All Forum Posts by: Sebastian E.

I side with @Greg H. on this. Your intention was to move in the property and stay there and that situation changed. You are not a serial flipper who is trying to put one over on the government. You had the honest intention to move in which you followed through with and now for reasons that are valid, you have decided that it is not a fit for you. It could be that you have been threatened, feel unsafe, are exposed to substance abuse in the area that may be dangerous for you and your family. So within the point that @Greg H. was making you are not who the government is after. 

More broadly speaking there are different tolerances to all sorts of risk of enforcement, which explains the different approaches that have been laid out to you. My general, non-legal what I would do in that situation, is go ahead and document some legitimate reasons for your move and be prepared in case they come around and ask. I don't think there is a guy sitting around at HUD trying to catch people like you. The way I understand it is that the rare instances where enforcement does happen is when someone rats out another investor for doing it because it is giving an unfair advantage to the person who is purporting to live there. In your case you actually did live there and had then intention to stay.

One note about mortgage fraud that I was told from someone who works in an investigative capacity in the government, is that since mortgage fraud is widely prevalent, it is often used as a tool to threaten someone into compliance for assistance in helping to solve other crimes. For example if they need information from someone on a crime they can oftentimes find an instance of minor mortgage fraud and threaten the hammer in order to acquire information or corroboration. 

I wish you all the best in your new chapter. 

Here is my situation. I own an investment property that I am selling and wish to do a 1031 exchange. Is it possible to use the gains from the sale toward an addition on my primary residence. For example to build a unit above a garage. I am finding some mixed answers on the question, so some clarity from someone with some 1031 experience would be most appreciated. 

@Coia Walker if it is not separately metered then it may not in fact be a non conforming Multi unit. You will want to find about by calling zoning as to what the current zoning calls for and what the current use is. That will give you an idea of where you are and what the next best step is.

Yeah DPW basically told me I will have to eat it. I could send a letter from my attorney but that probably wouldn't work either. Unless of course if someone here has gone through the process ex post facto after closing on the sale. 

That is a difficult situation indeed. As soon as possible get the ball rolling with a wrongful detainer so he knows you are serious. Things are pretty backlogged so who knows when they will get to it. 

You could also try calling the police and see if that will shake this person up a bit. Realistically, the police will tell you that you need to file a wrongful detainer. It would essentially be posturing on your part which could end up back firing because it will reinforce his position that you really can't get him out. You can turn off the power to make his life a little tougher and without a lease he shouldn't be able to get it back on. 

It is all a delicate balance because he is inside your property and can make your life difficult by drawing this out and potentially doing physical damage.

If I were in your situation I would begin having a discussion of cash for keys. Start low at $500 and you will most likely need to land between $2500 and $5000 which is the amount of money that sophisticated squatters expect given the challenges around eviction at the moment. 

So no good options and potentially an expensive lesson...I haven't been in this particular situation before but I have had expensive lessons in Baltimore and my main in advice is remove emotion and look at this as objectively as possible. This person is clearly a piece of **** but just look at it as the cost of doing business, recognize you made a mistake, sell this property, and move on. 

I just sold a house in Baltimore City and they tagged me with a 10k water bill on the way out. The house had been vacant and I actually had turned off the water at the main at the beginning of the winter. Has anyone here had any success repealing or partially repealing high water bills? Trying to figure out if dealing with the insufferable bureaucracy of Baltimore city would be worth it.

@Stephen Kehoe I heard from my PM this morning that from her understanding evictions were not going to be enforcing evictions until August 31. I just read the most recent document that they put out and that’s not how I understood it

This idea is one that has popped up and circulated on BP a few times here. @Kris Wong makes an important point here which is regulatory risk. I have witnessed a few of these ideas fail because tragedy of the commons issues. So you'd have to figure out a way to handle those kinds of things. 

There are other models that could work like a cooperative or even some kind of subdivision or something like that but that also can be a headache.

I am generally not opposed to the idea because I think it could help some of the issues millennials are having to break into home ownership. It could also potentially be an interesting second home option if you set it out in a little more secluded area away from the city where people could have a little space and access to nature etc..

I would be interested to hear if anyone has come up with a model for something like this that could be profitable. I am planning to build a small A Frame in the next 6 months or so but the best that I could think of is just to have it as my own little spot and Airbnb it on occasion but that wouldn't be much a money maker. I also don't want to get in the business of owning several short term rentals, so that is out of the question for me.

I agree with @Alan C. By far the best way to catapult a real estate business is with a house hack. Unless you have a very high income, you need to be very aggressive on cutting your costs associated with housing. Plus you will get the added associated tax and borrowing benefits of being a homeowner. You will also ease into the property management side to realize if it is actually something you want to do. I would say over half of investors decide at that point that it is not in fact something they want to do and their 9-5 starts looking appealing again. 

With that said, it really isn't that difficult to find those kinds of deals. You could find 1 a month just using a wholesaler or the MLS.