All Forum Posts by: Joe Henry

@Justin Fox lol

@Mark M. be careful with having two policies on the house though (seller's, and yours). Two policies will often mean that NEITHER pay out, claiming it's the responsibility of the other. I've heard that some people are just open with the mortgage company and say "I want to do a sub2 on this house, and will be getting new insurance with my name as the first insured." If the bank is not cool with that then better walk away. Other options would be to get a non-owner occupied landlord insurance with the seller listed as the additional insured. This way the bank is less likely to care about the sub2 deal or even realize it's happened. Of course, you can only do that if you're not living in the property yourself.

@Carolyn Fuller, not 100% sure what their pricing is, but I was just able to make an account for free from which I can send/receive payments. Looks like you can send money for free.

@John Thedford, interesting. I will look into both of those. Thanks for the tip.

Just a quick tip to always have your lease template reviewed by an attorney. This can save you lots of $ down the line.

My experience:

Within the first 5 minutes of my lease review my attorney told me about specific verbiage to use for any fees (late payment, utilities, pet, etc). e.g. "a late penalty of $10 will be applied to the total rent amount, and such amount is considered additional rent". Turns out in Florida if fees are not specifically considered as rent you can have a very hard time recouping those fees in the event of an eviction or court case. This is due to specific FL law syntax.

Adding up late fees, bounced check fees, utility fees, etc, could total hundreds, so getting your lease reviewed is well worth the investment.

Thanks guys, very insightful comments. 

Thank you for all the advice everyone. I think I will end up passing on this deal. It may be a good deal for the market, but I just don't know that for sure yet. I'm going to spend some more time learning the market and property values so I can find a deal that will make me money going in, instead of banking on a buy and hold with close numbers.

@Ned Carey, interesting. So would you say you don't really have criteria other than that? Neighborhood quality, school zones, property features, etc? If this is what you mean, how does that affect your prospecting? Do you just run through a lot more properties?

I understand criteria are an important part of being able to evaluate deals quickly. As I'm trying to define my own criteria I am running into questions like "should I stick with brick only or is siding ok?", "how much of a rehab can I take on and what work would/woudln't be ok?", "why not just take anything that cash flows and has good resale?".

What has been your process for defining your criteria, and if you are a buy and hold investor, what is wrong with the criteria being only 1) must cash flow at x amount and 2) must have good resale potential as an exit strategy?

@Robert G., you're right. With those numbers I would pass on this as well. Glad I posted here. Thanks for the tip.