All Forum Posts by: Kevin Colwell

I work at a credit card processing company and just wanted to make it known that it is against Visa/MC rules and regulations to charge a customer an additional fee to pay via a credit card. Now this is not to say that you cannot up your prices across the board and give cash paying customers a discount. However if you are to charge an additonal fee to cover your processing charges that is a violation of the terms of service and your account could be terminated. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions that you would like me to anwser about accepting credit cards.

Hello,
I understand how you feel, I have felt the same way with my journey that I have started with real estate. I have spent 8 months trying to get into the game and have had some short sale deals that I was trying to work fall through and it can be discouraging. To top if off I finally get into a deal and realize that you can never have enough due diligence and find myself learning the hard way. It is natural to want to take the path of least resistance as it is appearing to be the new American way. When I have difficulties I focus on where I want to be 10 years from now and how am I going to achieve it. My parents are great people but I do not want to work when I am 50. Heck I want to rely completely on real estate as my income by the time I am 30. Don’t be afraid to fail. Every time I fall on my face I am 5’9†closer to my goal. Corny but useful. Best of luck :)

Jim,
I will give you my thoughts on the situation. I just purchased my first apartment building last month with a 203k loan. From my experience with the 203k loan if you are having your rehab costs built into the loan there are quite a few hoops to jump through in terms getting the money to pay the contractors and getting the building appraised. I do not have any first hand experience with this part of the 203k loan because I did not need any additonal funds to fix the property so I apologize for being vague but hopefully someone could clarify that point further for you. With respect for the figures you have listed this is the way many people will look at it:
Say you finance 400k (sale price + rehab cost) at 6.90% that would give you a P&I of about $2600
Typical rule of thumb from reading this website is 50% of your income goes to monthly expenses or $1900
Using these figures you would be losing $700.
Now I took it on myself to choose some of these numbers but you can use ones that fit your situation better and see how it works out. Hopefully this is some info you can use. Best of luck.

Dave,
I just acquired a 4 unit mixed building via a 203k loan. My girlfriend is listed as the primary borrower and I am listed as a co-borrower. I would not think there would be an issue with having two people on the loan but you would not be able to purchase it via an LLC it would need to be in your name. For an FHA loan you need to have the "intent" to live in one of the units. What occurred in our situation is the building was fully rented and in the purchase agreement there was a clause that one of the tenants would be given a 30 day notice that they would have to move once we closed. Now in regards to the "intent" to live in one of the units this is how my loan officer put it to me. (By no means do I suggest you commit loan fraud). The situation he posed is say you close on the building and then one of your parents becomes ill and you need to move across the country to take care of them. Where the loan is already written then it is what it is. By no means am I an expert however but if anyone else can confirm this that would be nice. My intentions with our building would be to renovate the unit we are living in and once that is complete move out and rent the unit out. Hopefully you found this useful.
Regards,
Kevin

Hello board,
I was wondering if I could get some suggestions in regards to a good book to read. I was hoping to find something with regards to the financing of apartment buildings. Be it creative or standard financing options I was just curious what is out there. Thank you for your time.

Michael,
I do not have any info in regards to a clause but have you considered putting in an additional meter? The reason I ask is because the building I just purchased has the basement and common area's electric on the same meter as the salon. So I am going to need to get another meter or put electric into what is paid for by the rent.

Hello board,
So this Friday I will be closing on my first apartment building :lol: My quesion is broad but what do I do now? Do the landlords out there typically send out a letter or do you have a meeting with each tennant. Just curious what everyone out there likes to do when they take ownership on a building. Thank you all for your help. Time to find the second one :D

Richard,
Congrats on securing the investor for your deal. Would you care to share any of the details about the deal now that you have an investor?

Hello Board,
I have my first purchase in the UW process right now and I have a question in terms of my long term growth that I was hoping we could address. I am purchasing this property via an FHA loan. Needless to say it is in my name. When I go to purchase my next property I was going to purchase it under an LLC for obvious protection reasons. My question is if there was a lawsuit on my FHA property could they go after my LLC? I don't believe that it could be the other way around because that is what the LLC is for but I was just hoping for some thoughts on this. Thank you as always forum :D

Joshua,
Thank you for the wonderful world that is biggerpockets. Is there any way that you would be able to put a spell check for the posts? I type my posts on a word doc first and then paste them over to here so that I can make sure everything looks ok. What are your thoughts on this? Thank you for your time.
Regards,
Kevin