All Forum Posts by: John Kaftan

Looking at buying a house that had maybe 50 cats in it so it reeks of cat urine.  I already know I am going to have to replace all of the hardwood floors and probably the subfloors.  Does anyone have experience with this?  I am worried I will do all of that and it will still smell in there.

I'm looking for a lawyer to help me close a deal.  Anybody have a laywer they can recommend?

I found listsource.com and I think it is interesting how much data is available.  However, I want to go at it from the reverse angle.  I want to do "Driving for Dollars" and then put in specific address into a database to get as much data as I can about the house and owner.

I know I can go to county records to get basic info. But I would like to know LTV, age, closet relatives etc. and get it in one easy spot. I would like to be able to upload a list of addresses and then get all of this info just on the houses I am interested in.

Does something like this exist?

It doesn't look like Listsource can work this way.

Thank you,

John

Anybody know an assessor in Syracuse?  Looking at buying a place but it would need to assess at $210K after repairs for the math to work and for me to be able to refi and pay back a private lender.

Thinking I may be able to pick their brain to find out how its done.

I live walking distance from that property.  So if you want any help looking at it or assessing the other houses around there or whatever please let me know.  I am not even a newbie.  I'm a wannabe. But I have done extensive remodeling on my houses and have a good sense of things.  

$550K seems crazy expensive.  Pretty much every house on that street is a student rental.  SU is rumored to be considering making it a requirement to live on-campus 3 years instead of 2 years.  My guess is that on-campus includes these new housing projects that are close to campus.  If the 3 year rule goes into place it will majorly shift the rental market as Len was saying.  I'm thinking the thing to do is wait and their may be a lot of inventory on the market in the next 2 years driving down the price.

What the big landlords are saying is anything east of Wescott is going to be in trouble if the 3 year rule happens.  Rents will come down and students will be able to rent closer to campus and won't have to go out beyond Wescott.

You would be well within the predicted OK zone but you can count on rents going down.  They might be sub $400 per room.  

I have a buddy with a duplex one block closer than of Ackerman and he is currently getting $450 per room.

So maybe you could count on $450 per room on that place when it is fully rented.  I would not count on it though.

Looks like maintenance would be reasonable on this place.

Let me know if you need any help.  I am serious.  I am in the wait and watch stage so anything I can learn would be good.

John

Sometimes the ground water demineralizes the block wall and leaves it crumbly or it's a sugary texture. You could take a screw driver and be through the wall in about 2 min if you wanted too. Sometimes you will see evidence of people trying to paint or skim coat over the wall to hide it but the skim coat or paint won't stick. 

Depending on serverity it may not be worth looking at the house. At the very least you will need to have the basement waterproofed to stop it from getting worse. I am looking into this for my own house now. It's going to cost me about $5000. 

Not my boy!?  Never  occurred to me. Thanks for the cold hard slap. It could happen. 

I was trying to get around paying 20% down.  I guess my options are to get owner financing or a private lender.  Banks won't work for me because I do not have the cash laying around.  I would need to spend about $160K so a bank would require $32K for a down payment.  I have about $3000 saved up and can save about $400 per month.  So it would take me about 6 more years to save up enough for a down payment.

My goal is to have 5000 of cashflow per month within 10 years.  That would be 50 units at $100 ea or 25 duplexes or a little more than 2 per year.  There are tons of duplexes in our area so that would be my strategy.

It think my strategy will be to develop my brand and get super organized on the operational end, i.e. handyman lined up, rental agreement templates, eviction plan, insurance broker lined up etc.  That way a private lender, or owner, will see that I have done my homework and will feel I am less of a risk than someone else who is not as organized.

John

Oh I would handle the property and being a land lord. Yes I would wait until he is accepted at SU. Just wondering if it is possible if I consign and gift him the down payment and what I can do now to make him look better to a bank in 18 months.

We live in Syracuse and my Junior in HS is looking to go the local college Syracuse University.  Naturally the last thing he wants to do is live with mom and dad.  Could he by a duplex for 3.5% down and house hack?  Would the bank give him a loan if I co-sign and give him the down payment?  Is there anything I can do now to make him more attractive to the banks?

I am thinking the banks will want to see that he earned and saved up the money.  Otherwise I am really just using him to buy a house for less money down.

Thanks,

John