All Forum Posts by: Ram Chandrasekaran

Hi Casey
I agree to most of the posts here except for one claim "Buying Department Store" Cards. Please stay away from them. Buy only credit cards through banks and the financial institutions. Apply thru www.creditcards.com - where they give options for Gasoline points, low interest rates, low balance transfer rates, etc. and also specify what kind of credit level is expected. For e.g. Discover XXX would require 'Good' credit as opposed to BofA AMEX YYY Card requiring 'Excellent' credit.

Also, please buy 'Credit Scores and Credit Reports' by Evan Hendricks. You will learn a lot about credit scores and consequences of not checking them often ;-). I hate to do this but my blogsite has a detailed post on credit scores - check it out - my profile should list the blogsite under 'my website', if not, IM me and I will send the website address...

Cheers
Ram

Hi Alex
You might want to check www.huduser.org - Under 'Assisted Living' Tab you will 'Fair Market Rents' option. This has an Excel sheet already in place that can be downloaded. However, please note that this is only a guideline of what the rent could be - But always helps to have it with us for reference purposes.

Cheers
Ram

Tom / Jon - One more update... Well, Take a guess!? ;)... I successfully Short Sold our house "without" defaulting... I am just proud to let you BiggerPockets members know that my friend/BP member Jonathan (jkatz) helped us with the Short Sale. We have moved to where we wanted to... Persistence for over 8 months from both us and Jonathan got us here, wherever we are now... :)

Have a Great day friends.

Cheers
Ram

Team
I am looking for a HML in Northern CA - Bay Area, CA. Please send me your contacts and we can talk about the terms and conditions you might have. OR if any of our members know of someone (your friend or relative) who are HMLs, please send their contacts. Thanks very much.

Cheers
Ram Chandrasekaran

Crosswind!! This is a Great pointer for Beginners like me.... Thank you very much... This is beyond Help! ;-)

Cheers
Ram

Makes it Easy for me!! I dont get to vote in the USA, yet.... I dont react AT ALL... Jus kiddin.

I lost my voting rights in India 'cause I voted for the party that they call 'Communal' and since then my name is NOT on the Voter's LIST! :(... Either way, I am currently a 'Global not eligible to vote guy' ;-)... haha

Well, fact remains, President Elect Obama has been elected at the wrong time - I mean, Global recession / Depression!! Lets see how he is going to parry this attack...

James: Obama is a Leo too! :-))))

I second Mr_Investor. As far as I know/heard, you will have to Hold the property for a few days with your private money or hard money or conventional lending and then try to sell it to your buyer investors. Sometimes you can retail it yourself to conventional buyers too (may be after rehab?).

Cheers
Ram

Team
I am looking to have an Attorney-BP Member to review about 4 Documents/Rental Contracts. I have the contracts on my computer and can email them. We can discuss the fee for your service through personal IM or email. Any help is highly appreciated.

Cheers
Ram Chandrasekaran

Hi Paul
I am beginner WholeSaler too and I get listings from one of the RE agent that I know of. Recently, I got a listing that is Duplex in Fremont, CA - $295,000. That price in CA is pretty good for a Duplex. However, I guess you are unable to identify which is a GOOD deal... For starters, do the following:

1. Go to Trulia.com, enter the address of the house and it will list comparable house. How the house you are looking at is priced - High, Avg. Low, etc.

2. Go to Zillow.com, find the comparables there too. They will list other things like last sold, what is the property tax on the property, etc. Property tax on the house will help you find the approximate valuation from the County (1.2% of the property price - at least in CA)

3. Find a RE Agent friend who also is a savvy with INVESTING. I have one like that... he is VERY GOOD. RE agent friends like that will help you a LOT. And the deals they bring to you are DEALS indeed... Yes, there are lot of realtors who do not know the RE business well, but lets not generalize! :)

4. Go to Bestplaces.net and find out how good the area is in terms of employment rate, unemployment rate, population growth over the years, expected pop. growth, crime rate, air pollution,traffic, etc.

5. Go to OFHEO and find out how well the city has been appreciating in the past - You can download a PDF report

6. Go to huduser.org and find out the Fair Market rents - you can download an Excel sheet report

Hope that helps you to get started. Good Luck. IM me so we both can learn more

Cheers
Ram

Hi P NW
I am not sure about the 'Growing' population in CA. I checked the population in some of the well-known cities and it appears to be less than the national average in population growth. Secondly, invariably the RE depreciation has been very bad and #1 in foreclosures in the recent news is CA. Over and above that, places like San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara has NOT yet seen the complete downturn in RE. In addition to that the tech. industry is FLAT. The job opportunities are going down. With the tech. industry paying so many people in CA, how do you think population will grow if jobs tend to go down. Less tech. or professional jobs is directly proportional to less service jobs.

Sorry, I didnt mean to offend you in anyway. Living in CA, I am certain to see the downturn in RE continue for 2 more yrs.

Cheers
ram