All Forum Posts by: Lee Smith

@John Blythe Throw the property into a Trust.. The bank will allow this, especially when you explain that you are looking for some asset protection, etc... Totally legal. Then once the paperwork is filed and completed with the property in the trust, you can change the beneficiary of the trust to your LLC.... You don't have to file the change of beneficiary paperwork with anyone..

A lot of people use this strategy, and it works. 

@Patrick Boutin I am in Indy, and I work with investors... Shoot me your deal info and I might have a buyer interested.. 

Another idea would be to search the surrounding area tax records and look for someone who owns multiple properties around your subject property. Then market to that person(s).... I can probably hook you up with a tax list for a nominal fee as well...

@Ken Teng @Jing Tan@Greg Hamer

I work pretty extensively in the Indy market and I am not seeing a downturn.. I am picking up a lot of investors, and there is still a lot of deals to be had.

I own a property management company, and even though November/December are traditionally a slow down period, we are still getting quite a few applications on our properties that are coming up for rent.. 

There is 852,000 people in Indianapolis, it's not a huge market but it's pretty big... There are plenty of deals and profit to be had for those who are looking for it..

We offer a service to our clients, where we peruse the MLS for properties under 150k that are listed each day.. If an investor is on that list and looking diligently, we are finding and getting under contract 1 deal, at least, a week... I put 3 deals under contract in just this past week.. Those came from both wholesalers and our daily deal list...

I hear you about saturation. I just remember that even in the big downturn of 2007, we only had price drops on average of about 3%... So in 2010, bread and butter neighborhoods with houses 10-15 years old were only down about 10% on average... We don't get the crazy fluctuations of the Californias, Colorados, ETC..

Just my 2 cents.. I think you can go about to any market and find deals, but I am going crazy with business currently here in Indiana.

@Angelica Osusky I am not sure there really is any downside.. I get access to the MLS, I make commission when I buy/sell properties, I get tools for checking out properties I am interested in(Tax records, cma, etc)...

Some get worried about disclosure, but I find it actually helps when I tell people I am a licensed Realtor.. 

I became a Realtor because MOST Realtors don't understand our business. I opened my own property management company because MOST property managers stink! hehe 

@Angelica Osusky Nice job! Looks good!

Are you listing it with a Realtor, or are you selling FSBO.... If listing with a Realtor, you will probably have 10+% in closing costs you will need to pay(6% with Realtor, 1-2% for title company fees, 2-3% in buyer closing costs)... Still a good profit on your first deal especially if it sells quick!!

We used to brag about our late fees.. Our old policy was due on 1st, late on 5th, and $25 on the 6th, and then $10-25 a day depending on the rent..  Tenants would get upside down and couldn't catch up..

We switched to Zero-Tolerance policy. Due on the 1st, and $5 a day late fee. On the 2nd we send them a pay or quit notice, and tell them they have 3 days to tell us if they are going to pay or leave.. Our email on the 2nd says: If we don't hear from them in 3 days we will start eviction, and we don't stop eviction... 

We have gone from lots of people being late, to 1-3. Of those who are late, they all pay by the 9th including late fees.  If they know they are going to be late they may say "I can have the money by the 9th!" If we are okay with that, we tell them "OK, *YOUR* plan is to have the money to us by the 9th. If we don't have it on the 10th, we start eviction proceedings, and there's no going back once we start that..."

We've been doing zero-tolerance since January, and we get almost all of our rents by the 1st now.

I prefer to give my money to charities.. My tenants are NOT my charities... Of the people we evict, most of them leave nicely. Our average switchout with a bad tenant is $500 in repairs.

@Angela A. I forgot to add you on the above response.. hehe

Thanks @John Collins and @Kevin Manz... As @Erin Donlan and some other stated I suspect this was a screening problem.. 

We typically require:

• 3x gross income
• We complete background, credit and eviction checks. 
  • If there are any discrepancies in the above checks we either discard the application or will go for a double security deposit, but you, as the owner, would make the final decision.
• We check with previous landlords which can be a daunting task.
• We require proof of income(pay stubs for 2 months, etc).

We don't typically send you all of the details on a client, but we send snapshots of the issues we see..

DK(Tenants initials)

• Credit score of 549.
• $2200 in medical collections.
• 1 landlord indicated she was late on the rent 10 times in a year but paid up by the 14th of each month.
• Other landlord collected rent mid-month and indicated no issues except that she needed to be reminded to mow the grass.

You stated these properties were on the east side? That can be a broad stroke, and could be in some rougher areas, hence the bad tenants.. Not to say we can't find good tenants in bad areas, but it takes diligence with the background checks..

All the above being said, you may have just been unlucky too.

Side Note: Not trying to steal you as a client. Just throwing out what our company does.

@Chuck A. You do NOT have to be licensed in order to manage your own property.. You DO have to be licensed in order to manage other peoples properties.

There is some caveats to you managing your own property as well. I was trying to look up the code, but can't seem to find it now.. It mainly involves when you go to hire other employees. Can't remember if those caveats were consequential to your needs or not.. 

@Tomer Kamil

How can I find out who owns a specific property? Tax records

How can I find out which properties a specific company owns in Indiana Indianapolis. Get with a realtor and pay them to run a report for you.

How can I find out that a property that I bought is under my name now?  Some counties take longer than others to update the tax records... Marion County is 2-3 months to update on the public websites.. 

You may be able to find a Realtor to run tax reports for you.. Just be nice and come up with a payment for running those reports.. My company will run CMA reports for people for $5 an address. Might be able to do the same for tax records, history, etc..