All Forum Posts by: Martin S.

I dunno what the point of your 2 day rule is. If someone wants to rent from me, we do not have an executed contract until they give me consideration, as in money. I require the entire first month and security deposit before I take my rental listing off the market. If they cant pay and sign the lease right away, sure, I would just move on to the next person.

I recommend that you do not have the security deposit be exactly the same as 1 month rent. That often gives the tenant the idea that they could use the security deposit as last months rent. At least keep it $100 more than the rent... I sometimes even collect almost double the rent amount as a security deposit. It also depends on your market and what kind of tenant you are looking for, short term, long term, etc...

Amazing how little rehab was done at Pine. That flipper made out like a bandit. Zillow has old pics... I wouldn't touch those properties with a 100 foot pole though. Schools are 3, 2, 1...

you said your business failed. so you wrote that off on your taxes right? so paying cap gains should be less than what you got in refunds. with that big of a loss you should have carry-forward the losses or even carry back and get a refund for previous years (if your tax bracket was high in those years), unless you make more than that a year and wrote it all off in 1 year... essentially, you already got the refund (if not, your accountant sucks), you just have to pay some of it back if you sell the house. why not change it to owner occupied to avoid the cap gains altogether?

The only reason you are lowering your interest payments is because of the lower interest rate. If the rates were the same, a 30 year mortgage vs a heloc, the interest payment would be exactly the same. Of course you could pay more on a 30 year mortgage and that would cut the amortization schedule, if you double a 30 year mortgage payment, it will be paid off in less than 10 years.

So once again, your interest payment is only less because you got a lower rate. But of course you paid a fee for it, but in your case over 2 years you would save around 20k in interest. After that who knows what will happen, the rate will go to 4.5% but you are not even sure of that because it is variable.

The whole purpose of the fixed 30 year mortgage for investors is because the rates are FIXED, and the payment is the same throughout the mortgage. So, no need to run and cry when rates shoot up. Also, your cashflow is pretty much set for the life of the mortgage, actually rents always go up, unless the neighborhood goes to crap, so you know exactly what you are getting.

You had a mortgage at a pretty good rate, now that you paid it off, when your 1.75% intro rate expires, you will need to try to refinance that money again. You took a risk, you are betting that interest rates will remain low and that you will still be able to refinance at that time. The bank is betting that rates will go up and you wont be able to refinance, you will find out who won the bet in 2 years when your intro rate expires...

Are you sure it will rent for 2500-3000? If it really will, then why not, but I looked at your zip and rents appear to be under $1/sf.. If it wont rent for that much, you need to know your own area and decide for yourself if you believe in appreciation. 89k is a pretty good return in 4 months...

anyone?

So say you have a couple of properties and they are leveraged out. Banks seem to count 75% of rental income AFTER expenses right? So if income for a property is 2000/month, they count 1500 minus mortgage, tax and insurance. So that 1500 would be cut down to around 500 or so maybe.

So, does that mortgage on that property count as part of the total they would lend you based on your income?

Say that mortgage is 150k and at this time they tell you they would lend you up to 500k, if you pick up another rental property exactly the same, with the same mortgage of 150k, rent 2k, etc etc, will that cut the max they would lend you to 350k?

I am still surprised that you could actually find something decent in a good neighborhood for $1 mil in NYC. I'd jump on it! lol

My mother is in a similar situation. Property listed for a while, no activity, price pretty high, similar property sold for less than asking, she made an offer (verbal) the same price as the similar property and the realtor tells her that its a multiple offer situation. We decide to get our own realtor to submit an offer, and then the listing agent says that they accepted an all cash offer and we didn't even get to submit a paper offer... But its still listed and not pending. Is it legal for a listing agent to lie like that and never allow her to submit an offer to the owners?