All Forum Posts by: Scott Seaman

You may want to take a look at Central Oak Park (just west of Kenwood) - properties are being improved, prices & rents are jumping and none of the flood insurance you have to worry about in Gulfport area.  I've got six units in the neighborhood now and am amazed/slightly concerned at how much things are increasing.  Garage apt on one property came open after 8 months (they bought a house and paid to get out of lease early).  Was rented at $825, picked up a great tenant within 4 days at $895 no questions about the pricing.  

The big driver besides the whole area cleaning up that's been happening is that Skyline 5th apartment project on 5th Ave/33rd St.  I've had some calls from folks living there who are looking at a 12-15% increase when they go to renew their leases and the owners are about to start a 2nd tower due to demand.

Originally posted by @Patrick L.:

Originally posted by @Kyle D.:

wow, that is truly inspiring, Patrick!

You just have to keep working at it and digging. If I could find a great deal every day I'd be pretty happy, but that doesn't always happen. I buy a mix of MLS listed properties, auction properties, and off market properties (that I find myself and contact the owner, I have yet to find a useful wholesale around here that doesn't just send me MLS listed REO's at inflated prices).

Agree with all of this for our market, especially the lack of anything decent coming from wholesalers Our last 5 deals - 2 were MLS the other 3 direct contact with the owners We are only focused on one neighborhood that contains 3,000 homes and have come to be experts in that market. Want to know when that empty house became vacant? Or what step the foreclosure is at and what is target date for next action? If I can't quote it from memory, im sure it's in my notebook. Not saying that to brag, just to illustrate one strategy that may work for you. If you ask me about a property outside my boundaries, "uh, nice house?" maybe the most thorough answer I could come up with. Define your goals, develop a narrow focus that will help you reach those goals and become the most informed guy around about it. And yes, put in a management fee - you deserve that pay if you do the work yourself and leaving it out just inflates your numbers to make them look better. Good luck

Does that 20% get you closer to your goals and hopefully teach you enough not to lose what that 80% equals if you struck out totally on your own?

@Natalie Davidson I should have clarified that more. The rental market around here is much more likely to fluctuate in bigger swings with our snowbirds and students than the sales market. I've had much better 'luck' finding things I am interested in purchasing here in St Pete from off market deals than what's on the MLS.

A quick search today shows 203 SFH on the market in Pinellas county with a min 3/2 priced 80-120K. Knock out the short sales that are under contract and you're down to 136. Knock out for more features/neighborhoods/repairs you want or don't want until you get down to 20 or so and what have you got? 20 properties priced at higher than retail in spite of at least 10 of those having recent price reductions of 5% or more off their most recent list price.

Pull up the number of closed sales for the last 6 months in the county with list price between 80-120, 3/2 and there were 699.  So basically you're got one month's worth of inventory on the market and anything that's been sitting generally has problems that most folks don't want to deal with or the price is just way too high.  It's been like that for the past year and half regardless of the season.

I'm glad to see the retail houses selling to the retail buyers at retail prices again.  But a lot of the fixer uppers that have traditionally been the bread and butter properties for buy and hold (and stuff you get emailed from the local wholesalers) makes me want to tell them to quit hitting the crack pipe before posting.  Yes, House A could be just as nice as House B once the repairs are done - but that doesn't mean anyone should pay just $5K less for House A and spend another 30-40K in repairs just because someone has learned how to make a pro-forma look pretty.  There's not much inventory and there's even more junk to sift out than ever - it is not a pretty cool lake for a newbie to learn to swim in; there's a lot going on just below the surface.

You didn't really specify what your investment criteria are - but that needs to be clarified down to a standard measurement that you use to evaluate any and all properties that you find interesting.  I just closed on a duplex that I got for 40% of list price.  But that wasn't the deal. In reality what I got was a duplex with an unlicensed 3rd unit for 15% less than it appraised for as a duplex on a zero down loan at 4.375% fixed for 30 years that provides me a place to live and throws off $200+ per door while I go through the hoops to get the 3rd unit legal.  It worked out for me because the agent had it so overpriced that no one who would have been seriously interested in it bothered to look very closely.  

Which goes full circle back to my original reply:  

"The best time is the day you find a motivated seller that wants to get rid of a property that meets your investing criteria. Anything lacking that just isn't a good deal no matter when it's on the market."

It's way more important that you define what a good deal is for you and go find that than any time of year.  Happy hunting

The best time is the day you find a motivated seller that wants to get rid of a property that meets your investing criteria. Anything lacking that just isn't a good deal no matter when it's on the market.

@eric - sorry for brief reply, I'm on my phone. Was mainly discussing residential on the foreclosure end. Pretty much any Google news search for Tampa Bay foreclosures - current top 5 listings talking about Tampa Bay region still high (but dropping) at a rate of 1 out of 122 houses getting notice, damage area could take as the hedge funds adjust to what they bought last year as well as impact of siphoning off profit from local region that local REI usually pumped back into the community, and somewhere north of 65% of area sales were in cash - with rates still this low. And none of that is really factoring the whole period of flood insurance uncertainty of the last few months to figure out what "normal" means in this market right now.

As for office and retail - nothing cast in stone, a few sub markets have done some big things in the last year but many more are doing worse. Prices are higher but how much is growth vs absorption after a long lean period of no construction? Majority of leases 5,000 ft or less which indicates more start up with a higher likelihood of not lasting the term of the lease (but indicates improved outlook for consumer demand) and other observations like Craiglist ads heavily pushing the small shared office aimed at the long term unemployed deciding to create their own job by developing mobile apps and such. Mostly personal observation mixed with personal opinion, I don't focus on it full time like you do. YMMV

I agree with @wes - I'm in St Pete and I think banking on future appreciation is normally a poor strategy but especially so in Tampa Bay right now - hedge funds dumped billions in over a short period buying SFH last year and that was the prime driver of the increases - not increases in jobs or infrastructure that would lead to sustainable long term growth. There are still a higher than normal percentage in the foreclosure pipeline. Still a high vacancy rate in retail and office markets. A lot of apartment/condos coming online in the next 12 months after a few years of zilch. The same property can be a great deal, a decent deal or a millstone around your neck with the major difference being measured by 5-6 blocks which no out of town shopper is going to pick up on in a quick trip.

That being said I just closed on a legal duplex/off the books triplex that I'm working on getting the 3rd unit legitimate status. So I'm not totally negative about the area; we just moved here in Nov and love it. Just saying that it's an area getting a ton of press as this real estate market Mecca - and very little coverage of just how complex the market really is here.

Have you tried looking up information on your county website (if they have one?). Doing a search for recently filed LP's is an easy way to put together a list of preforeclosures. If you are in a Deed of Trust state (vs a mortgage) the step before filing is usually a Substitution of Trustee (bank is putting their attorney firm in as the Trustee to handle the foreclosure) so you can usually use that as an additional 4-8 weeks of time to try to work out something with the sellers.

I will say locally that that Zillow is really accurate and timely for these - but it really depends on how well they are tied into your local online resources.

Brandon Turner -have you thought about incorporating a few search terms into the initial sign up page - might be easier then retyping that everytime someone new joins

Check out Dragon Dictation, that sounds like the app you described