All Forum Posts by: Ruth Lyons

@L Belle Welcome to BP. Good for you getting your first rental property. Even in C neighborhoods, you can find quality tenants, you just have to have patience and stick to your screening criteria. I learned the hard way that it's better to have a few months vacancy than to place a problem tenant. 

Investment Info:

Condo buy & hold investment in Reisterstown.

Purchase price: $54,000
Cash invested: $18,200

2 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom Condo that needed complete rehab. Decent area, top floor level in garden style complex. Crew worked during Covid. Purchased 4/22/2020 and tenant occupied on 6/12/2020. Total investment is $72,200. Only issue I ran into is that it was hard to get some supplies because of the pandemic. Purchased with cash. Taxes are low but condo fee is a little higher than I like. Annual rental income is $15,900. Annual expenses (taxes, insurance and condo fee) are $6,220.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

The numbers worked and I wanted to add another cash-flowing rental to my portfolio.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

MLS

How did you finance this deal?

Some HELOC funds from another rental I own outright, plus cash

How did you add value to the deal?

Complete rehab

What was the outcome?

Great cash-flowing rental with tenant already placed

Lessons learned? Challenges?

It was very challenging to get rehab supplies during COVID. For example, I had to go to 4 different locations to get the right sized cabinets as Home Depot didn't have sizes I needed in stock in at any one store.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I am an agent. I agreed to use the seller's title company to save time and money.

Agreed, and this post is a few years old. Since then I've become an agent helping others buy and sell and I make it a priority to manage the inspection information on both sides. Preparing buyers to expect inspectors to point out every little thing but not expect sellers to pay for every little thing. And preparing sellers to expect to have to make some repairs and budget accordingly. 

And I agree it's not fair to bash the profession but I do think there should be more consistency among inspectors. I've had the same house inspected multiple times for seller clients and each time, the results were way inconsistent. 

Welcome to BP! This is a great place to network, learn and share! I’m an investor. Pleased to meet you. Reach out if you want to connect.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment in Woodlawn.

Purchase price: $112,000
Cash invested: $18,250
Sale price: $189,900

3 Level Townhouse needed cosmetic work and some plumbing and electric. Closed 11/8/19 for 199,900 less $10,000 seller help.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Quick flip in decent area

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Property hit the MLS on Thursday late evening. I know the area so I went to see it first thing Friday a.m. By Saturday noon, there were 3 offers, mine being one of them. I wasn't the highest but I made sure the agent knew I had cash and the willingness to close quickly and my offer was chosen.

How did you finance this deal?

Cash

How did you add value to the deal?

Paint, flooring, new appliances, some plumbing and electric

What was the outcome?

Good flip, overall.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

If selling to an FHA buyer, you have to wait 90 days before you can close on a flip. I ended up holding longer than I wanted to because of this rule. In the time between accepting offer and closing, we had a torrential rain and the basement got damp. I had to pay for waterproofing before closing.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I am an agent.

From what you've posted, yes. Latent defects that are known by the seller and/or licensed agent need to be disclosed by law. You can file a complaint with the Maryland Real Estate Commission (MREC). If the county had determined that it couldn't be renovated and lived in, just curious if there any public records of it being condemned that the title company should have uncovered? Typically in disputes filed with the MREC, all parties are named in the dispute (seller, seller agent, title company, etc.).

A quick search on the MLS shows there are a lot of available properties in the $50,000-$100,000 range in Hagerstown. Are yo working with an agent? I don't typically work in Washington county but my daughter lives in Hagerstown so I go there quite a bit.

@Allie Dattilio Congratulations! Well done! I stayed very busy during COVID. (I personally think a lot of the predictions of a COVID housing market crash was just "click-bait" and sadly it mislead too many investors.) As an agent, I'm having my best year yet with another 3 closings this month. As an investor, I picked up and rehabbed a condo end of April and turned over the keys to my new tenant yesterday. Turns out to be one of my best cash-flowing properties so far. Where are you investing next? Do you do just flips or buy and holds too?

@Allie Dattilio Hi Allie. Just seeing your post from a few months ago. Curious how your flip turned out? Where did you decide to invest next?

@Anthony Hernandez Hi Anthony, I am not familiar with Brunswick. It's in Frederick county and most of my clients invest in Howard, Montgomery, PG and Baltimore counties. Pulling it up on the MLS, it looks like average home price is $250-$300k and average rents are too low to make the numbers work.