owners are likely not pleased with their situation and will be receptive to being done with it as they probably aren't concerned with it to begin with.