All Forum Posts by: Marc Ramsay

First of all, congrats on finally taking possession! Other than the piles of crap, it's in better shape than I thought it would be. I see they left you some rent money on the bathroom floor. And my, weren't they the voracious art collectors! You better make sure there's nothing valuable in there. :)

A couple of 40 yard containers should do it! The quicker the better so that they don't have any reason to return.

Make sure you post some before and after pictures after you finish the rehab!

I agree with @James Wise and @Brian Hosier, and to some extent @Matt Motil. You'd have to be extremely lucky to find a building that matches those requirements in Cleveland, and if you did it would almost certainly be in East Cleveland. Been there, done that, not interested in dealing with that particular City again until it's amalgamated into Cleveland or something.

On the other hand, if you can get financing, $200K will get you a long way in acquiring a nice building in the size you're looking for. The 39 unit I have at East 55th and Payne is a good example. 39 units at $20K per door, it's solid and doesn't need any work, but there are some things that can be done to improve it.

Good luck in your search! I'd love to hear what you find and how you found it.

Regards,

Marc

@Account Closed Will do. Thanks.

Will do later tonight or tomorrow. Thanks.

Hi @Matthew Voorhies. This property is not listed for sale. We are currently considering selling it if the price is right. Let me know if you would like me to email you any information or arrange a property tour.

Thank you.

The last time I got that line from a City inspector in January I told him to fix the pot holes in front of my property and I'll fix the cracks in my driveway. He started to give me some grief so I said I guess I can defer my property taxes until you do then? Point made. Driveway was fine until spring.

It looks like my posting was way too long. Most of it was cut off. I can email a PDF to anyone who wants a copy.

@Elliot Savin, one thing to keep in mind about investing in the Cleveland area, is several cities have Point of Sale inspection requirements on properties being sold, and some have escrow requirements for up to 150% of estimated repairs costs. I don't have an issue with the POS inspections as they provide an additional inspection report for your due diligence, however they mostly cover cosmetic issues and do not provide any good info on mechanicals or structure.

The escrow requirement can be a big deal if you are buying a distressed property as you will need to fund an escrow account with up to 150% of the estimate repairs cost before you are allowed to purchase the property.

Another issue is some cities have much tougher inspection regimes than others, such as Maple Heights. You may want to find something you are interested in then solicit some opinions here on what that city's building department is like to work with.

For POS inspections and Escrow, I have the following list which is a few years old. If anyone has any corrections to it, please let me know and I will update the list:

(Note: I had phone numbers for all these building departments but BP wouldn't let me post the reply if they were included. A little silly don't ya think?)

Bedford

www.bedfordoh.gov

Interior POS: Yes

Exterior POS: Yes

Inspection Fee: Varies from $50 for single-family dwelling plus $25 for each additional rental unit; Commercial buildings are minimum of $75 and maximum of $200 

Re-inspection Fee: Same as original Fees

Escrow: An amount not less than $100 and equal to 150% of the estimated cost of repairs for outstanding violations.

Estimate must be provided by a company registered with the City of Bedford.

Bedford Heights

www.bedfordheights.gov

Interior POS: Yes

Exterior POS: Yes

Inspection Fee: $125.

Re-inspection Fee: N/A

Berea

www.bereaohio.gov

Interior POS: No

Exterior POS: Yes

Inspection Fee: $75

Re-inspection Fee: $75.

Escrow: At the request of the owner of the property or his agent, the City may issue a letter or other document signed and dated by a Building Department Official stating that some, but not all, of the violations listed on a specific Certificate of Exterior Inspection have been completed to the City

There is a Harold Mullen licensed in CA, but that doesn't mean the poster is legit..

http://www.californiabrokers.org/mullen-harold-pat...

@Alan Goetsch, I completely agree with the crap that Zach pushes. Most recently he was pushing Sean Carpenter's Government Funding Solutions. I sat through the webinar and it all sounded great, and I realized I could really use some of the expertise that Sean apparently had with finding government grants and loans for a project I was working on. Sean's big push was to buy his courses, then provide referrals to his company and earn commissions on finding clients who want to hire Sean's company to assist them in finding the government grants and loans for their projects.

Well, I had no interest in taking the course as I already have enough to do right now, but I did want to hire Sean's company to assist me with my current project. So I tried to contact Sean's company and was quickly called back by one of their staff, who's only interest was selling me the course. He said he would pass along my request, but I've never heard back. For all the hype he spewed in his webinar about wanting referrals, it seems all he really wants is to sell his $3000 set of courses.

When I contacted Zach and tried to push the request through him, after all he and Sean are best buddies apparently, I got the run-around as well.

On top of all that, I received endless notifications that the next webinar was coming and I couldn't get off the email spam list. Very frustrating!

Sean has missed a great opportunity here to prove his stuff works, but all he has done is prove that he is just in it to scam some money out of the newbie investors looking for opportunities.

As mentioned in one of the sticky posts in this section of the forum, some of these guys are cross-market each other and feed off each other's mailing lists. Do yourself a favor and just unsubscribe. I did.