All Forum Posts by: Robert Mack

I just came across this bill that was passed by the House of Representatives and is on to the Senate. Of what I understand, you won't be able to see your home unless it meets the EPA's energy efficacy rating for the HOME.
The EPA administrator is appointed by the president...

This seems like scary stuff, am I reading all this correctly or is this website not legitimate??

Here is a part of the article, I attached the link on the bottom. It is from the Federal Observer website.

H.R. 2454, the “Cap & Trade†bill passed by the House of Representatives, if also passed by the Senate, will be the largest tax increase any of us has ever experienced. The Congressional Budget Office (supposedly non-partisan) estimates that in just a few years the average cost to every family of four will be $6,800 per year. No one is excluded. However, once the lower classes feel the pinch in their wallets, you can be sure these voters get a tax refund (even if they pay no taxes at all) to offset this new cost. Thus, you Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class America will have to pay even more since additional tax dollars will be needed to bail out everyone else.
But wait. This awful bill (that no one in Congress has actually read) has many more surprises in it.
Probably the worst one is this: A year from now you won’t be able to sell your house.
Yes, you read that right. The caveat is (there always is a caveat) that if you have enough money to make required major upgrades to your home, then you can sell it. But, if not, then forget it. Even pre-fabricated homes (â€mobile homesâ€) are included.
In effect, this bill prevents you from selling your home without the permission of the EPA administrator.
To get this permission, you will have to have the energy efficiency of your home measured. Then the government will tell you what your new energy efficiency requirement is and you will be forced to make modifications to your home under the retrofit provisions of this Act to comply with the new energy and water efficiency requirements. Then you will have to get your home measured again and get a license (called a “label†in the Act) that must be posted on your property to show what your efficiency rating is; sort of like the Energy Star efficiency rating label on your refrigerator or air conditioner If you don’t get a high enough rating, you can’t sell. And, the EPA administrator is authorized to raise the standards every year, even above the automatic energy efficiency increases built into the Act.

http://www.federalobserver.com/2009/10/01/thinking-about-selling-your-house-a-look-at-h-r-2454-cap-and-trade-bill/

Check out the SWFL REIA group.

http://www.biggerpockets.com/groups/123

For all those who purchase properties to flip, what are your plans for the next couple months? Are you still purchasing properties to flip like normal or are you treading carefully due to the credit expiring and the likelihood of mortgage rates rising?
Are you confident you still will have buyers for your properties?

To me it seems that with the rising rates and and no tax credit, potential buyers will FEEL as if they missed the boat to get a deal and at least for a few months will have remorse for not taking advantage of the two which will deter them from buying.
On the other hand, the year is coming into the summer season, so will that have any affect on offsetting at least some buyers worries?

I think the Ipad will be more of a useful tool for Realtors than investors.
Also depends on the Apps they come out with that will help Realtors wow their clients while out house hunting.
Has anyone bought it?

Some of the suggestions for finding buyers is to look at cash sales and see who's buying them and also call for rent signs to see if the owner is interested in buying... owners with different tax bill addresses can be another sign of an investor owned property.

Along with the above I'd also network at your REIA - talking to investors who are buying properties for themselves and SUCCESSFUL wholesalers, then base my target neighborhoods on this research.

Like Brian said, the key is to cater to the buyers criteria - so what better way than to talk to them!?

One of the counties I want to target has only the deceased name, date of death and city. To get the rest of the data you need to go into the office.
I can go and search the property records online also to see if theres any real estate in the persons name.

I was thinking of doing this and then sending a letter to the address where the deceased lived since they do not list the executor.

The problems I see with this are:
1. Who do I address it to; or don't address it to anyone?
2. What if the property is now vacant, will it be forwarded to the executor?
3. Would I state knowingly that I'm aware the person deceased? If so, then I obviously could not address it to the deceased.

Also in your letter, if you're a realtor or have one on your team, I wanted to put the option maybe in the 2nd letter that I can list it for them IF they don't want to sell to an investor for a discount.... thoughts?

How about just walking around the city. Downtown is way different than midtown and uptown.
The architecture of the buildings is pretty neat everywhere. You can go to central park, south street seaport, MoMa if you like art.
The highline might be something to check out too. It's an elevated park on the west side that was constructed on the old railway system, I heard it's pretty nice - just opened last year.
http://www.thehighline.org/about/park-information

http://www.aviewoncities.com/nyc/nycattractions.htm

How about buying mobile homes or land then selling them and holding the note?

Your risk will be more spread out than if you held a note for 1 or 2 properties also.
It'll be more work, but you may get a better ROI.

In NYC you also have many areas which are rent regulated and the laws are very much pro tenant - two big cons for any investor.

A lot of the successful investors I see in NYC are the people with multi of millions of dollars in net worth and many are also 2nd,3rd,4th generation real estate investors in the area and either focus on or have a good amount of commercial space.

Larry Silverstein
Bill Rudin
Don Durst
Leonard Litwin
Sheldon Solow
Donald Zucker

I'm not sure if this will work with business accounts and if you can do it in your LLC's name, but ING Direct (online bank) has the sub-accounts that Steve was talking about. I just started using them for my personal funds as a way to budget.

Get rich slowly has a blog post of how to set it up titled - How to Open Multiple Accounts at ING Direct.

I have also wired money before from ING and there is no fee for that, I believe at my brick and mortar bank its $15-$25 to wire money