All Forum Posts by: Russ Draper

You are bound to the lease, however if the tenants can't produce one and the gov't can't produce one either then just give notice that they are month to month.  When I had section 8 tenant the gov't was slow to changeover to pay the new owner.

I would insist on the lease, the bank you are using may insist on it if you are using the income to qualify for the mortgage.

Not a lawyer/tax advisor here, but I would think its an improvement.  I like not dying, I'd consider that an improvement!

Why not just use online banking?  My bank sends as many checks as I want, I just set it up for autopay.

This guy is going to buy the property no matter how many people tell him its a bad idea.  Don't touch that polished turd!  There ought to be a ridiculous number of flooded homes for sale in TX, I wouldn't pay $3000 for the privilege of buying one!  Especially without a lawyer.

Send me the $3000 if its burning a hole in your pocket!

I believe it is all going to be capital gains since your primary is not the same lot.  I don't see a way around it.  But making the big chunk of change on the build will be nice!

I have used Donna Weinberg at Village Mortgage, she has been able to find me mortgages that others have not and she has been able to close for me (I am a bit tricky to get mortgages for apparently).

Zillow is displacing the MLS, they aggregate a HUGE amount of data and show it to you in a nice pretty view. I am not aware of another site that has anywhere near the data that they do. The MLS is a bit like the "old boy's club" in that they don't let you in if you aren't a member. So just listing on zillow can actually have realtors ignore/block you since you aren't part of the club.

However, my experience has been that zillow by FAR gets more views than any mls/realtor websites. Like 80% of the views come from Zillow! But if you want to list, unfortunately you still need a realtor to list it on the MLS it seems. At least for now.

You haven't listed your motivators for selling vs holding.  Do you want cashflow or do you want lump sum to invest elsewhere?  If you cashed out your ~80k could you do a better return on something else (and possibly without the headache)?

Wouldn't this fall under the primary residence exception where you don't have to pay taxes on gains under $250/500k? (single/married)? That SFR that you rent out could count as your primary somehow I would think. I'm not a CPA though...

I hope my past experience doesn't happen to you, basically the bank at the time had the property foreclose rather than take a deal!  In the end it sold for less than I was willing to spend on it.  I hope you have better luck!