All Forum Posts by: Rene Owczarski

@William Owens At least for Iowa to assign the tax cert, the assignee signs the back of the tax cert, and then a fee of $100 is paid to the County Treasurer that issued the tax cert, as an assignment transaction fee. And then you submit both the signed tax cert and the fee to the County Treasurer for posting to the county system.

And I'm not aware of any robust secondary market, auction marketplace, or trading platform for tax deeds/tax liens/tax certs. But one could be out there, I just haven't heard about it. And the trading/activity that I've seen in Iowa for tax certs is basically person to person, from people that are active in the space, kind of like trading baseball cards as a kid. And values are determined on the paper, when buyer and seller talk about it, since there are too many unknown variables for hard and fast rules.

Just saw this pop up this morning on Housing Wire. Mixed bag of news on the credit front.

Here are the quick hits:
- Second month decline in total percent of all credit account in "financial hardship"
- Increase in 30 day past dues for auto and mortgage.
- Decrease in forbearance mortgages from 4.7MM to 3.7MM.

Link to the article:
TransUnion: Accounts in financial hardship continued to decline in August
     However, those still in accommodation programs may be at higher risk of default

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My own side note:

With so many mortgage account still in forbearance, about 7 month after the start of the forbearance program in the CARES Act.
Is this the next big opportunity for real estate investors, to structure subto (subject to) deals, to help homeowners catch up their arrears and pickup properties on the cheap. Since it's still unclear if all back payments missed are due once you exit forbearance.
Also are these 3.7MM homeowners the next big pool of renters in the country.
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You thinking about doing student housing for Northwood students?

When I started off, not knowing if I would stick with real estate, I would buy properties in my personal name. But over a couple of years, after knowing that I would stick with real estate for the long haul, I started buying in an LLC.

@Mike Stevens Just saw an article in Remodeling magazine this morning, that the EPA is proposing a rule change to decrease lead levels on floors and window after lead removal work.

EPA Seeks to Tighten Dust-Lead Clearance Levels

https://www.remodeling.hw.net/business/epa-seeks-to-tighten-dust-lead-clearance-levels_o

@Nicole Oka Reconsider looking at this as a one and done kind of situation. Especially with your inside knowledge about the group, and what they are doing with the land. In that every semester, they're probably doing a new build for the students. We're talking maybe 2 to 4 builds each year. So talk to them, find out their buying criteria. Then work backwards from what they want to pay, to find land that meets their criteria, and your profit margins.

The value isn't squeezing the one time sale, but in selling them again and again and again.

@Douglas Curtiss , I’m curious, why won’t you offer seller financing/terms on the deal, if it’s not selling as currently structured ?
Say you restructure the deal and offer terms at a higher $50,000 sale price, $10,000 down payment, and to make it even sweeter and simpler for the buyer 0% on the balance owed and payments of $400 a month for 100 months.
Then let’s say you then sell the note you created at a discount to another investor for $37,500, then their yield would be about 1.55% on the payments received from the note.
This way, back taxes are paid by the buyer, you get your $37,500 price, buyer gets terms, and an investor gets a discounted note and monthly cash flow. Win all around.

@Douglas CurtissHow much is the tenant paying in rent each month ? And how long has the property been on the market?

At least for Polk County where I'm at, the assignments don't reference the legal description, but it does reference the original mortgages Book and Page, and sometimes the instrument number from the original mortgages recording stamp.

Couple of things off the top of my head.
Is it an EPA superfund site, or some type of abandoned brownfield site?
Does the State DNR or the federal governments Bureau of Land Management own the coal mine, and have any consent decree attached to the property?
You’ll also want to think about getting a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment, in case of any undisclosed environmental hazards.
Below are a couple of websites to get you started in your research.

https://www.epa.gov/enviro/sems-search
https://www.abandonedmines.gov/about_coal_mines#:~:text=There%20are%20nearly%205%2C200%20coal,environmental%20and%20non%2Dcoal%20problems.
https://www.abandonedmines.gov/report-a-mine (for a list of state agencies)
https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/mines/AML/Pages/AMLProgram.aspx (only beacuse i'm guess that the property is in IL)