All Forum Posts by: Rene Owczarski

A quicker way than calling around local banks, to see who's lending to LLC's, is going straight to the source. Which would be your County Recorder or Register of Deeds. Most countries have their records searchable online for free. So then you can do a quick search for the last 30-45 days on LLC's that have gotten a mortgage, and give those lenders a call. Since then you know they are lending to LLC's, and they are active and making loans right now.

 It could be a basement/Foundation issue, or it might be sagging joists under the first floor, or a combination of the two. A quick test for sagging joists is to put a nail on the underside of the joist on each end and then tie off a Mason line about an inch down. Then you can measure across the span to see if it's sagging.

@Aaron Rizzo With it sounding like money is tight. I'd rent it as-is, and add the bedroom when you have your first tenant turnover.

@Josephine Wilson I think another saving grace for me, was that all my tenants were considered "essential workers". So no one got laid off during the lock downs.

And the whole "essential workers" label, is seriously making me rethink how I screen tenants in the future.

If this is your first FHA inspection, get ready for a bumpy ride.
The lender schedules the inspection for you, and then the inspector will call the seller to setup a time to get into the house.
And yes they are nit-picky: chipped paint, ripped screens, cracked window glass, missing floor coverings, exposed wiring, basement walls bowed out to much, etc. etc. They look over everything, inside and out.
And yes, there can be delays to closing, if repairs need to be made on the property, because of something flagged on the inspection.

For this "forever SFH", are you talking about a rental or a personal residence?

I"m still at 100% collected as well thru this situation.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, so I thought I would throw it out to the BP community.

Say you have a 2 bed/1 bath single family home that’s a rental.
And you have two options: Maximize rent vs. Maximize occupancy.

So would you take $900 a month, but you have the possibility of a 25% vacancy each year?
Or
Would you take $700 a month, but you have the possibility of a 1% vacancy each year?

What would you do?

I’ve been investing in Des Moines real estate for a while now, and I haven’t seen this kind of frenzied buying since 2006-2008.

Looking at the DMAAR's (Des Moines Area Association of REALTORS ) July sales report, homes sales are up 31.4% year on year.

And were still waiting on the August sales report from DMAAR in the next few days.

Because just anecdotally talking to buyers that have moved into the Des Moines metro. Homes that are priced right on the MLS are selling the same day they are listed.

What’s everyone else seeing in the market?

At least for Polk County, where I mainly invest in Tax Certs, it's a pretty deep and active market to invest into. But the big thing with tax certs in Iowa, is you absolutely need to understand the rules of the game, and how to play the game to get any traction with this type of investment.