All Forum Posts by: Herndon Davis

Adam everything is negotiable including writing into an agreement to weed the flower beds LOL.  But if your tenants don't care to have a green thumb then just do it yourself! LOL

Anthony, getting abandoned property is a tricky transaction but it can INDEED be done but with lots of patience.

1-Make sure you verify the owner and address through your local tax assessors website.
2-Go to your local probate court website and see if you can pull up the Chain of Custody of the property. 
3-Pull up the transaction where it went into the company's hands and see if it was purchased with cash or with a loan or mortgage.
4. Using the same website or Listsource,com see if the company has defaulted on the loan property was foreclosed upon. Your local county site may have this information too!
5. Then SPEND the money and have a reputable LOCAL Title Company do a search on the property looking for liens, heirs, etc.
6. Depending on your specific city and state, you can complain to the city stating its a nuisance and force a public sale for back taxes
7. Or you can approach directly to purchase at a reduced rate given the condition and back taxes that need to be paid.
8. Other cities have programs where they take possession of the property and sell back for $1 or greatly reduce price only if the new owner agrees to build affordable housing.  In this case your rental income or your flipping price will be capped.  But REMEMBER you only bought it for $1 or at greatly reduce cost.

At any rate make friends with the folks downtown in your city. The relationships go a looooooong way!

Good Luck!!

Be prepared to evict with great big red notice on the door.  And also be prepared to go through with it. 

Everyone has similar issues. I'm going through it myself with with a multi-family property I'm seeking to buy in Houston. You can do one of 3 Options which range from FREE to costing of several hundred dollars:

1-Ask your realtor to do a comparison analysis in the immediate area up to 1-1.5 miles out of similar properties of what has sold in recent years. Or on what their MLS system may value the property as being. The system can give you estimated rent rates as well. This is usually a few clicks of a button, the local MLS system does all the work. If you have the realtor under contract there is no cost for this.

2-Go to Zillow and type in the addresses of similar properties nearby that may not be for sale.  Zillow gives you an estimate of market value and estimated rent the property might gain.  In addition you can look up nearby active rental listing to see what the rate is going for in that same area.   Also use other sites like Property Shark and RedFin for market value estimates.

3-Hire an independent appraiser to assess the value. He/she will pull comparables and give you both a current and After-Repair Value.  Note there is typically $500-$750+ cost or more depending on where you live for this service and you will likely need to pay for another appraisal by a separate company AGAIN if you use a lender for financing.

Either option gives you the Value and Rental Income which can be used to calculate an average CAP rate for the area after you renovate. You also get an average ARV value as well from the comparables.

Hope this helps!!

If you have the time and the money I would go after the license. I have both an inactive realtor and RMLO license and it helped me to understand the industry more intimately and to also gain access to MLS and other financing resources that wouldn't be as readily available. The only thing you have to do is commit to making your money back from the time and cost put into earning the license.

Unfortunately for foreign national loans the general consensus is 30% down payment, rates in the 6-7+ and possibly 6 months in reserves in your home currency.  

Diana I am a non-QM Lender Broker.  Non-QM is a great alternative especially for turnkey rental or even a FixnRent to Permanent Hold solution with really competitive interest rate close traditional rates but slightly higher.  If you are looking to buy a home owner occupied, you can get you in for as little as 5% down BUT the interest will be a LOT higher.  What exactly are you looking to do?