All Forum Posts by: Kel S

Today we closed on our 5th investment property. This one is a 3/2. 1584 sq ft. No basement. Garage and large backyard in a good area. We are trying to decide if we should rent or possibly try and flip this one.

Pictures are here if anyone wants to see them. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=272890&id=612887141&l=b9a06c3437

I have yet to meet a RE agent that will go the extra mile and take a ton of pics to send someone. Do you all know of agents that will do that?

Yeah, I'm not sure how my post ended up way in left field. But I still think it's a neat idea. Not something I have time to do myself but thought maybe others might be interested in hearing about it.

I think if you familiarize yourself with an area (ie; take a trip there, get demographic info, check out the crime rates, income ratios, etc.,) you could benefit from a service of this type after you know all those things. It would certainly save you on subsequent trips if you had a trust worthy person who could send you pics of the property. Combine that with a good inspector and you are good to go. Just my opinion.

Giving the opinion is "optional". It would be up to the potential buyer to ask for said opinion and understand that, that is ALL it is...an opinion. Not to be taken for anymore than that.

My husband is an Attorney and doesn't see any legal ramifications from someone giving their opinion. The bigger question is how would the person being doing this business? Would they have a LLC? It wouldn't be recommended to just go out and start a under-the-table type business as that of course would set yourself up for potential ugly situations.

Again, you don't need to be an expert or have a degree to take photos and the opinion is something you could ask for or not. A take it or leave it option.

Last I checked it really wouldn't take a engineer or architect to tell me if they think a place is a dump or not LOL! Shoot, most people could walk into a house and be able to tell if it needs TLC and could probably point out what kind of TLC aside from mechanicals.

No where does he state he'd give opinion on value, just condition. You don't have to be a RE agent to give your opinion on condition.

Of course they would need references and once you built up some clientele you'd have that. There is always going to be mistrust in just about anything. If you were in contact with the RE agent who showed the home I think they would tell you if your guy (or gal) took a bunch of pictures while there.

I don't know...I still think it's a great concept and if I were looking for a place out-of-state I would certainly consider hiring someone to go take a ton of pics for me. Not sure a RE agent would be up for going that extra mile as it takes time to upload, put descriptions, etc., for a ton of pictures. Plus you'd need server space to do it on.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass it along (:

Ok, so I was scanning Craigslist and came across an ad that basically went like this.

"Are you an out of town investor? Want to buy property but don't want to jump on a plane in order to see it? Let me help you! For $75 I will view the property and take a ton of photos to show to you. I will also give you my opinion (if you want it) of the condition of the property.

Don't rely on just a few RE agent photos from the listing! I will show you detailed photos of almost every square inch of the property in high resolution so you have a much better idea of what condition it is in. Please note that I am not a RE agent."

I thought this was actually a pretty neat idea and quite a business prospect for someone. Think about it...all they would need to do is schedule a showing, take a TON of photos, upload them to a web site where the potential buyer and view and make $ doing it. If they were in a popular buying area they might do 2 walk throughs a week. Not too shabby little side income. Plus you wouldn't have to be a RE agent as it would just be a service.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass this along and maybe it will spur someone's creative juices on here. I'd do it but I don't know if there are investors that want to invest in our area or not. If so give me a hollar...I take Paypal LOL!

"My area where I live just 1 year ago a 3/2 foreclosure was 85,000.Now I am seeing some in the 32,000 range."

Joel, that is what we are seeing here too, except not that big of a drop. More like a year or so ago a SFH REO would be listed 42k and today it would be listed at $29,900.

I definitely see a difference in the last 2 years. I think what's happening here is there have been SO many REO's that overall they are bringing all the property values down and thus effecting what numbers the banks are looking to list them at when the comps are done.

I think now is a good time to buy. 2 years ago we bought our first 2/1 SFH REO at $30k. We thought that was a great buy back then. Fast forward to this year and we've purchased 2 SFH's, both 3 bed/1 or 2 bath SFH REO's for less than that. So we are seeing prices continue to fall. The deals are definitely a bit better than they were 2 years ago.

Now, who's to say how much farther prices will fall. But I have a prediction that eventually we all are going to face hyper-inflation at some point and mortgage rates will go back up. So I will be happy to get my hands on as many SFH's (that we can manage) now, but of course we'll continue buying in the coming years as long as there are deals to be found that make sense.