All Forum Posts by: Julia Rockwell

Update: There's no foundation problems! No mold problems either! Overall there was a pretty noticeable difference between the home inspection report and what the structural engineer said. The inspector made me pretty nervous but everything is going smoothly so far. Now I can allocate those funds towards remodeling the bathroom as originally planned. 

I got AirDNA and I also made a spreadsheet of my own and manually input data (probably could've gotten some code to scrape it but I think it was worth it to click through all the photos and get a feel for the local competition). What's kind of confusing is they have "Market Minder" and then they have another larger data set with another weird name. It'd be easier if it were like base model vs. premium model but whatever. I'll probably pull the trigger on buying the larger one time data set but that's just because I like numbers. What I found challenging about the smaller market minder one is it only shows you numbers based on the previous month, which if you're in an area with high seasonality, is not very useful when first starting out. If you want the full spread over the year it'll cost you. I also don't think the base model has cleaning fees, I had to manually input that in my own spreadsheet. Overall I found the base model worth it (but I'm just doing preliminary research and haven't been able to cross compare to my actual AirBnB yet). I thought the UX and interface was super easy though and I really liked the data visualizations, but some of the features are only applicable to entire house rentals and not shared rooms which is a bummer. I spent a decent amount of time talking to customer service, and I think if you're considering it just watch the 45min youtube video by the founder, it covers more and makes more sense than clicking through the website. I feel like it's worth it to get for a month or two while you're initially researching but maybe don't rely on it for long term investing? When people are saying it's inaccurate, I'm wondering specifically what part about it they find to be inaccurate? Because I need to develop my pricing strategy since I'm opening my AirBnB in like 2 months or so and I'm curious. 

@Edward Liu Thank you for the feedback on what to ask the structural engineer and who to pay, I'll go ahead and research a list of questions to ask on Wednesday so I'm fully prepared. 

To clarify, I have not yet paid the realtor, since it's a pre-foreclosure I'm going to end up having to pay him instead of the seller, but I can't lump it into the mortgage because we decided to do something under the table. It's a little confusing and I'll post about it in a different thread. 

I didn't feel too much of a deadline because I could always move into an apartment that was month to month, my fear was losing to cash buyers.

Update: I got some equity already, the appraisal came in higher than purchase price! Phew!

Found a structural engineer! Another thread had recommended a few and I went with John McClancey out of Cary, in case anyone sees this in the future :)

You wise some excellent points and I agree with you. I don’t think I will be walking away from the 11k but I still can.

1. Technically it’s not an investment property which is why I’m able to get financing and the seller doesn’t have the money to sue me, but I didn’t foresee backing out of it because of the location and the profits from AirBnBing it. 

3. I haven’t paid the realtor yet and that’s a whole separate post that I was going to get advice from because I’m annoyed with how that whole situation went down. I do want the community’s insight on that because it was an investment focused realtor who was recommended through BP.

7. Everything was happening so fast that I didn’t comprehend what was happening enough to be able ughtfully describe it on BP, my mortgage lender offered a lot of helpful insight on how to handle the r and my friend reviewed the contract and offered a lot of help on what to do about the realtor. Ultimately there was ‘t a cheaper way to get out of it so I figured I’d just pay the $4800, I was on the hook for 3% either way because I signed something months ago and I didn’t realize what I was signing since the document was sent over with a brunch of other things that had to do with my offer I out in on a different house. I  accept that and I’m never using a realtor again. 

8. I have a closing attorney, the appraisal report comes back on Friday but I can’t imagine it appraised for significantly less than purchase price. If it did, I’d have to eat those costs, which is a risk I was willing to take. 

@Steve Hall Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it! I felt some pressure since my apartment lease was expiring and I didn't want to get something off MLS because there isn't anything within walking distance to downtown in my price range. Since I'm using conventional financing I was worried about a foreclosure auction since it might not allow enough time for the title & appraisal needed by the bank,and I would be competing with all cash buyers who would win against me. Since I'm not flipping the property I decided against alternative financing options like a private investor/hard money loan, and I wanted to pull the trigger due to the location and an all cash buyer that was also looking at it while I was there and also interested in buying the property. The wholesaler/GC partnership that marketed the property are tied up flipping homes in Raleigh and had too much on their plate which is why they were unloading this (or so they say), and said if they needed to or if the deal fell through as a worst case scenario they would buy this back at auction again. There's a pretty good chance they foresee the bank not financing this deal and net the 10k in addition to winning it at auction but I wasn't given much time to think about this and didn't have much insight other than this house being able to sell for $250k. It's such a competitive market here that even trying to buy off MLS I‘ve lost to cash buyers, so I figured I had done enough research on the location and would base my decision on that. I wish I had received more input from my realtor but he hasn't done many transactions off MLS and I got the sense I had done more research on this anyways since he thought the wholesalers were netting a 30k profit. In regards to the termination contract, it was with the realtor and thwt's A whole different story but it was thoroughly reviewed since I wanted a clause removed and refused to sign it until it was. I really appreciate your feedback and will hopefully avoid more learning curves in the future. I have a structural engineer scheduled for next Wednesday. I definitely felt a lot of pressure and was swayed by the location and fear of losing to cash buyers.

@Patrick Madigan Thanks for the recommendation, just got off the phone with John McClancey and he was awesome, really great at explaining things in layman’s terms. 

@Steve Hall If it’s not too much trouble, do you mind pointing out the mistakes I’ve made so I can learn from them? 😊

To clarify, I am proceeding, I just don’t know what insights I should be looking at to know when to walk away

@Edward Liu Right, this is what I am planning on doing, I’m trying to gain a sense of understanding when and if to walk away? My worst case scenario of losing $11k is pretty awful, not in the grand scheme of things, but definitely a major set back I want to avoid. However I don’t want my fear of losing that amount to give me rose colored glasses about what the inspector turned up. Have any of your investments had issues with the foundation and what were the costs to repair them? How do I know how serious the foundation damage is? And if the ballpark range of damage costs are $1-50k, that’s such a varying amount to have to pay out of pocket, I’m not sure how to account for that divergence?  Is it naive to think I can delay foundation repairs? I dont know how I would pay for them outside of taking out another loan which I don;t want to do?