All Forum Posts by: Andy More

I'm gearing up to do my second ever mailer. I want to send a letter to every property owner in town that owns rental property(2 units or more) that has an appraised value with the assessor of between 50k-500k and has not take out a deet of trust in the past 12 plus years. I'm looking for people that are capable of selling to me at a price that will actually allow me to cashflow and give me instant equity.

Here is how I have to go about getting this information.
1. Get a list from county assessor on proprerties that meet my criteria excluding deed information. The assessor cannot provide deed info on their list.
2. After I get list(excel spreadsheet) from assessor I will provide it to the recorder and they will provide a deed history on each property on a printed report.

At this point I will have to go through the recorders report and eliminate the properties that have had a deed taken out in the past 12 years. Whats remaining is what I will send a mailer too. I plan on preparing and doing all the mailing myself

Getting this list from the assessor and recorder is easy and cheap. The time consuming part will likely be crossreferncing the second list with the first list and coming up with my final mail list

Now that i've probably confused everyone, is there an easier and inexpensive way to get to my final mail list?

Mike and Mark, thanks for the words of encouragement.

Mike, care to take a guess as to how much of that 50% you "EARN" by doing your own management and maintenanance? 15%? More,less?

I'm trying to figure out how much money I need to EARN and cash flow 50k a year or so.

Mark, I'm 32 and in good shape and would consider myself fairly handy. I tried to think of something that would rhyme with Mark but couldnt think of anything clever! I've been a part time landlord for about 5.5 years and enjoy the repair/maintenance involved with rentals. "become REALLY KNOWLEDGEABLE and then sub the work". I agree with this statement and have tried to learn everything I can over the last 5.5 years so I would always have the option of doing work myself or subing it out and just overseeing the work if I choose.

Jon, "if you own a bunch of properties, and do all the management and maintenance yourself, you may not be as free as you want." I hear ya. Let me define my definition of free. Freedom to me is not following somebody elses path, I want to follow my own. I would happily work more hours than I do now if I was working for myself. I want 100% of the profit and am willing to take 100% of the risk. I'm somewhat burnt out on my current job(mortgage loan officer, 8 years) and want to do my own thing.

My goal is to be able to go full time before I'm 40. I've got about 240k to devote to this endeavor but think I will need closer to 500k before I can do it right and go full time.

Thanks Jon! Any opinion on the repair/maintenance portion of that 50%?

I believe you do your own management and maintenance. How does that affect your expense ratio? Does that take it down to 40 or 35% on average??

Also, is there any maintenance/repairs/improvements that you never do yourself? Do you hire out bigger projects like replacing roof, siding or HVAC systems?

I ask because my goal is to be able to replace my 9-5 income with net rental income and be free!!!

How much do you guys pay for title searches? I'd be hesitant to spend hundreds of dollars on a title search with not even knowing if I will get the property or not. Is this something I can do myself online at the county recorders website.

Thanks for all the replies so far!

If I buy at auction, dont I have a right to get a clean title commitment before closing or be able to get my 10% down payment back?

"Even without a listing, you're either going to have to sell to someone who just wander's by or you'll pay the buyer's agent side of the commission. Otherwise you'll get no showings to lookers who have buyer's agents." I've got another duplex i'm selling for 175k and only paying 5k to the buyers agent. I think there is a VERY good chance I can sell this property for 135k on craigslist without a realtor commisssion. Although, to be extra safe maybe I will allocate 5k towards a realtor fee and adjust my max offer price.

I had an offer in on the duplex next door for 4 months, it was a short sale on a property my buddy owned. The bank required it to be listed with a realtor before they would consider my offer. It was listed at 134,900 and had 7 offers within 3 weeks, the accepted offer was for 135k cash.

The cool thing about the property that i'm looking at now is that its the WORST property on the street. This one property is bringing the street down. The people living there are thugs! Pit bulls chained in the front yard, sometimes running wild. They let there 2-10 year olds run wild in the streets. Bass thumping.They steal peoples mail. Pretty sure they sell drugs by what my buddy has heard them say. If i got this property and kicked these people out, the street would be much better and I could see properties selling for slightly more than the 135k.

I would love to buy this property as a buy and hold but dont think I could get it that low. Would probably have to get it in the low 80's.

I am sending a letter to the current owner today to see if he will sell to me before auction so I can atleast get in and see the condition of the property.

I just noticed there is a duplex going up for foreclosure auction in a few weeks. This property is in a neighborhood that I am very familiar with. I know the market rents and I know exactly what this property will sell for in the open market in good condition.

I've never purchased at the courthouse before. What are the pittfalls of buying foreclosures on the courthouse steps besides the fact that I wont be able to have a building inspection done? I dont want to wait to buy as an REO because it seems those are attracting lots of offers thus eliminate my chance at profit.

Here's what I would like to accomplish

100k purchase price at auction

15k in improvements(im probably overestimating)

sell for 135k without realtor

property will generate some rent to offset taxes, insurance, utilities etc...

=20k gross profit to me

I would be paying cash for the property and financing improvements with cash.

Thoughts?

Where in NW MO are you from?

Thanks for the quick reply!

By flipping I mean fix and flip not wholesaleing.

The 240k is the cash i've currently got in hand and willing to allocate to my next RE investment/s. I dont want to mess around with any hard money and will use my own cash to purchase and fund improvements. 50% return on the full 240k is something i imagine I would have to build up to over some time. Going for a 50% return on the full 240k in my first year of flipping is really not possible for me since that would require me to hit this pretty hard and take on more risk than i'm comfortable with in my first year of flipping. Just so you know my experience level, i've been successfully managing/maintainting up to 9 units of mine for the past 5 years and do have a degree in finance and real estate.

Columbia is a town of about 125k people when school is in session. I think about 90k people without the students. Lots of student rentals. No chance of me moving to a different market.