All Forum Posts by: Joe Harper

Michael Smith thanks. I think that's good news for me but wait a second. If I have three rentals in a single mortgage, that counts as three financed properties? If I have a sub-to deal and mortgage isn't in my name, does that count as one financed property?

Like Aaron and Jeffrey indicate, you could just let the Loan ride, for the time being. As someone who did the Dave Ramsey method for many years, I want to say that one size does not fit all. There are individual circumstances that dictate a modified snowball, and more importantly historical pricing anomalies that must be exploited. If I woke up in your shoes, I would bank as much cash as I could and go get as many income-producing assets as possible. Think about the time value of money. The assets are producing 2014 dollars but you are repaying cheap 199x dollars. Dave Ramsey is a real estate guy and risk averse. He is a one trick pony. I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for him but if I had leveraged to the hilt in 2009 and 2010, I think I would be done and able to leave my W2 career. Instead I paid cash for the first one in 2011 ($42,000). I'm up to 10 now. Owe $400k and have $100k of my own cash and equity invested. So, it boils down to increasing the income side of your budget in an intelligent and low risk fashion, that you understand and enjoy. The fact that you are asking the question indicates that Ramsey's method just doesn't feel right at this time in your life. You have my permission to go get more assets!! Keep asking these types of questions !!

Michael Smith I think you might clarify that mortgages 1-4 are 10% down and mortgages 5-10 is 25% down. I'm sure you know that, I'm just trying to be helpful. Questions: what if mortgage no. 4 is a second home? Would that be a 10% down deal? No appraisal? Do mortgages 5-10 still have no appraisal?

I'm in Florida. If i were in your shoes, I would go down to the assessor's office and request a copy of the tax roll. The terminology may be different, but you want the entire database of properties in Excel or Access or a CSV or TXT file. Take the raw data file and put into Numbers or Excel. Apply a filter to only out of county zip codes for the mailing address and boom there is your list of absentee owners. Then apply filters to target your area, by zip code or township or subdivision. Also filter by the property type. As a bonus, the pared-down list is in a format that is label-ready! Second bonus: you have every single comp on the county! In Florida, these files are readily downloadable on the county appraiser (assessor) websites. I checked your target county: http://appraiser.jocogov.org/general-information and couldn't find the file. For that matter, I couldn't search for sales either, or enter a range of tax parcel numbers. You could also befriend an appraiser that may have an alternate source for the raw data.

Just went through one myself. $390 as Patrick L. stated. I would allow 28 calendar days however because a sheriff's deputy must serve the Writ of Posesseion and that can take five business days.

Nuances: you must file two sets of paperwork, normally the second round is the sixth business day after the first service, to get the Writ of Possession. The day the tenant served does not count, for both the 3 day notice and the service of round one paperwork.

You can track your case at the Clark's website.

I'm in Polk County so Duval may have its own nuances.

@bill gulley thank you, man, for that simple English explanation. I have seven private mortgages and was fretting that I was violating some sort of regulation. But I see now that the onus of compliance is on the mortgagee. All of my mortgagees are from word of mouth or longtime friends.

Ain't nobody got time for that. Get in the game and hit somebody! Get your name out there. Start calling investors numbers from Craigslist. Get on wholesalers' email lists. Go to the local reia and stand up and say you want to buy buy buy. And don't stop educating yourself.

The best education is the first deal. Networking is key to getting ahead. Even if you can't solve a problem you will quickly find people that can.

The liens are easy to find, if they're in the previous owner's name. In Polk County on the PA site, the deed book and page is a clickable link. Once at the Clark's site I click on 'new search' and type in the previous owner's name. Then I sort by date. You have to poke around and read the documents one by one to learn the codes and do your own chain of title. Many times, the city or county will accept pennies on the dollar for code enforcement liens because you're trying to clean up the property.

The issue is the heirs of the previous owner. Any one of them could come along and claim that you should either pay them or get a judge to deed it back to them. Especially dangerous in a rising market!! The other unknown is that there could be liens on all of the previous owner's past and present property but not recorded in that county. I looked at an $11,000 house and paid for title search. There was a $576,000 judgment against the llc but it was recorded only in Duvall County. WHEW! Do you think I would get a quitclaim deed from somebody that angry??

The four year mark is to clear the title and you can get a title policy after that. But you want to flip it TODAY. You must use an attorney to quiet the title and fees start at $1,000. Thinking outside the box, you could do the deal and then offer owner financing with your price as the down payment and ask for a four year balloon with monthly loan payments due, and buyer must pay annual taxes.

You sad that the tax deed owner got the property by paying the back taxes. That isn't how it works. He bought it at an auction and was the high bidder. Do the math: if back taxes were $20,000 on a house worth $100,000, you couldn't snag the house for $20,000. There are monthly auctions and there are people that make a living by sniffing out the deals.

Here is a great resource for your education: http://taxdeedsqueen.com/

And don't miss her calendar, top right click on events, then first link on the page.

There are some screaming deals but there are hidden liens and heirs. Some law firms and investors specialize in these and claim that they can quiet title in 45 to 90 days. But only after you close on the deal and fork over your cash and no guarantee. The risk was just too great for me at that time.

I've been asking myself the same question. Many moons ago I learned of a "Blanket Mortgage" but when I ask lenders they ask me to explain it: One mortgage but multiple properties are collateralized.

So then I asked if I could do two loans at once, do a cash out refi and use that cash as a down payment on a purchase mortgage and was told that can be done, it's not often but it's not unheard of. What I like about that is that it could be done on the same credit report, instead of multiple reports which dings a few points.

As far as counting rental income to boost your debt to income (DTI) ratio, I've been told that they cannot count projected income, only actual income which usually means that the income must be on TWO tax returns. This means they don't care what the rent is going to be despite how clever or convincing you are. They want the track record of being an effective landlord. They just average the last two years' income for the DTI, regardless if landlord or not. Maximum DTI is 45% usually. This is why I like many others look at hard money options when getting started just to get two good tax returns. In other words, the more taxes you pay, the more you can borrow from banks/credit unions.

I've heard of loans where the underwriter accepted one tax return and used that for the DTI, and the borrower got the loan. This was a mortgage broker, not a banker/credit union.

It appears to depend on how hungry the particular lender is to loan money, and if you have 700/720 credit and six months' of reserve payments on all loans (but you can use IRA money to show that).

I've been told that the LLC entity can borrow money on properties, but that all members of the corp must qualify, meaning each member must have DTI under 45%. I've also been told that lenders get real scared or confused when the title is held in any kind of trust. If an LLC with members that use their own cash to fund deals, then the $#@#$ing gift letter is unnecessary.

As always, my experience is local to Central Florida. Secondly, like Kiyosaki states, I don't know what I'm assuming. I do find that the more lenders I interview, the more assumptions I find that have cost me money.

I've learned on this forum that there are lenders that will do these deals but I am going to have to start calling around to find them.

I keep saying 'I heard this' because I'm just getting started investing after 19 years as an appraiser. My strategy is buy and hold, to replace my income first before I start flipping. I stay away from hard money because those lenders want an exit strategy; refinancing with a vanilla mortgage is not a solid exit strategy because who knows what the banks are going to require next? Secondly with hard money people I've interviewed, I'm limited to 50% of purchase price, not After Rehab/Reno Value (ARV) or appraised value.

Thank you. I've been looking for a template for a Balance Sheet. This also helps me pinpoint the accounting terms that I need to learn so I can call the same term as a banker.