All Forum Posts by: Roy Schauer

@Brian Braeutigam welcome to the forums and look forward to meeting you. This is a great bunch of people with a wide diversity of knowledge and skills! Don't feel shy about asking questions. I love your attitude in your approach to investing. Find solutions, not problems! I'm hoping to make it to the REX meeting tonight. May see you there.

@Wayne Brooks I'm not exactly sure of the actual process but when I had looked at getting into doing overages locally, I went to the tax assessment office in person and the supervisor there explained to me that they don't have a tax overage list because they don't hold onto the money, assuming there is any overage. She said they usually notify the previous owner there is a balance after the taxes are paid and a check is usually cut. She also told me they get lots of people coming in to ask about it after some local guru program has been through the area. If it's unclaimed, then I'm sure it's remanded to the state to hold as unclaimed property but Alaska does have a statute that caps the percentage of finders fee to be charged when handling transactions of that nature.

If you learn of something different, please share, but that is the knowledge I turned up from the fruits of my research. I am not all knowing but have found that Alaska does have some unusual methods for doing things compared to other states.

I don't know about the rest of Alaska but in Anchorage we don't have tax overages. We are a tax deed state and when the property is sold at auction, if there is a balance, it is forwarded to the previous owner of the property, or the bank, whichever is entitled to the money.

@Ursula B. good keeping your eyes open for possible deals. However, a lot of the banks don't think the way we do, especially Wells Fargo. It may be different in your area, but I've found Wells Fargo to be very uncooperative when attempting to find a solution. They have a process and they follow that process even if it's counter productive.

I would say the only two ways to get it bought cheaper are if they would do a short sale, or wait for it to go through the foreclosure process and either try to snag at the auction or when it finally comes back on the market after the bank takes it back.

@Christopher Templin Welcome to BP and glad to see you jump in. Even though we are a small community here in Alaska, it's amazing how many people are involved in real estate. If your local to Anchorage, there are a couple different groups that get together regularly to talk about real estate, the different aspects, and some of the problems you'll run into locally.

@Dena Zeid I agree with @Joel Owens , I've found Realtytrac and most other similar services to be outdated. One I do recommend, and they have a free 7 day trial, just remember to cancel if you don't like it, is Foreclosures.com. Another thing to do would be to see how your foreclosures are processed. Typically it's posted at the courthouse or on a court website. For our state, the banks use trustees to execute foreclosures and there is one major one locally who uses an online company we signed up with in order to get the latest postings as soon as they are published. Unfortunately, that company pretty much only services the western part of the U.S. Good luck!

@Rodney Wehr That's a hard question to answer. It comes down to what your really wanting to accomplish long term. The market is tight right now on inventory and poised to go up a little more in the spring but I think you won't see as much growth as last year. More of a slight increase followed by leveling after spring rolls in. Also, how are you wanting to make your money work for you? What method are you looking to use to increase your return? Once you answer those questions, it should help with your decision but a lot of factors come into play. How long have you owned it? What's the age of the roof and heating system? Age of the home? Could you refinance and lower your payment or remove the PMI insurance so your making more per month? Are you renting it at its best value? Would your tenants be interested in buying it? A lot of times it just comes down to your personal choice. What do you feel comfortable doing? I know that may not have give you a clear answer but it might help you decide what's more important to you.

working for a title company as an escrow assistant is pretty good too. Steady pay, plus you get to learn how the closing process works and how to do research on properties.

@Scott Sewell thanks! Keenan and I had met up.

@John Strong Hi there! Welcome to BP! Let me know if you get something going in Fairbanks. We have a few REI groups here in Anchorage. Take care!