All Forum Posts by: John Walker

Repair wise do you think I need to rip out the saturated dry and wood floor?

looks like this all over the foyer...I have text messages from the previous tenant saying she knew the cat did this. Is it worth pursuing? or eat the cost and lesson learned?

I had a tenant move out a month before her lease ended. I agreed to it, if I was able to find a new tenant that can take over the property with no lapse in rent. I hired a property management company to merely take care of the marketing and leasing of the unit and I would manage the property for the rest of the lease, given its almost a brand new house. (my first mistake)

The first tenant moved out in the middle of April and my wife and I drove from the NJ to VA to check on the condition of the house. The house was in almost in perfect condition except after removing some air fresheners we discovered a cat pee smell all over the house. The smell was most heavily concentrated on the bedroom carpets and in the down stairs foyer on a wood floor and base molding. I hired a cleaning crew, who guaranteed they could get rid of the smell for $800.00. I sent the property management team back the house to make sure the smell was gone. After sending the cleaning crew back three different times the property management team finally said the smell was gone so I paid the cleaning crew.

The tenants have been moving in slowly over the last couple of weeks and finally slept in the house for the frst time this weekend. After one night and I got an email from the tenant saying she is severely allergic to cats and the smell of urine is all over the house.

How should I handle this situation? I have not paid the previous tenants security deposit back and technically her lease was supposed to go through May 31st. Do I have any legal grounds to get her last months rent to cover the carpet and flooring replacement even though I have a new tenant?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Best,

John

I met some good contacts at the sjreia meet-up a few weeks back. I am in the process of trying to get pre approval for a HML myself. Email them and I'm sure they will point you in the right direction. Good luck.

Thanks Adrian--I will be there. Look forward to meeting you.

Any more advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Steve,

Thanks so much for the advice.  I completely agree when it comes to wholesalers and knowing who to trust.  My biggest hesitancy in moving forward is making sure I have the right deal.  I will continue to research/network and will be ready to attack it full steam ahead when the time comes.

Hello everyone,

I'm relatively new to this site and wanted to get an opinion on my plan to break into the real estate market. Ideally, I want to begin flipping in the Central New Jersey area. My initial plan is to purchase a fixer-upper with an FHA rehab loan for a few reasons. 1) I'm prequalified and only need to put 3.5% down to fund the project which leaves me with more residual funds for other opportunities 2) my wife and I are sick of wasting money rent 3) to be able to manage and learn the rehab process in my own home on a daily basis.

I would hold on to the FHA property for 1.5 to 2 years then either refinance and keep the house for myself or sell and hopefully make some cash to put into another home.

I currently own a rental townhome in VA and plan on purchasing the FHA fixer-upper in the near future.

With that being said,

1) Will I still be able to get hard money loans if I have two mortgages already?

2) Specific to Central New Jersey, which areas are good places to start looking for rehab deals?

3) Should you meet with hard money lenders before you have a deal to get pre-qualified? or should you find a great deal first before lining up your lender?

4) Are wholesalers a good place to start finding off market deals early on in your career?

I have the contractors and subs lined up when the right deal presents itself, but I want to make sure the compass is pointed in the right direction before taking the plunge.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

John

My plan is to go offer some money to try and get them out--Spoke to a lawyer and she confirmed that the tenant has all the power in this situation.

Any advice on what to offer the tenant???--They are currently paying 1,400.00 a month and their lease goes through Aug 2016

It's seems as though landlords do not have the right to terminate tenancy  in the state of new jersey.

Has anyone faced this issue before?

I just found out today that my offer for a foreclosure was accepted by the bank...I intend to purchase the property with an FHA construction loan which requires me to live in the house and begin construction within 30-45 days of closing.

However,  there are tenants in the house that have a lease with the previous owner that goes through August 2016.  Is there anyway to get them to leave the property?  I've researched the topic and it seems very difficult to evict tenants in this situation in the state of NJ.

Any suggestions on how to attack this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time,

John