All Forum Posts by: William Murrell

I'm very glad you asked this, because I have been wondering the same thing.  There are a ton of duplexes and large houses in my area for sale for less than the cost of a decent vehicle and I don't know enough about the section 8 program to know all the ins and outs.  Hopefully someone here has some insight.

Also you'll want to get income confirmation via rent rolls to prove that they actually have rented for that amount and to see what kind of lease they have.  Have you also checked with rentometer or similar to see if that rent is reasonable?  I've seen houses in my area where they claim it rents for 1700 and upon further inspection, there wasn't a house within a mile that was over 1200.  

Keep up the good work!  Stories like this are encouraging for anyone who is thinking of making the plunge.  Step one is always the hardest!

I read through the "cat litter house" in detail and one golden nugget I took from it that I want to pass from you was how he wrote into the contract (I'm paraphrasing)  that all personal property left in the house after close conveyed at no value.  This meant that as soon as he closed, he not only could move quickly into cleaning because it was all technically his now, but he could also dispose of everything with impunity as he saw fit.  As he said, this prevents someone from coming back and claiming that under the pile of garbage was grandma's priceless ring and you threw it away.  Read that thread; it's nuts. Good luck!

Have you tried running this through the Bigger Pockets Rental calculator?  It does a great job accounting for all of the miscellaneous expenses that come up along the way and really makes you cross your t's and dot your i's.  If you run it and it still makes sense, it probably makes sense in real life.  I personally run a best, worst, and average case scenario in terms of gross income and expenses and then make sure I can stomach all scenarios before I pull the trigger.  I recommend you do the same.  Also, have you tried approaching a community Bank or similar to see if maybe you can finance it?  It's free to ask.

This is a really good idea.  I don't do deals at a distance yet, but when I start to get into that area I will make sure to try this.  I love the idea of not losing control of the flow of the deal to the seller.  Especially as you said where they leave it on the table and a well-intentioned friend or relative talks the seller into cold feet.  Thanks for the idea!  

Great news!  I am always looking for a similar situation and it's encouraging to hear someone else making it work.

On the topic of paint, I really liked the point that Brandon made on one of the podcasts about always using the same readily available color in every one of his houses and in every room.  He would put this color, some manner of off-white or something innocuous, into the lease agreement as well so the tenant could go buy it at the nearby hardware store if they needed to touch up.  And any time he had to do the touch up himself, he only needed to stock the one color.  Simple but fantastic advice.

You can also try some of the enzymatic cleaners which actually break it down, but I don't know if they work compared to the other products mentioned here.  I know of one called Nature's Miracle which I've used on small stains with great success.  Not sure how it would fare on larger stains though.  I think your best bet would be one of the oil based coatings that encapsulate as mentioned above.

I'm not a CPA, but based on my experience with some of the things we've depreciated I'd imagine you'd be able to get away with it.  I think that it would just end up being depreciated over a much shorter time frame, like 7 or so years.  Just my $0.02