All Forum Posts by: Richard C.

So I had decided not to mention that I thought the marketing aspect of this post was unfortunate, but since the moderators fixed this issue I kept quiet.

But since you are doubling-down...

These are your first posts, and they advance your interests. Maybe you should pay for an account and post in the Marketplace.

Thanks Michael. I agree that is a good point about the Midwest maybe not becoming any more desirable in the foreseeable future. I think some of the "trend" stuff we see is short to mid term (for example, I won't believe in the whole, "Millennials hate the suburbs and the suburbs are dead" thing until those Millenials pay down their student debt, have kids, and STILL choose to live in the cities.) But the trend of the MidWest losing people is pretty well established.

Of course, stories like the one I posted could change that over time. I guarantee you there is some 30-year-old sitting in an office in Boston right now reading it and thinking, "I make $120k here, but my rent is $2300 a month and I'll never be able to buy a house in a close suburb for $500k. Making $90k in Cleveland doesn't look like a terrible thing."

Listen to Rob, please. Hate to see you get jammed up. I am more sympathetic to tenants than most, but you've got some terrible ones and my sympathies are with you. So listen to Rob and make sure you keep out of trouble.

People in my area are, I think, even more jaded about telephone calls than the average American. For political reasons. I know people who literally unplug their telephones for weeks on end prior to the New Hampshire Primary.

Hey, finally a spot where a New England landlord can be the object of envy, instead of feeling envious!

I own houses in two of the three cheapest towns in my county. With the S.8 limits set at the county level for a very well-off county, I would love, love, love a section 8 tenant. I don't have one, in spite of my ads the last time I had a vacancy screaming that I would welcome it. My personal philosophy is to renovate to a very high level anyway, to limit repair calls and turnover, so the inspection process doesn't phase me.

I would be interested in hearing how your complaints up the chain work out. I don't see how it could work, but I'd like to hear.

I would be interested in the opinions of @dawn aceri, @James Wiseand other midwestern investors on this story:

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/22/real_estate/home-buying-salary/index.html?iid=HP_LN

In theory, housing prices and incomes should reach an equilibrium, where no place remains consistently "affordable" or "unaffordable", relative to local wages.

But that is in a market that is not only free, but where all actors are both fully informed and rational.

And none of us, never mind all of us, are either fully-informed or fully rational in our economic activity.

So what do you guys think? Is the Midwestern norm (or is it, really, a norm?) of accessible, plentiful and therefore decent quality (true?) housing sustainable over the long term?

I have been thinking about investing in the mid-west, because I think it might be. But I realize that I HOPE that it might be, because I have that whole lingering, American-dream ideology and want to believe that a working family can buy and keep a decent house in a decent neighborhood (ideally on a single income, but that's a whole other discussion.) And I don't want that HOPE to cloud my judgement (that's the whole "rational actor" thing.)

And so that no one needs to feel shy or feels like they need to offer extensive full disclosures, I already know that if I look to buy something in the mid-west, I'll be contact both James and Dawn. I've been impressed.

Thanks for any input.

James is also completely correct of course.

But with underwriting standards loosening again, and the credit tap being cracked open, landlords are going to have to adjust a bit. You are not likely to see many applicants with 700+ FICOs if people with 600 FICOs can buy a house with a few thousand down. We're going to be looking at much lower credit scores from tenant applicants over the next few years even if the economy improves.

Follow Colleen's advice. The laws that will apply are very state-specific, and what Bryan is telling you may be true in Tennessee and nowhere close to true in California.

You don't say, but often when people speak of elderly and disabled as distinct interest groups within a housing context, it is because the complex was built and/or acquired with help from some government program or other.

Some people think that tenants in these forms of subsidized housing are leaching. Whether they are or not, what those same tend to forget or gloss over is that the landlords of those complexes may a deal. And they should honor that deal, or they are far bigger leaches than any individual tenant.

So I would look into that. Or actually, do as Colleen suggests and have someone who knows California laws and the local housing scene look into it. If the landlord took money to provide below-market housing to the elderly and disabled and now wants to force them out, he is a giant welfare queen and should be resisted.

On the other hand, be prepared for the possibility that the low rent and bad maintenance were the result of bad property management by the guy who died, and the new company is just taking care of things (inspections, maintenance, re-keying, leases, rent increases) that should have been happening gradually over the course of years.

They must be ice skating in Hades, while dodging porcine aeronauts.

But I agree with Joe Gore.

So respect is a one-way street. Got it.

I notice you didn't actually answer the questions. Did you have the ability and intention to close? Did you "explain" to people about your non-existent partner?

Never mind. I think I know.

So OP, why do many people, not just realtors, consider wholesaling unethical? This is why.