All Forum Posts by: Amy A.

This is a bit off topic, but do you guys in Bangor consider it to be central Maine? I invest in Auburn, which is also considered central Maine and is 90 miles from Bangor. It sounds like a good meeting.

Look up southern Maine real estate investment association on Facebook.

Did you see the Wall Street Journal article today?  Huge investigation of multifamily mortgage fraud.  One thing they did was fake occupancy by having radios playing in vacant units!  Several complexes are facing foreclosure.  This could get interesting...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-pursues-one-of-the-biggest-mortgage-fraud-probes-since-the-financial-crisis-1534357872?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2

When you offer coin-op laundry, you will not only make money on the coins but also save water because tenants won't waste as much.  I've had tenants who would wash a "load" of one outfit.   I have 4 buildings with coin-op laundry.  Yes, we regularly have to replace parts and get a few extra service calls when they do silly things like unplug it before the cycle ends or use foreign coins, but have only had to replace one machine in the last 10 years.  

@Greg H. I have the emails asking for "highest and best" on HUD properties AFTER acceptance by HUD. This was a couple of years ago. I am not blaming the listing agent. Perhaps it was a glitch in the program.

Are you really the owner?  If you have a mortgage, pay property taxes, or have a spouse, you are only a part-owner.  If you don't work well with these "partners", you won't be an owner for long!  Tenants I'm showing properties to often ask me this question.  I tell them I'm one of many owners, and I'm unlucky enough to be the one doing all the work.  If things don't go well and I don't follow policy I'll get in trouble with my partners.

Is this by any chance a HUD owned home? If so, they have sent out automatic highest and best disclosures to me in the past after we have signed a contract. The agent has to go into the hudhomestore website and fiddle with something and that triggered the auto-email. It upset me the first time it happened because it looked like it came from the same agent who I had just received the signed contract from minutes before. He assured me that we were still under contract and we closed without issues. I've found that many REOs send out automatic highest and best disclosures after offers are made, but HUD was the only one that sent it after signing the contract!

In addition to Ryan's great advice, here's a thought. A $200 increase is huge. If they are otherwise good tenants, perhaps you could negotiate a new lease with a $100 increase.  You would spend at least $1200 on vacancy, turn over, and court anyway. 

@Kraig Kujawa they ended up selling it for almost $1M more than my offer!  The buyer will lose money for sure.  I expect there will be many buying opportunities in a few years when buyers who are paying too much now lose the properties when their mortgage interest rates reset.

@Rick Browning have you ever had a positive eviction hit from Maine?  I'm glad Cozy is working for you.   I tried to sign up with them a few years ago and they took many months to approve my account.  Maybe I'll give them another shot.