All Forum Posts by: Jason Barnett

There should be a local REIA that you can join and ask this question. Or better yet there might be a landlord association that has comparable rents. Another option is to check out the HUD guidelines for "rent reasonableness" in your area which will break down by metro area and size of the building.

Yes you're probably right. But you're also pouring salt in wounds that he might not even see yet. :lol:

You say this is a house so I would probably just buy a new fridge. I mean you spent $265K for a rental... don't you don't want to pay an extra $265 for new instead of used? Plus there will be fewer headaches for maintenance.

The property analysis tool is great for detailed analysis (see the link in my signature for help with the tool). If you want a "quick and dirty" analysis then just take the total monthly rent ($900) and multiply by 100 ($90K). If the sales price is around that then you can do a closer analysis.

There are a lot of bad deals out there. Ryan was DEAD ON with his rent vs. rehab comment. This might be OK if you can resell for more ($200K?), but don't count on a bigger fool for rental property.

Mpower is right. Generally speaking the midwest is good for positive cash flow / little appreciation. In fact I can get positive cash flow even if I assume $0 down payment. You can find houses under $100K in most midwest states and there are (small) areas where homes sell for more than $1M. Just to give you a ballpark... you can buy large complexes for $1M and that's the retail price.

I have heard that some mid-atlantic states provide reasonable cash flow as well. I don't know this firsthand, but I know people in NC that are cash flowing with moderate down payments.

I live and operate in Ohio, feel free to get in touch if you have more specific questions.

What websites do people use to do reverse phone lookups? I.e. someone gives you a phone number and the website can tell you the address associated with that phone number.

Obviously there are a lot of problems with certain types of numbers (cell phones and blocked numbers often produce no results). So I'm looking for free sites or pay sites that can produce results for these hard-to-locate phone numbers. I'm tired of not being able to verify all of these phone numbers lol.

Hey... interest only or not, the important thing is that you need to be able to have positive cash flow. I'm surprised you don't know whether it's interest only or not (because that's important!), but $10K is nothing to sneeze at.

Very cool! Congratulations!

If I were going to bail you out (sorry, I don't have that kind of cash!) I would want to know what the rent will look like compared with the total debt you'll have on the property. If the rent will at least cover the original mortgage plus interest payments then you might find some nibbles.

Gottadoadealitis is a very bad brain fever that causes smart people to take thousands of their hard earned dollars and promptly flush them down the toilet. Well, sometimes they have to find a few contractors to help them do it. :lol:

Actually paying ALL CASH isn't a bad thing for you if your partner can do it all up front. If you want to keep the kid working then find him a nice brick ranch house at auction for him to rehab and resell. That's exactly what I would do if I were in your shoes. Of course if your friend wants to throw some money my way let me know :lol:

Something seems very strange when a vacant lot is the same price as a lot with a house on it. :shock: If the house is in terrible condition it might have to be tore down and that's expensive (in which case the lot is actually the better bargain).

Have you inspected the property? Something stinks REAL BAD here. Either a crap property or a seller that has no idea how to price his properties :lol: