All Forum Posts by: Scott Trench

The Pro membership has a variety of benefits and powerful networking and analysis tools that come with it.

It has nothing to do with credibility.  As a BiggerPockets staff member, I encourage you to do your own research on anything you read from one of the posters on this forum.  A Pro member can just as easily have false or misleading information as a member with a free account.

Posts and votes certainly can help establish credibility in the sense that it is tough to get to 1,000 posts without providing at least a little bit of value.  

I personally value posts based on their relevancy, logic, and the strength of their argument.  I don't care if the poster has 1 post or 1,000.  A great argument based off of great, verifiable data or experience, is going to have far more impact for me than anything else.

@Josh Anderson

 you can check it out here!

http://www.biggerpockets.com/pages/webinarreplay

BiggerPockets is hosted on a number of different platforms, with a number of softwares running various parts of the site.  I believe that the forums are built on a custom software coded in Ruby. 

I'd imagine that if you are in the legal industry as part of the firms raking in hundreds of millions of dollars suing builders as a result of this law, you'd make sure to have thorough representation in the governing bodies of Colorado.  You'd spend some of your winnings on ensuring the continued existence of future opportunities to sue builders.  I believe there have been many instances of this bill being stalled.  It would be no surprise to see more attempts to stall it or kill it before it gets passed - that's why I have no idea on the timeframe.

Bottom line is that condos aren't being built in Denver.  That is such a net negative for the population here that even the lawyers that lobby against it will be forced to end the lawsuit party sooner or later.  That might be just my misguided faith in good government though..

@Daniel Savage - What you are talking about is possible, though rare to my understanding.  

If they are two entirely separate structures unrelated to each other in any way legally, then I believe that you will experience a lot of trouble and few advantages in attempting to bundle both properties under one mortgage.  You may experience higher interest rates, fewer lenders that are willing to work with you, and you will likely pay higher origination fees upfront to finance the properties in this manner.

I think you may have a much easier time purchasing the properties separately, especially if this is one of your earlier investments.  In most cases that I can imagine, if you have the capability of financing both properties under the same loan, you will have the ability to finance them both separately as well, and likely cheaper.  

If I misunderstood your question, and the properties are being sold as a single entity - for instance, as two parts of the same duplex - you can absolutely finance them both with a single loan.  

Hope that helps!

@Mike H.

 Whoa there ;) - I'm happy for the feedback and certainly appreciate it!  I was not intending a zing with my comment.

We are not a clothing brand, and I am not a teeshirt designer.  With this design, I simply took feedback from the last one and quickly made a simple BP teeshirt and offered it in a way that doesn't cost BiggerPockets any money or time in printing, shipping, labeling, and distributing.

This is just for fun, and a tiny tiny side project to allow people that love BiggerPockets a way to get a teeshirt.

I am happy to take user suggestions, and if there is widespread approval, to offer those shirts as well.  Perhaps next month we can quickly design a shirt with your suggestions.

I ride my bike from Five Points to the BP HQ here by the Cherry Creek shopping center almost every day.  I try to take varying routes to see what's for sale and what't going on.  

A few months ago, these signs and the accompanying "scam" stickers were all over the place.  I still see them occasionally, but they seem to be much less common than they were perhaps in January.

I say good riddance.  The signs are often on public street poles and telephone poles, they are ugly, and they are crude.  

Good for you, Mr. "Scam" sticker guy!  Keep up the good work!

I love this topic because I hate the builder defect laws.  I think it allows scumbag attorneys to make a killing while at the same time making the Denver market worse for everyone.

It's one thing to legitimately sue over defects and weaknesses in construction to protect condo buyers, but the laws seem to allow for the local scumbaggery to sue over minor defects with such ease and for such large sums that the result is a market heavily skewed away from condo development.   Builders simply fear lawsuits so much that they won't build them... and I believe that's just wrong.

Here is my view as I interpret the situation, in response to your questions:

1) It will be hard for the local laws to skew further against condo development, in my view.  I'd either bet on no change or a change in favor of future development.

2) When the law changes is anyone's guess.

3) Condo development, I believe, has already ramped up.  There are a tremendous number of structures stylizing themselves as apartment complexes.  I don't know the specifics of the conversion process, but the complexes that many of my friends rent all appear very similar to condos.  I would not be surprised at all if the newer buildings, and many of the older ones are strategically positioned to be sold off as condos rapidly, should the local ordinances change.

4) I believe that should the law pass, and should apartment units be sold off as condos, that this will absolutely put downward pressure on existing condo prices (and home prices too...).  This is a good thing for the Denver market.  But it also means that your current condos will likely be competing against nicer, newer, better located structures.  At the very least, that will slow your appreciation potential.

5) As far as ALL price ranges go, I don't know.  I'd imagine that this situation doesn't bode particularly well for buy and hold condo investors over the next 5-10 years though.  If you have a great condo in a great location, you'll probably be fine in the majority of circumstances like you would with any great deal.

The opportunity here (I believe) is for apartment complex builders and owners, and new build construction.

@Mike H. @Darren Sager

I can see that there will be no pleasing everyone with these shirts..

If you don't like the designs, why don't you show me how its done on this thread?  If others vote it up, I'd be happy to make a similar version with BP logo (as long as Josh likes it too!) and put it up for sale.  

I'd love to get schooled in teeshirt creation if you've got all these suggestions!

Hey everyone.  We are improving our infrastructure to reduce load times, and this process resulted in a little bit of bugginess today.

We are working hard to transition our servers and increase our website's capacity.  We expect this process to be completed soon, and for the site's load issues and errors to be corrected.

Thanks for understanding!