All Forum Posts by: Pat L.

We are good friends with one of the building inspectors & they sure know who the tired, fed up, absentee landlords with code violations etc are!!!. Trust me they are very tired of neighbors complaining about run down properties.
Given the property address we just look up the owner info @ city hall & fire off a mailer.
I often do the same on run down/vacant looking properties. Send a letter to the owner to see if they want out b4 the property deteriorates too much in value &/or housing code violations build up.

Then our RE agent is older than God so she knows who the old retired to sunny south portfolio owners are & she has approached some for us. From that alone we nailed several very profitable properties.
In fact it's one of our best leads as far as owner holds as they still want a little bit of action.

good luck

yeah just being facetious !!!
then I thought how about an 'interpreter'
we have a friend who does this for RE investors to do rental agreements & goes to housing court.

Would this pass scrutiny:-
1099 you as a quasi Security detail to keep an eye on the place & (if you collect rents) ensure financials are delivered to a secure facility.

We did a SFH with plaster walls.
We tore everything out then shellaced the walls &
Floors b4 we put down carpet. It worked.
The killer would be forced air venting but we had steam heat.

We always do...
some I have burned as DVD slideshows for the kids I am helping get into RE.
I find it great for keeping a log of all the things you should have done differently....
Also if your wife is taking b4 pics while someone is sanding the drywall the lens will be caked in dust & all future pics will be barely visible until you realize it & clean the lens !!!!!

Just be careful if it's in a HOA controlled environment.
We have a Villa near Clearwater & according to OUR by-laws you must rent it for a minimum of 7 months & only once per calendar year. Then they have to approve your tenants even though our PM did a great job qualifying them.
After many years our parents can no longer use it. So we decided to rent it. It's been a pain in the a$$, so after just 2 years we are taking it off the mkt, we don't need the aggravation.

One other thing watch out for Al wiring in the older condo's etc.

absolutely

I inherited one 8 years ago on a SFH that we took back owing me $18,950.
She direct deposits a week early, doesn't want to buy the place, pays her own water & just recently started paying the new city trash tax etc.

8 years of $725/mo is just amazing. Admittedly with some upgrades we could get $825/month, but who cares.
We do not even know her last name, so my wife calls her the 'annuity'.

When we there my wife couldn't believe the prices of homes.
Mortgages were 9%.
I mean Adelaide is a small city in a state of a million people.
Of course she was convinced it would be the proverbial bubble as we experienced here.
So I kept track of pricing there & since we were there they have reported capital appreciation @ 15-20% in the city & 25-30% on the beaches.
Minimum wage is $22/hr, free health care & the Sat morning job section was over 15 pages thick.
Foreign investment is inflating prices big time & they only speak English?????

According to my Inspector if the plug is slightly unplugged & something falls down on it, it will only hit the ground prong not the two live ones.
Fortunately or by luck we had all the new ones in correctly except one.
I noted during the rehab we are doing now all the new GFI's are aligned that way as well!!!.

I dropped by the first home I owned in North Adelaide S. Australia while visiting last year.
4 bdrm sprawling ranch that I bought while @ University & rented rooms (but it soon became our beer soaked mech eng faculty frat house).

Got it for $2,400 back in '70, owner hold 2.5%. I sold it in '75 for $4,800 to a fellow grad & he assumed the mtg & the roomies.

It only had one bath so we rigged up a urinal & shower outside against the back wall between the banana trees, but 10 ft from the bar.

It Sold in 2009 for $975,000 with property taxes of $1,660 a year.

I guess I missed that 'buy & hold' RE course.