All Forum Posts by: Chris Christianson

@Lynn McGeein , thanks for asking a question about who's taking climate change into consideration in regards to real estate investments. Would seem a basic question that wouldn't require argument but I knew your question would bring out the Koch brothers/Fox denialists Not everyone is capable of objective thought so it's to be expected.

I am taking climate change into account on my future plans. I like the thought about buying property that will be beach front in 30 or 100 years. Stop for a moment and ponder what exactly that beach might look like... Probably not going to be a vacation hot spot all full of buildings and fuel tanks I'm guessing. Storm intensity isn't likely to lighten too much either since a few feet of water rise isn't going to cool the oceans much at an average depth of 14,000 ft.

There's more to it than ocean rise and hurricanes as well. How about the lack of water in the Southwest and tornadoes in the central US. Floods in Colorado.

I'm going to focus my long term investments on the upper Midwest myself. Plentiful fresh water and tillable land. The great lakes are looking pretty great to me. Can anyone say Detroit! And quite frankly, a few extra degrees in Minneapolis isn't got to make too many people upset.

Nobody really knows exactly how every region is going to be affected by climate change but I'm on board with the ninety some percent of educated science professionals who realize that it IS happening so prepare.

One more thing, as to the argument that insurers aren't worried:

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059999532

I tracked down one owner with some serious digging. I start at the county and then move to Spokeo. You can usually pick up another name, phone number or email address by this time so start searching those items. Now you can stumble on an old Craigs List add or news story, something to give you another line to search. Just keep using the information that you find to dig deeper including siblings, children, spouses (past or present). Really quite amazing what you can dig up as long as you keep branching off with what you find.

I wish Google would start working on some glass that would just point out the scammers in the room. Actually, with face recognition and online public records searches that might be slightly possible. Maybe I should dust off my coding skills and get to work on that.. Then I'll sell it to google or facebook for $97,000,000,000,000,000,000

The longer I'm involved in business, regardless of the sector, the more due diligence I do on all clients, employees, subs, vendors, transactions, contracts... The more you deal with the human race, the more cynical you get. Thing is, you only get ripped off by people you trust. The sad conclusion to that is trust nobody.

I think @Brett Russell is right. Get referrals from others doing what you're doing in your area and then realize that you still could get scammed so know your business well.

Here's the going rates for projects in the Chicago area. From here you head all the way down to the two guys and a truck contracting. If your a bottom tear flipper and you don't mind picking up cigarette butts from places you can't explain they'll save you some 75% over these prices and give you 80% less quality. Hopefully you can find someone that fits your budget and can explain precisely what you can expect at your price point. That took me a long time to learn. I wanted to do my best work for everyone that hired me no matter what they were willing to pay. Doesn't work that way and I lost a lot of money so I learned to start by asking what the budged was and what's the scope of work then I'd figure out how or if I could get them there. It's remodel work so there will ALWAYS be unknowns, you need to count on them. Here's what quality design/build runs in Chicago though.

http://www.remodeling.hw.net/cost-vs-value/2014/east-north-central/chicago-il/

Good luck with your project!

@Brie Schmidt thanks for pointing me to the actual directive. Now I have a name for what I already new to be the ethical option anyway.

@James Wise , fsbo actually sets you up with a low cost broker so once things are rolling, the listing is technically no longer a fsbo. We do have a 2.7% commission listed on mls and that is reflected in our asking price. There will be no lawsuit however as there will be no deal without consent from all interested parties and the realtor in question, is an interested party.

@Account Closed there is no listing agent as we listed through forsalebyowner.com so the only agent involved is the buyers agent. The law states that we can not circumvent a buyers agent if the home was located while the buyer was under contract with the agent. Two things are important here. One is the buyer claims he wasn't under contract. Two, I will take no part in hosing the realtor contract or not so without his consent, the deal won't happen.

@Account Closed ,how do I know the appraiser was low? For one, the buyers agent was arguing our point. That's a pretty decent sign. Second, the house is in one of the hottest neighborhoods in the Twin Cities. It's on the edge of the Uptown neighborhood. It's also close to the freeway which separates a not so valuable neighborhood. All the comps the appraiser used were for homes in that direction. All of them. Third, we have had two other offers that in hind site, we should have taken. This offer is still 15k below the best offer which was 35k over this appraisers appraised value.

Was I off in my original ARV? Apparently I was. Was I off by more than 20%? Not a chance.

I'm going to counter with another 5k to make it worth the hassle. I doubt he'll take it which is fine with me.

We have a house on the market in Minneapolis. We got a cash offer from a young guy who is being financed by his father. The father is on the hook out east somewhere for a condo he purchased his kid and it's now underwater so he's gunshy. Prior to making us an offer he hired an appraiser who lowballed the value of our property so we didn't accept the offer.

Now he's back, he's raised his cash offer by 15k which is still a bit shy of what we'd need. He then said that he'd let his realtor go and that he didn't sign any contract with him any way so we'd save that $7500 commission. He also want's to slide us an additional $5k without his father knowing to get this deal done. We're a fsbo listing so we don't have any representation ourselves. Probably won't do this again.

$27,500 up from the original offer and the numbers are now workable but I don't like the arrangement. Contract or not, this feels unethical to me. I don't think I would have any interest in the offer without first contacting the original realtor and getting his feedback. I'm also a little unsure about the 5k after closing portion of this offer. I'm treating this as a no-brainer both legally and ethically but I'm interested in feedback.

In my opinion the GC on a job should know each and every trade sufficiently to maintain your desired level of quality. They're the only person who stands between your finished product and the trades.

For instance, you mention roofing, do you know what step flashing is? How about counter flashing? When do you need to replace sheathing and what's the correct method? I have a great roofing crew but I tell them what I want and how I want it done on each job.

Every trade has its own set of issues. A good GC knows how each step needs to be done and can ensure the work is done to your pre determined standards. If you have great trades that you trust fully or if you're comfortable chasing after them if they do something wrong, and you can identify that they did something wrong before it's too late, then take it on yourself and save the expense. If not, I'd start with a good GC for at least a few projects.

I guess I've missed that part of the conversation @Joshua Dorkin . I've heard you discuss Detroit a few times on podcasts and a few posts and I thought you sounded pretty bearish from A to Z. I stand corrected.

"Truth is just one man's explanation for what he thinks he understands." (Walter Mosley)

The idea that no one is going to make a major amount of money in Detroit real estate over the next 20 years is ludicrous IMHO. That said, I don't think anybody knows for sure how so if you think you have a good thing figured out I'd sure as hell do it no matter who's throwing cold water on your idea.

If everyone could do it, it wouldn't be profitable. Someone's going to figure out the formula for Detroit. It probably wont be @Joshua Dorkin . They might live there right now but maybe not. If you don't have the money to lose it's probably not a prudent business move but, who thinks that taking the last $5000 you own to Vegas and playing blackjack with it seems like a good business move. Fred Smith did it and thats why we still have FedEx.

Another fitting quote I ran across recently:

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." Howard Aiken (IBM Engineer)