All Forum Posts by: Larry Seith

For all those folks interested in establishing business credit, go to this website: http://www.businessfinance.com/
They will walk you through all of the steps necessary with great explanations of why you need to do each step and the good news is that all the information is FREE. It's a great resource.

I agree with Mike that there is not necessarily a correlation. In a depressed job market (Detroit, for instance) there will be lots of foreclosures but since there are no jobs available, people will leave the area and the rental demand will drop.

Does anyone know who, i.e., realtor, lender, title company, etc. is responsible for accurately reporting what a borrower should expect to pay in property taxes?

I know that I, as the borrower, am ultimately responsible for everything. What I want to know is during the loan process when a borrower is provided, in writing, with the amount of taxes, insurance, principle and interest they will pay each month-- who figures that out and who is responsible for accurate reporting of those amounts? And what happens when you find out a huge error was made in figuring the property taxes? NOT because the county increased the property taxes, but because they were not disclosed accurately during the buying/loan process to begin with.

At the end of 2007 I purchased a new home in Ft. Worth with a tenant already living there. I did NOT purchase this home while under construction. I agreed to purchase the home and got a loan based on the taxes, insurance, principle and interest provided to me at that time because it was a good cashflowing investment.

Now, almost a year and a half later, I find out the taxes were calculated on bare land and not on a completed home. This error has doubled my payment! I would not have purchased this home as a rental had the tax info. been accurately disclosed because it would not cashflow-- not even close. Is the lender responsible for getting the accurate tax info? Has this happened to anyone else? And what did you do? Thanks, Larry

Sorry Andy, I don't think you'll get any sympathy from this group. Facts show that income groups don't stay stagnant. That is, the poor eventually save enough to invest and move themselves into the middle class. And the middle class also move up.

"Desperate efforts to depict all the prosperity and progress in the U.S. as being monopolized by "the rich" have led to statistical mumbo jumbo, such as comparing the changing ratios between statistical categories over time and ignoring the fact that most people move from one category to another over the years.

Studies that follow individuals over time show the exact opposite. That is, most of the working people in the bottom fifth of the income distribution rise into the top half, and the rate of increase of their incomes is greater than that of most of the people initially in the top fifth." Thomas Sowell

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-sowell_28edi.ART.State.Edition1.4dfdac3.html

Jon,
We found that legally the seller can pay 6% seller concessions and it seems that buyers are expecting that full amount.
At least in our case...
Just need to factor that much more into future equations and a MUCH bigger fudge factor!

Thanks everyone for the kind words! I feel a little better now....

One more thing I'd like to mention that put us in the red on these properties that we didn't budget for and that our realtor never mentioned is that we had to pay ALL of our buyers closing costs. Before we even bought these houses he printed out a "Proceeds from sale" sheet listing how much we would end up with. He neglected to mention the extra $5000-6000 for each house that we would end up shelling out. Apparently now first time home buyers get everything paid for by the seller.
Just something to keep in mind if that is your target market....

Thanks guys! That works.

Hi Jon,
I tried putting the [ url ] in front and [ /url ] behind and it turned the image location into a hyperlink. The photo did not appear. Then I checked the HELP section and it says to put [img] before and [/img] after but that didn't work either. Any ideas?

Joshua,
Is there a way to add a link to my photo gallery from a forum topic? I thought that would be easier than uploading all the photos into the text.

I know this forum is supposed to be about rehabbing success stories, but ya know, sometimes things don't go as planned. I purchased two houses in Mobile, Alabama last June hoping to re-hab them and flip them quickly.

Well, even though our inspector underestimated needed repairs by about $20,000 we did have both houses done and on the market within 5 weeks. But of course last July is when the credit market tanked and even though we were getting non stop full price offers on both houses, no-one was able to qualify for the loans. And even if we found someone who did qualify, by the time the paperwork got to underwriting, the rules had changed and the buyers were no longer able to qualify.

So we are very happy to finally have found qualified buyers and have just closed on both of these homes. Unfortunately the extra repairs and carrying cost have put us in the hole, but we like to comfort ourselves by saying we just attended a very expensive "boot camp"!

I'm sure we learned something here. But should I have hired multiple inspectors? That gets expensive.
I could have done a lease option but I wanted to sell these outright for the cash - and remember we had offers from day one so we never expected it to take so long to close. Or sell at a lower price to a cash investor.
Oh well, live and learn.
The photos are available at my galleries at http://www.biggerpockets.com/users/photos/RedwoodCreek


Barkley Drive before rehab


Barkley Drive after rehab

Barkley Drive bathroom before

Barkley Drive bathroom after

Barkley Drive kitchen before

Barkley Drive kitchen after

La Pine Drive before

La Pine Drive after

La Pine Drive kitchen before

La Pine Drive kitchen after