All Forum Posts by: Wendy Black

That's really swell of you!

We live in Phoenix, but Laguna's been like a second home since the '70s.  Most of the property we own is in CA.  Many people move out of CA and come to AZ, but others move in.   Clearly, the upside for CA homeowners to move to states such as AZ is that their housing dollar goes further.  The downside is that unless you're living in the IE or far from the beach, you don't have an ocean nearby.  However, in many ways, the quality of life is similar.  

We got a 3.75% interest loan for it.  Looked into refinancing previously, and we couldn't have gotten anything like that.  Also reticent to take on more mortgages at our age.  Cancer with our daughter-in-law and 2 pets slammed us financially.  

Our notes are doing fine.  The best income, though, is coming through some mobiles.

Taking exit strategies into account...

Our downpayment on a buy-and-hold OC condo 4 years ago was over $200k.  We owe a little over $100k on it.  Its value has increased by at least $100k since we bought it, but if we were to sell it and not do a 1031, we'd only get something like $80k back after taxes and commission.  

As much as I love real property, I would've leaned toward investing in notes.

Question:

Are these multis or SFRs?  What is your specific concern: the smell will bother other tenants (if multis) or that it could turn into some sort of drug lab?

MA state law allows growing plants in cases of medical hardship for a patient's needs.  As a layperson, it would appear to me that if you were to attempt to prohibit a properly licensed medical marijuana tenant from his/her drug in any way, that would be discriminatory against a certain class of people.  I think in any case, it is proper to require official documentation to make sure they're registered to do so:

http://www.massachusettsmarijuanacompliance.com/ma...

I'd never heard of manufacturing dabs/wax.  I can understand the concern because of the odor, but your question did not include smoking marijuana or taking marijuana pills for medicinal purposes.  (BTW: Medical marijuana arrested the growth of our Maltipoo's cancer in 3 1/2 weeks.  That was over a year ago.  A tumor which would've killed him has shrunken twice since then.  Our Max is a 21-month survivor of anal gland adenocarcinoma.  If you have a dog, please make sure to have his/her anal glands checked regularly.  A tiny lesion appeared on a single gland, and it nearly killed him within months.)    

While it would free up some cash (and likely we'd need $50k right now), there's still the problem that probably the only person who would buy it would be an investor because there's a tenant in there for the next 6 months.  Investors wouldn't want to pay what we'd want for the property to not take a loss.  

Selling also means we'll be hit with huge taxes.

We've had a long-standing, complex medical situation with our family that has turned into a family emergency.  Our 32-year-old daughter-in-law, the mother of four young children, has developed breast cancer.  We need some cash off of one of our properties for bills, as well as a stream of income to take its place, but to sell it outright, the numbers don't make sense.  This is far beyond our expertise to unravel and are hoping to find some saavy BP investors to present us with some reasonable options, especially considering our ages (late 60s).  

We bought a 2/2 condo (1050 sq. ft.) in June of '13 for $339k, with a down payment of $209k. It's in a beautiful area of inland South OC. We owe about $102k on a 30-year of 3.75%. Redfin estimates it around $447k. We have a tenant in there until the end of August. We're clearing about $250/mo. Rent is $1950, PITI is $1115, the HOA is $365, and PM fees are $160.

Redfin estimates that if we were to sell it at that $447k price, we'd have $332k in proceeds, but that's just based on her 1% commission.  That doesn't include the buyer's agent commission or taxes.  We estimate we'd only pocket $80k.  Even though it provided a stream of income, that still would be an enormous loss from the $209k down.  Additionally, since we've got a tenant in there for 6 months, that likely would mean selling to another investor who clearly would want a steep discount.  If we did a 1031, then we could not cash out anything, and that's a problem. We also can't take some money and then buy notes with the rest.  We can't refinance because we couldn't get anything like the 3.75% like we have.  We can't turn it into a note because there's a mortgage on the property.   Not crazy about taking a second because there's no idea when this crisis could end, and we don't want to take the chance of losing everything invested there.  

Any suggestions?  Thanks.

Does anyone have short-term rentals around baseball stadium areas during Cactus League time?  What's been your experience with them?  Who rents them (number of guests, length of stay)?  We've heard something about renting a property with the understanding with the owner that we will be short-term renting it.  Then we give the owner a cut.

If you wanted to buy a property that was being sold by a huge REIT but needed to do so creatively (with the least amount of money exchanging hands either by money down or monthly payments), would you approach it any differently that if you were dealing with an individual seller?

The situation:

Our 32-year-old daughter-in-law has just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and along with a number of other serious health issues, is so ill that our son can hardly work.  Just a few hours a week from home.  They have 4 young children.  We've been picking up their rent, but other than buying it outright with cash, we're looking for a way to reduce the amount of money going for their housing until this situation resolves itself, which may be quite a long time.  We're not in a financial position to either buy it outright or continue to pay their rent indefinitely.  

The REIT owns at least 20,000 homes.

Thanks.

My original post had a typo: I would like to say (not "see") that I'm comfortable with this strategy because I would like to try it.  Clearly, this is not something in which I'd personally engage, but I'm not my client.  I also realize that lending institutions rarely come after whoever is paying off the loan as long as it's being paid promptly.  However, I have to feel that while much money has been earned through subject to:s, that it's still an honest way to earn a living.