All Forum Posts by: Russ Copeland

Thanks for the ideas.  I'll surely have to brain storm a bit on those.

I'm in a little bind, nothing legal yet, but more along the line of strategically. I've just been offered the opportunity to manage a friends property for rental. I figure this could be a great way to start on the low end of my REI, get my business built and work my way up.

My problem seems to be the WI broker/sales person laws.  Paraphrasing from what I understand is; any person who is able to sell, make offer, negotiate, or rent a property for another individual/entity for monetary or things of value must have a broker or real estate license.  This will surely hold up my growth and the opportunity presented before me, since the WI Board states I would need 2 years experience under an already licensed broker/sales person before applying for my own license.

Since I'm starting small I was hoping to get an LLC registered and start off managing my friends property and more to start generating some cash and get my name out there in the area. But I'm at a cross roads, with do not enter signs going each direction.

Does anybody have any ideas or currently using a strategy that is working in the same confines as I have in front of me? 

Just my experience anything that says "You Won" or get "$$$$ by doing (insert service here)" I toss in the garbage. With that said and my interest in the forums, BP, investing, etc. I did click and even responded to your post. The "What's in it for you" has a much bigger affect on my.....usually. Especially understanding that my payment doesn't always have to be monetary in the short term.

I'm analyzing the numbers to put in a egress window in a wood structure over concrete block basement.  I have a few of the easy stuff taken accounted for, but what I'm having trouble finding currently is an approximation of how much it will be to install a lintel over the egress window.  Anybody have some general numbers I can run with?

I'm trying to plan ahead and looking for reputable places in Wi. Who would you recommend?

I may have the opportunity to do distant property management.  Knowing a few of the downfalls from my fathers past experience, that didn't go well, I feel as thou there might be more challenges than I can think of.

Anybody have experience and able to outline some challenges in doing so?

@Tom Yung:

In the state that the house is in I would not get anything in positive cash flow.  I would be lucky to break even.  On top of that I would not be able to get quality renters into the property in the state that it is in.

Curious who may be in the Eau Claire area or surrounding area.  I'm slowly getting settled into our house and the area.  I usually work away during the week, but at home occasionally.  Hoping to meet some individuals perhaps get to know the area more.

@Non Phan  The inspector was a home inspector not an assessor.  We have given our negative feedback and will not be working with this inspector in the future.  As for the seller, I'm sure there are things we could go after them for.  However, as we have learned during our time in the house the family had very little with a large family, all the work done was done by a do-it-yourselfer who obviously did not have the funds to do the simplest repairs with any amount of quality.  So if we did end up having a case and awarded anything, I do not believe we would get anything back or if we did the time spent would not be worth it.

@Sawyer Lubke  Selling the property is not on the table, I wouldn't say it isn't an option, but surely not on the table at the moment.  We would be atleast $20k if not more under with no place to go to and another debt payment.

Thank you everybody for your input it has given me a lot of things to consider.  My wife and I are looking toward the future and I think we are simply going to consider the money lost as the price for education.  We might have the opportunity/ability to rent out the basement as an efficiency apartment and that could bring in about $300 extra.  So if all went well we could end up having cash flow of about $1,000 a month.  We will simply have to be extra lean on budgeting and smart in our strategy.  Again thank you, I have a renewed confidence in making this work.

Hello BP!!  I overpaid for a property.  There I said it. 

My quick back story. I was living in Las Vegas, NV and had a short time period to find a home to purchase in our new location of Eau Claire, WI. I went through a spreadsheet of homes in our (wife and I) price range and she pulled the trigger on a house we figured would be about a 13% ROI if we stuck to our original rehab plans of kicking in about $30k. Since we couldn't get eyes on the property ourselves we had 3 parties (2 family, 1 hired inspector) to look at the property. All said it was a solid house with usual old house issues. House asking was $90k, wife pitched $88k without me as she was getting antsy with other houses she wanted sold (I wanted to start at $70k). Needless to say they jumped on the offer, we were able to knock off an extra $500 bringing it to $87.5k.

Now jumping to current.  I got to the house and realized that all the feed back we had gotten was way off.  A little upset with all parties including myself as I guess I did not relay my intentions specific enough for what we needed in a house.  The one thing I didn't want to do was to worry about foundation and electrical.  Huh.  Now I'm looking at rewiring the entire house.  Good part is the house is laid out to make wiring to all floors through a central column were the chimney will soon be removed. 

So what's my problem?  The way the house stands I figure the house is actually worth $65k.  City assessment put it at $75k.  So I figure I'm starting out $20k in the hole with my original intentions to turn it into a rental property.  Average home rental in the area is about $750.  Our current mandatory mortgage (wife's dad fronted the purchase with his great credit) $350 but figure tossing in an extra $100 giving him a nice profit.  We are paying the actual mortgage of $65k and paying back a no interest personal loan to him for the rest.

So what's my question?  What would you do?  How would you try to keep the property as an asset/insvestment?