All Forum Posts by: Matt Devincenzo

Ok I understand, I know little about SS other than how long I have to wait for the bank when I'm buying them haha. If you think the house would be worth it if you could convince the owner to start the SS process and just refer him to a local SS agent that could deal with the brain damage from BofA that is what I would do.

I actually am going to see about pursuing the same course of action on a house next to a rental of mine that the owner says he lost in bankruptcy but he still lives in it. His name is still on title, so when I'm home next month I'm going to see if I can talk to him about it and see if I can get another house out of the deal.

Morris Lucas I'm a little confused here, in your first post you say a REO and the second that it's not foreclosed.

A REO is a property that has gone through the foreclosure process and the bank has taken it back and now owns it. As Bill and Steve said they will most likely not do anything until they list it with an agent and then you could bid on it.

An abandoned property that has not been foreclosed would likely end up being a short sale(especially at this point). In this case the bank has the final approval over the sale but the owner is still just that the owner so you can contact them to start the process of a sale since they are still on title.

Not sure if it would be worth it to pursue the owner, but if you do find him it may be in his best interest to try to work something out with you to get the property sold and out of his life.

James T. you need to find out for sure if they have just applied for a tax deed or have actually gone through the sale. In FL foreclosing a certificate does not grant title to the property until after a tax sale. If the property does not sell you now own it so just make sure you know what it is you are buying for sure.

http://www.occompt.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65

I'd also go here for the info you want, the other site looks like they may be trying to sell you something. This is the actual gov site for orange county.

Anna Z. in looking for a PM/team I'm a firm believer if you can't or won't spend the money and get on a plane to go actually meet people and see the area then you need to rethink things.

This is not to say you MUST go visit the area(though it is a good idea), but if $1000 for a plane ticket and hotel in OH or IN will be too much of a drain on your finances you need to reconsider if you are ready to invest there.

What I would do is call a bunch of prospective PMs and see when a local REIA meeting is. Try to plan a trip that you can go to the meeting in the evening to meet people and set up appts with the PMs for the day time. Also drive areas to get a feel for which parts of town you might want to invest in. Now you should be able to make a decently informed decision and have the support you'll need in the area.

I'll qualify this by saying I'm not a wholesaler.

I would focus on motivated(private) sellers if I were you. You have 13 steps there and about 6 of them involve your LLC ect to be able to wholesale a REO/Short sale. With motivated sellers you wouldn't need all the brain damage from dealing with a bank.

It just seems to me like a lot to take on starting out especially since those are on the MLS where everyone has the opportunity to get them already. You'd really be better served finding the off market deals no one knows about yet. IMHO

I think you're making yourself too busy with everything, and won't need most of that stuff for deal #1, and won't know what it is that you do need specifically until after deal #1.

1) I would suggest determining how you plan to buy(cash, financed, cash w/cash out refi, HML).
2) Based on 1 and personal knowledge; how much rehab can you tolerate.
3) Practice the numbers; determine for "napkin math" what rent do you need for a given purchase i.e. 40k purchase needs 1k/mo rent.
4) Buy something.

I think you'll find that a lot of what you are trying to plan for won't work out the way you wanted(or you'll decide that isn't really how you want it). Especially on your first property you don't know what you don't know. After you've been through the first one then I would start looking at identifying your niche and entities ect.

There is no such thing as flood proof, flood resistant yes but even the best engineered systems fail. So the question is was this negligence on your part or not which comes down to did you make all reasonable attempts to maintain a suitable living environment?

(No legal advice)

One other thing to start with is establishing what it is worth. It may be listed at 60K and needs 20K in work, but would be worth 110K when livable. Now it already is a decent deal for an owner occupant like yourself, but not quite for a rehabber which is good because it may be hard for you to compete with them and their business models.

Brian Mathews that is how it is in FL where I invest, but a lot of places (mostly NE and Mid W it seems) that is not the case they lien the property that had the bill no matter who ran it up.

There is another thread on here that mentions requesting owner copies of utility bills and a couple other programs like that. I'd call the water authority and ask if they do LL copies of bills or have another program to help you make sure your tenant is paying on time.

It seems like this is a common issue in those areas and that some municipalities have realized getting a LL to help them ensure the tenant pays is better than just sticking the bills to the LL down the line.