All Forum Posts by: Tom Lipps

@Eddie Memphis I'll be brushing and rolling. I've painted many times before, but only for family and for myself.

In the past, when I've bought expensive paint I generally still had to do two coats. So even if cheap paint doesn't cover as well with the first coat, as long as the 2nd coat looks good; then that's what I'm after.

@Michael Noto Hi Mike, we do have Sherwin Williams out here. Actually, there's one right down the street from the rental I just bought. I'm looking for a color that I can paint everything with (Wall, ceilings, and trims) and still look good.  Or at least paint the wall and trim the same color (and white ceilings).

@Deanna McCormick Love the closet idea. Didn't even think about that! Thanks again for the advice!

Thanks everyone for the great feedback!

You are all saying what my initial thoughts were. Don't go cheap orI'll pay for it on the back end (with additional coats, harder touch ups, harder to clean, etc).

I just keep referring back to Brandon's article though. He makes the point that no matter the quality of paint, he ends up using two coats (so no time saved there). He also mentions, for flips he uses high-quality paint.. but for lower-income rentals he uses the cheap Walmart brand. Brandon hasn't lead me wrong yet.

@Deanna McCormick Thank you for the advice and the color recommendation. For the Antique White, would you paint everything the same color (walls, ceilings, trim) like Brandon does in his article?

Hi BP,

I just bought my first rental property (Duplex in a C+ area). $82k purchase price.

I'm going to be painting this Saturday and found Brandon's article about using Walmart's cheap paint; Color Place Country White.   https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/01/3...

As usual, Brandon nails it. I've used his guides, his forms, and implemented his advice with success so far... In his blog post he talks about the advantages of using all one color, all semi-gloss. For a C+ property, I think this approach makes perfect sense.

But here's where I'm getting hung up..  I look at the reviews online for Walmart Color Place paint and they're TERRIBLE. One person said the paint is like painting with 2% milk it's so runny!  Brandon wrote his blog post in  2013, is it possible that the paint quality has gotten worse over the years? 

At this point, I'm going to take Brandon's advice over all the bad reviews, but I was curious if anyone had more recent experience with Walmart Color Place. Did it coat and cover well? If so, did you prime first?

Thanks as always!

- Tom

Thanks everyone for your feedback and insights! To give you all and update... I did close the deal! First one done, 9 more to go in the next 9 years!

Here's how it played out:

 - Security Deposit: Prior Owner came to closing with a cashiers check 

- Rent Proration: Tenant did NOT pay current owner for Sept. I have that in writing, and am visitng tenant today to address. Tenant will give me $300 for back half of Sept., and give prior owner $300 for first half.

- Tax Proration: Title company and seller agent were able to improve this by adjusting figures to hit short sale bank's absolute minimum. Instead of being short $600, I wash only shorted about $160....I can live with that.

All-in-all I'm happy with the results.  Back to work! I have lots of improvements / past-due maintenance to get done!

I'm closing on my first duplex tomorrow (have been looking for about a year and had to back out of another deal). I can related completely to you! I'm excited to close tomorrow, but have had to push through my anxieties to get to this point. what I keep reminding myself is.. I've looked long enough to have a good feel for the market, I have a good high level strategy of my goals, and I know and trust my numbers (thank you BP!) All that being said, let's say I screw up? I keep reminding myself that I WILL screw up, I should treat my screw ups as tuition, and worse case scenario I have exit plans (move in, cut my losses and sell, etc). I'm 31, so if I'm ever going to fail, now is the time to do it (not that I plan to!l Ships are safest in harbor, but ships are built for sailing.

@Linda Weygant - You're right about $1k not being enough to make or break a deal. The problem is, my NOI (after some improvements) is expected to be $8.4k making my target Purchase price $84k. The Selling Bank originally agreed to (and signed the contract for) $80k, they paid all closing. But then changed their minds and increased the price to $82k and wanted me to take $1k of closing costs (effectively raising the price on my by $3k.

Now I'm getting hung up on the prorations. $600 deposit really = $1200 for me, since I'm out the $600, and I'll eventually need to pay the tenant. Plus $300 proprated rent has me out $1,500.

I just found out about 10 mins ago they're trying to short me ANOTHER $600 on the tax proration for 2017.

Long story short, I'm right on the cusp of it being a deal that no longer meets my criteria. I'm 99% sure I'm still going through with the deal, but the feedback from BP is giving me some leverage on how I negotiate.

Originally posted by @Wayne Brooks:

@Tom Lipps Lenders realize they have to pay those "normal" closing costs to get short sales done.  Again, this was all detailed in the Approval Letter.

 Continuing with the dumb questions... I double checked and don't believe I ever received an Approval Letter. Would my agent have that? Should he have sent to me?

FYI, I found this post on BP as well about this topic if anyone is interested. I'll let you all know how it goes, but I'm starting to think I'm out of luck here. Guess I need to consider this as tuition. Lesson learned to include this in my numbers for future short sales!

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/103/topics/252807-security-deposits-and-prorated-rent-on-a-short-sale