All Forum Posts by: Pete Harper

@Brown Malo

HOA fees will revert to you as of the date of the sale. You may also be responsible for past-due fees if the HOA put a lien on the house. The auction only clears the tax lien. I got stuck with a weed abatement lien. Fortunately I was able to get the city to forgive the lien.

If the property is occupied you can have them pay rent during the redemption period. That is what I did. The current occupant agreed to sign a 6 month lease. At the end of the lease we sold the property back to the renter with owner financing.

@Brown Malo

Was this a sheriff's tax auction on the courthouse steps?

The county will send you a deed in about a month. You only get a receipt the day of the sale. In Texas there is a redemption period. Two years if owner occupied; six months if not owner occupied. You can check the county tax records, if you see a homestead exemption you are in for two years. You are advised not to make any large improvements during the redemption period. If the previous owner decides to redeem, you will loose the value of improvements. The only exception are repairs to stabilize the property. ie New roof if it is leaking. During the redemption period you can charge rent to whomever is living in the property including homestead owner. If they refuse to pay the county can help fast track the eviction, pre-covid. As others have said, approach the occupant and explain what has happened and go from there.

@Ellie Narie

If you are looking for cheap timberland look at Arkansas. You can buy large tracts of land after logging for $1500/acre. I researched it a while back when my wife and I were looking for a place to retire. In some cases the land has been replanted and will be ready for harvest in 20+years.

There is also a play with carbon credits. If you agree to not to cut the trees you can get paid for carbon sequestration. I looked into it for my place in Texas. It pays $1500 total per year for our 85 acres. Not worth the hassle. Timber land does better.

@Hilario R.

We've been pleased with our properties in central Texas. Depending on your goals there are still great cashflowing properties. We haven't had the big price run up like Austin. We have property in Fairfield, Killeen and Bryan/College Station.

@Katie Willcox

Not to duplicate the excellent comments by others. Where are you advertising? I get some of my best tenant leads off FB Market Place. I use the local "For Sale" page You can post an add with photos for free.

Be ready to be overloaded with inquiries. I typically get 15-20 PM's a day when first listed. I request their email address and follow up with a rental application. Only 2-3 provide emails. In the body of the email I include our rental criteria. Most people self screen, 3X rent to income is a biggie. Out the people I send applications to I usually get 1-2 qualified applicants after a week's posting. I like to only do showings to prequalified applicants.

The trick is to get a high volume of applicants to choose from.

I've also tried Craigslist and Zillow with very limited success.

@Berry Starnes

RE is very regional. It's hard to make a blanket statement. Markets vary from state to state, and city to city. In our market in central Texas we have not had a single Covid non-rent payment on 28 units. In fact we maintained 100% occupancy. I've had at least one Tenant with Covid but they still managed to pay rent. In fact we have seen strong rent growth through out Covid. We've managed rent increases on units as they have come vacant. We even negotiated several section 8 rent increases to keep up with the market. Coming into 2021 we have seen an acceleration in rent prices keeping up with RE prices. Inventory remains low with high demand. We have a waiting list.

The only negative I observed due to Covid was lending. We were ready to refinance a BRRRR in the spring of 2020. All the major lenders were no longer underwriting commercial loans. We had to shop around to find a small regional bank willing to do a portfolio loan.

@Noah Juarez

It would be helpful if you explained what you are looking for. What are your goals and expectations in investing. Are you just starting out, want to get into wholesaling, flipping, buy and hold, ........

@Cameron Davis Agreed, foundation issues are not a deal breaker. We purchased a 4-plex with foundation issues. We had an estimate for $27k in repairs. We took the quote back to seller and was able to get $27k price reduction. We turned around and did $12k in repairs.

@Kelly Chun

Definitely a red flag. We were under contract on a property. During the due diligence period the appraiser found out that there was 600 sqrft of space not shown on the tax records. The owner was a contractor and had made additions to the home without pulling permits. Suddenly his 2000sqrft home became 1400 sqrft and it didn't appraise. We asked for price reduction but he was underwater on his loan. We ended up walking away and he landed in foreclosure six months later. The additions were a huge unknown. Without permits there are no inspections. Who knows what was done. In some cases the city will force you to bring it up to code or tear it down. You can also run into issues with bank financing.

@Giulio Brandi The property is pending. someone has an offer in.