All Forum Posts by: Julia Blythe

@Elio L., how much does it cost to join Costar?  I'm always a little leery when companies don't list their membership prices online for such a service.  It's probably too rich for someone like us -- as we only have one commercial building valued around 1 mil, so we are small fries in the commercial world.  I hope I'm wrong 😳

The Shelby County Trustee's office is offering a FREE seminar tonight at the Botanic Gardens to learn more about the tax sale and land bank processes in Shelby County (Memphis).  The tax sale is moving to an online format and there are some new laws associated with delinquent taxes in the county that will be discussed.  Tax sales are not our "thing", but I thought I would pass this along to anyone else that might be interested.  You won't have to physically be at a tax sale in order to participate live.

https://www.shelbycountytrustee.com/Calendar.aspx?EID=401&day=7&month=1&year=2016&calType=0

Oxford is too expensive right now in my opinion.  We briefly looked at housing and professional commercial opportunities in Oxford and the bottom line is that inventory is low and prices are high.  It's definitely a seller's market. 

Actually, it depends on how you have it under contract.  If you bid on it at an auction or similar, you, most likely, would be responsible for the taxes.  I would check with your real estate attorney that is going to do the close.    

We are setup to buy directly from Your Other Warehouse.  My husband used to import from Italy Italian faucets and sell them through independent reps through the U.S.  He got an account setup with YOW at that time and now we use them to buy the plumbing fixtures for our flips.  We have always had good luck with deliveries as we have had the same rep there for years.  Our GC was a little perturbed that they would not setup an account for him.

We have never put washers/dryers in our flips -- even our $500,000 + flips (which is an expensive house in our neck of the woods).  People in our market do not expect them in any house.

We walk away from houses on busy roads.  It just takes too long to find a buyer willing to live on a busy street.  

@Alex Craig speaks the truth.  I cannot tell you how many out of town investors come into Memphis and lose their shirt.  If you are not in Memphis and do not know this market, be very very careful!  We do high end flips and would never invest in these war zones.

I recommend, Joe Kirkland, Tri-State Title http://tstitle.com

Joe is used to dealing with all type of investors and is the on the board of Memphis Investors Group (MIG)  http://www.memphisinvestorsgroup.com/

We use Joe for all of our real estate transactions.  His rates are very reasonable for investors and he is a straight shooter.  I know there are several people here on BP that use him.

For our next flip, we are going to be taking all of the interior walls down to the studs.  This house is 100 yrs old and has mostly plaster walls and both plaster and popcorn ceilings.  Can someone suggest an honest asbestos testing company in Memphis?  I have recently learned that some of the supposedly "independent" third party testing companies are not as "independent" as they may want one to believe and are under investigation.  (Here in Memphis, there are two testing companies that appear to be competitors but are actually the same company and supposedly give false positives to clients and then refer these clients to a "third party" remediation company that -- wow! -- happens to be owned indirectly by the same people).  Needless to say, we are now a little paranoid about all of the testing companies.  

We want to do the right thing as far as testing for asbestos and lead paint, but want to deal with a testing company that has similar ethics as our own.

Any suggestions?