All Forum Posts by: Phil C.

Thanks @Aaron Montague, great tips!  I bought myself a fancy clipboard that has pockets and holders for  printouts and is easy to write on.  I'm going to take my time next time and be more systematic about it.  Thanks again!

@Dave Shellenberger No, it was on Christpher Place, but looks like similar design/build.  I'm confused now,  I'm looking on the delaware county website and it shows that 'County Tax Receivable' for this house is $576 annual, is this the same as property tax?  If not...where would I find the $6k property taxes being paid?

so confused now...

Li Wa, I'm very surprised to hear that Upper Darby is that bad...I have scoped out several neighborhoods in and around Philadelphia and Upper Darby remains one of the cleanest and spacious (few if any row houses)   There are patches of not so great streets, but for the most part I don't see anything overly negative about it.  What areas would you recommend?

hey guys the property is in small town called primos. Ethan the house is going for high  80s but given the rehab needed I say it's worth more like 70s. And the taxes are 6k. These are actual numbers other than what I would offer. What else could there be?

ugh that sucks so much. The property I'm looking at is in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. That's why I was so shocked. Sigh

I wish I could attend but it takes me 2hrs to get down to Philly from N.Y. I too work a corporate job and was laid off during the recession.  I went back bc I need the paycheck  but am hell bent on getting into real estate full time.

Would their be any weekend meetings?

Hi all, I was looking at a $80k house that's in OK shape except for a hole in the one of the ceiling and an odd small patch of mold in a damp spot in the basement stairwell, not a from a leaky pipe in a ceiling. Likely from damp moist air and poor circulation.

But I digress, the max I would pay and think it's worth is 70k. Which would cash flow a nice $1,400 or $480-500 net, but then I realized the taxes were triple what I estimated, instead of 2k it was over 6k! In my eyes that's nearly 10%.

So instead of cash flowing a comfy $500 I'd cashflow maybe 100, too risky for my blood.  anything going wrong could put me in the red...How sad is that?  My agent didn't say anything about a reassessing the taxes and that that's good much the neighborhood goes for. That just sounds astronomically disproportionate.

Anyone else have a nice deal killed by prop taxes?

if this bothers you that much, maybe need to reevaluate your life.  LOL just saying

Thank you guys!  Great advice everyone.  

@Doug McLeod , yes I ran all the properties through my spreadsheets, they were all +2% properties and fit all my criteria.  I filtered through hundreds of properties and narrowed down to 10, and 2 went under contract the same day.  

Great advice @Dawn Anastasi & @Dell Schlabach I took photos of the front on some but not all.  This was my second time previewing and I guess I'm still shaking off the newbie excitement. 

  @Dell Schlabach , why do you take a picture of the electrical panel?  

So I just came back from previewing 8 properties for potential buy and hold/fix and flip.  I found that I was constantly trying to take good pictures, videos, jot down notes, and ask questions.  At the time everything is in my head, but I found that after a long day of previewing and trying to gather and collect my thoughts, that everything is a mess filled with bad photos angle, even worse videos of me running from room to room with the camera pointed to the ground or the realtor's butt, and illegible notes that seem meaningless afterwards, or even no notes bc it was all in my head at the time.. 

Does anyone have an efficient and effective system they use when previewing a property? 

I hope I look back at this question years from now when I have dozens of properties and laugh my *** off at how noobie this question sounds, but for now, I am a bit flustered at how things went today and want to do it better next time.