All Forum Posts by: Ronald Allen Barney

I did FSBO and sold to a buyer who had no agent, in Minnesota. It was a straightforward process and the title company processed the transaction for about the same fee as the realtor's transaction processor would add to the closing costs. Those straightforward deals are great. If the seller can find the buyer and both agree on the price and neither side is scamming the other and the title isn't encumbered by nasty mechanics liens and the mortgage company isn't being a pain in the you know what on the buyer's side and there are no zoning issues and there's no radon gas and the seller hasn't been cooking meth in the basement and there is no mold and there aren't any non-permitted modifications to the house that can come around and bite the buyer, and both know how to draw up, read, and understand the contract, no need for an agent at all.

Large capital groups are trying to monopolize new construction inventory but some doors fall through their cracks.  But with the new shinies keeping Big Capital busy that keeps them out of the mainstream market, which in turn mitigates the previous shortage there.  Inventory as a result has made some gradual improvement.  Mortgage lenders are more careful these days so I'm not seeing evidence of an implosion of that style.  Prognosis is a flattening or slight dip of prices over the next year.

If the economy tanks there will be new inventory via repo but it's not a given that will happen.  It's a maybe.

I would go with either no/minimal work to be done OR, if you can get in touch with a good reputable contractor for the work. Rehab properties tend to sink to the bottom of the MLS where the owner-occupiers pass them up because fewer and fewer people are handy these days or willing to self-rehab. The difference between the rehab and the ARV often makes it a good range to look for either flippers or buy and hold. I would do one, minor rehab via contractors, rent it, and keep the rest handy for emergency repairs. Make sure the due diligence shows you it will cash flow after rehab (which means getting rental comps of the turn-key equivalent properties in the area).

Because rents have a tendency to catch up with property prices over time, it's not especially useful to try to time the market.  It's always a good time "in general" to buy.  It may not always be a good idea to buy a particular property due to unrealistic asking prices above the general market or unusually depressed rental prices in the area (e.g., due to crime).

In the ad spam I'm getting on Facebook an increasing number of them are hawking "burned out landlord" leads due to all the meddling from the government.  If I were a betting man I'd place my high denomination chips on the hypothesis that the large capital groups investing in doors these days by the subdivision have had lobbyists inject exceptions to all these eviction bans.  "Except when the landlord plays golf with a Senator," translated to whatever loopholes are actually in the legalese.

I already checked.  Black Rock isn't hiring agents.  I has a sad.

 I would love to get a hold of the spreadsheets the larger capital groups use to drive their decision-making on deals.  The typical classic approach focuses on present median rents but it may be possible the big boys are projecting higher rents in the future and basing estimates on that.  Rent does seem to have lag time catching up to home prices in the selling market, because a bid war can increase the selling price with a phone call, while a landlord has to wait until lease expirations to increase rent.  It would be delightful to find out what they use for those projections in order to bring that intelligence to helping small investors grow their portfolios the same way.

I sold my own property while I was out of state.  Docusign was my friend and then FedEx for the final closing package which needed warm signatures.  Transaction coordinator did the rest.

As a conventional commercial loan, 25k less at least 10k for closing costs would put your price range at $60k final sale price. I don' think the current MD market will present a lot of opportunity for you. If you go first time home buyer at 97% LTV that would significantly boost your price range and put you into an equity position later to assign it to an LLC, refi, rent, and repeat along the BRRRR path.

They're probably out there scooping our commissions.  I was logged into a training session on Zoom last night, 30 to 40 agents and I was one of about six male agents.

Currently in Jacksonville there are zero multifams over 8 units in the Northeast Florida regional MLS. An owner so much as thinks about selling and bird dogs chase after him like that Pirates of the Caribbean meme. SFHs with rehab, there are tons of those, but all GCs are maxxed out. It's rough for us middle-men too.