All Forum Posts by: Kama Ward

Thanks for the offer Tom J. , we are going to try getting the home office (I believe in Iowa) tomorrow. I really like my normal attorney, been working with her for 7 years. I'm happy to pay her for the extra check-up so to speak.

Bryan A. I sent you a pm.

What would you do? My atty. and the listing agent have been calling and emailing for two weeks. No response at all, as in answering machine. Cash sale. My atty. did the normal title work- looks ok. Our contract expires in one week. We could file to extend, but the contract says we pay $25 dollars a day. We don't want to do it, when we have been ready to perform for at least two weeks. Not sure where to go at this point. What has been your experience with getting HUD homes to closing? If it goes over because of HUD have you had to pay?

We're coming up on our HUD contract expiring date. My. atty has had no response from them (neither has the listing agent- the one who, lists all HUD homes around here). I just saw truly terrible reviews for the firm online. Has anyone closed on a HUD home with them, or had any experience with them? Any tips?

I divide it into acquire mode or preserve mode. If you are in acquire mode get the mortgage, if in preserve mode payoff the house.

You can see different life phases/situations/risk tolerances in this thread. You can go back and forth between the two- first single-then young kids and dependent spouse- then kids out of house and spouse with career- then old coots who just want to play with the grand kids or deal with a serious illness . Someone certainly can be in the acquire mode until the day they die. Others will want to kick back by their 40th birthday.

We had a chance to pay off our house and did. Right now we have enough cash to use for investments-- because our investing is constrained by other factors-- my skill level, market size, and competing priorities. I will have no problem getting a mortgage again if the other factors change. I'll also be fine if we choose to stay in the slow lane

I read the end of the thread. It was much less exciting than learning how to join groups! Ha.

Back to real estate.

OK I saw the "Join Group" button at the bottom of the group description. Duh.

Josh your site has so much info. and many different modes, it takes time to absorb it! Thanks again!!

Pardon my ignorance, but how do you join a group? I promise I tried to do it and looked for a faq before I asked!

I don't even want to get into it, just would like to know how the thread ended up. Thanks.

I have been looking into this (for the beach) off and on for several years. So far I have come to the conclusion that it is not worth it to buy as an investment- or even (for us) as a vacation place with some offset of expenses through rent. My current plan is to wait until/if the price of a condo/house is like a disposable toy to us, so the return will not matter.

That being said here are a few tips I've gleaned from different sources over the years.
If you are looking at it from a homeowner perspective looking to offset costs: The standard seems to be if you can rent it out for 17 weeks at what your monthly PITI+ HOA (if you have it), you can "break even". This does not appear to include larger maintenance (clogged toilet yes, new kitchen flooring no). This is also, if I remember correctly, the owner self managing.

Example: PITI $750+ HOA $250 (roughly 25% down on a 175K condo)- so total monthly payment $1000.
Rent it out for 17 weeks at $1000= $17,000
$17,000- $12,000= $5,000- that leaves $416.67 a month for utilities and misc. This also does not include tax or a cleaning fee (these are most often quoted outside your rental rate anyway).

Most vacation places seem to have 3 months high season, 2-4 months shoulder season, and 5-7 months off season. So let's figure 26 empty weeks for off season. Rarely is every week taken up even in high season. Let's say 80% occupancy for 12 weeks- 10 weeks occupied 2 wks empty. Now the shoulder season- this seems much more dependent the specific location- 3hrs driving or less from a large population center? Specific festivals? Weather change mild? These will help. So let's go with 50% for two months (or 25% for four months- same thing)- 4 more weeks rented 12 wks empty.
10+4= 14wks This figuring isn't even weeks- so I'll give you the two extra weeks occupied === 16wks. That's you not getting any of the good weeks.

I often see a low off season rates for 3-4 months. Say $1500 per month furnished with utilities. That comes with somewhat more risk of damage, wear, and (nightmares-- eviction).

Do not buy anywhere but the best locations. Who wants to get in the car when they could walk to the beach? I mean a short walk too! Ignore the standard amenities at your peril.

Management fees- The most common management are 25%, but I've seen cheaper.

Make sure you can rent by the week/day, some places ban it.
Sometimes you must use the rental management team of the association/resort.

What happened to it? I clicked on 'my posts' and it said it was in a private forum. And I'm guessing I'm not in it? And it used to be in off topic? I looked in the 'why we edit' sticky and did not find a possible answer there. Wondering how these things work. I have seen posts edited or hidden before, but never a whole thread removed.

Here is the best link I have that shows the nuts and bolts of the new health reform law. It's detailed, brief, and dry. Sorry, don't know how to make the link hot:

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8061.pdf

there are one or two things out of date (ex. CLASS is now gone)