All Forum Posts by: Joe P.

I buy and sell vacant land in Pennsylvania.  Many of the properties I purchase are less than $2k.  For this reason it often does not make sense for me to hire an attorney/title company and purchase title insurance.  Many people aren't even aware that you can do this but with these smaller properties I simply have the seller notarize the deed and I send it to the county to be recorded.  I am looking at expanding to upstate New York and I have read that an attorney may be required to buy and sell land there.  Does anyone have any knowledge on this?  If attorney is required do both buyer and seller need one?

Thanks @David Krulac.  I thought there was a statute on the tenants notice to vacate to the landlord but I must have been mistaken.  I'm going to put a 60 day requirement in the lease.

I can't seem to find this anywhere in the landlord tenant act but I know I saw it somewhere at some point.  Can anyone provide a link to the statute? 

I'm thinking ARV would be around 80-90k and I'm thinking I can get it for 20-30K.

@John Teachout  I am very much willing to put in whatever work I am able to do myself to get the place renovated.  My fear is underestimating rehab costs and overestimating arv.  I suppose if I get some solid estimates from experienced contractors and get some second opinions on arv it shouldn't be too scary.

@John Teachout  I suppose my thinking is that the assignment fee from wholesaling to a flipper would offset the retail price enough to make it a decent deal.  I was also thinking the flipper may be willing to sell a bit cheaper if we did not use a realtor.  

I'm not completely opposed to the idea of buying it myself.  The fact that it has been vacant for 5 years combined with the fact that I'm pretty inexperienced make me shy away from it though.  

I found out the owner of the house next to mine is interested in selling and I would like to acquire the property as a buy and hold investment.  The house is off market and has been sitting vacant for 5 years.  It is in ok condition but was not winterized property and I know that the water line is broken in at least one spot, a hot water boiler line has freeze damage in at least one spot, and some squirrels have made it inside at some point during the vacancy so who knows what damage they did.  Bottom line is I am a beginner investor and do not feel comfortable taking on the risk of buying it and fixing it up myself but I would still like to find a way to make some money on the opportunity.  My thinking is that maybe I can wholesale the deal to a flipper with some sort of first option to buy from them when they sell the property.  

Has anyone ever done something like this?  Or does anyone have any other creative ideas of how I can capitalize on the opportunity?

@Jon A. would you still charge them even if they had proof that their animal was on flea meds?

@Mike Franco I prefer to avoid any face to face confrontation with the former tenant.  Plus I already had it treated by a licensed professional who gave me a written statement acknowledging the existence of the issue.  I don't think the tenant is denying the existence of the fleas.  I think she is more so trying to claim the fleas were not present when she lived there and they must have been caused by stray neighborhood cats living under the deck.  The neighbor told me he has only seen the stray cat go under the deck a few times in the dead of winter when it was really cold.

@Bill Plymouth her lease started August 1, 2018 and she vacated July 27, 2019.  The invoice I have from the exterminator was on August 14, 2019 and says "Based on how many there is, the fleas had been there for at least a couple months." so that would put the start of the issue during her tenancy.  Since fleas need a host the only way they could be completely the fault of the stray cats would be if the strays were living inside the apartment.

@Jon A.  I am working on a list of ways to "bulletproof" the lease that the former landlord was using.  If you have an addendum that requires flea medication for pets would you still deduct from their deposit if you found an infestation after they moved out?

@Anthony Dooley yes I am second guessing myself even though my attorney told me it is within my legal right to withhold it.  I figured I would see what fellow investors would do in the same situation.  I feel that I have sufficient evidence to support the deduction considering I have an invoice from the pest control company stating "Upon entering the apartment there were about a dozen fleas on my pants. Based on how many there is, the fleas had been there for at least a couple months."  Now I just have to figure out how or if I should even respond to her protest email and hope she doesn't decide to take it to small claims court.  This is my first property and first time returning a deposit so I guess I'm a bit uncertain.