All Forum Posts by: N/A N/A

I'm looking at another mobile home park, will need to finance about 300k. Are there any lenders poking around the forum this am that can direct me some regarding current commercial rates and terms. The total deal is 800k, I can come up with 500k.

Thanks,

JB

You might consider land rights issues as a topic for discussion, something everyone in this country needs get involved in. Our ability to own and control land is changing rapidly as we sleep, and many if not ,most are oblivious to this incidious process.

Marketwatch.com

Has good information about all the markets including real estate ( real estate weekly) The real estate market is cooling, read about it . I see prices declining some in Washington state ( a hot market) other places it is tanking. This is an ok source of information. They probably get their information from realestate weekly, but have good information on all the markets and they are all interralated some.

I use zillow.com for residential comps. Their data base does not cover all areas yet but is a really useful tool in my area.

Jb

Good post All Cash.

I'm new to the forum and an older person that has been investing in realestate most of my life. That doesn't mean I'm an expert, but have some idea how a lot of it works.

The market has been crazy the last few years and you could throw your hat out the window and where it landed make a bucket of dollars. That is changing now as the market is winding down. Now you have to be more sophisticated to make dollars. That means do your homework!

Doing real estate is a real job that requires real skills and a lot of knowledge and common sense especially when the market is normal or slow.

If you don't plan on truly understanding how this business works I would suggest doing something you do understand.

As far as all the classes on how to make a gillion dollars doing R. E., the guys that sell the classes and newsletters are the ones that make the bucks. Not that there is not some good knowledge taught but most will leave the class and do nothing with it as it does not apply to their particular geographic area. Example: repos are good in Michigan today, but not in the Northwest because for every repo in the NW there are 10 folks in line to purchase it for market value or higher.

A good source for national real-estate trends is (Market Watch .com) Go to real estate weekly. In fact sign up for the free newsletter and read about all the sectors, oil. Re etc. They all tie together.

Zillow.com has databases for many of the areas of the us for residential sales information. Not all areas are in their database yet, but is most helpful to me for my Northwest area. I will post those links in a new topic.

JB

This is a great topic.

What I know for sure is that no one knows for sure! There is no easy answer to the question as there are too many variables today, terrorism,sinking dollar, inflation, and out of control appreciation in many real estate markets etc. What goes up unrealistically also tanks eventually or has an adjustment period, which is tanking for those that are too far leveraged.

Aside from a nuke the re market will continue to do well or at least ok for those that are seasoned investors. Prices are dropping almost everywhere including my stomping grounds, Washington state and other parts of the Northwest.

Arizona and some areas in Cal are taking big hits. I have some investments in Ariz and will probably lose some $ on one of them.

I bought the property I live on in 1973 ( 30 acres) for 36k, $1200 an acre at the bottom of a dip. 5 years later property in this area was selling for 8k an acre and then the recession of the 80's hit. The property decreased in value by half and took 10 years to come back..

Can this happen again, probably. Will it happen again, probably in some areas?

For those that are looking at areas offering cheap real estate, beware. Do your homework. Some areas like northern Idaho will probably do ok for a while but property is not as cheap as it was a year or two ago. Spokane Washington just a couple years ago was way below market. Today there are few listings. It was discovered and the market went crazy.
The only jobs there are service and farming. Will the boom last? I suspect not for too much longer, but what do I know?

I like to invest where the good jobs are for most of my properties with the exception of the trailer court I have in Idaho...JB

U.S. 2Q OFHEO home price index up 4.7% annualized
Print
Disable live quotes
RSS
Digg it
Del.icio.us
By Rex Nutting
Last Update: 10:06 AM ET Sep 5, 2006

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. home prices were appreciating at a 4.7% annual rate in the second quarter, the slowest gains since 1999, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said Tuesday. In the past year, home prices are up 10.1%. The purchase-only index is up 8.3% in the past year. The deceleration in OHFHEO's home price index is the fastest in the three-decade history of the index. "These data are a strong indication that the housing market is cooling in a very significant way," said James Lockhart, OFHEO director. In the first quarter, home prices had risen at an 8.8% annualized rate, with prices up 12.8% year-over-year.

Banks don't care if your co is an llc or even a c. corp because you will sign personally for the loan responsibility otherwise they won't loan the money unless you are Boeing or? If you don't pay your mortgage, the bank will pay you a visit at your wallet. The bank will always maintain first position. You still get the other protections entities offer and often those threatening you will forgo the exercise if it is too much trouble. There has never been an entity that could not be breached. These just add another layer of protection above the insurance you must carry!

You can form as many llc's as you want to deal with and you can also quitclaim properties you already own into an entity. Make sure you use the correct language accepted by the state, on your excise tax affidavit if your particular state collects the tax at time of sale. You don't need to pay twice! An escrow or title co can help with that.

Read case law on the subject for your state. It's boring, but available on line….JB

I am not an expert on the subject, but my advice would be to tailor the entity to your
particular investments. An llc is easy to form. You can do it yourself, is a pas through entity like a Sub-s corp for tax purposes and is easy to run unlike a c corp. Like all entities though, strict accounting practices are essential to isolate you from the entity, very important to keep the vail intact. llc's are subject to charging orders so the veil can be breached. If you are buying property with a high potential liability exposure an llc might not do the trick? A charging order by the way is an order issued by the court allowing whomever is suing you to attach your personal assets. You might want to some research on charging orders? Each property I own is in its separate llc but none of those have been tested, knock on wood. I would contact a good real estate attorney and the emphasis is on good for some advise. You can also go to the law university libraries on line and read some case law regarding suits against llc's etc. Keep your insurance up to date and read all the fine print. I keep 2 million liability on most properties.

Hope this helps a little.

http://www.1031commercialproperties.com
This guy has Po's available occasionally and indicates they will go fast. He never has anything in my area though. He might be a good resource?

I just asked my partner, a commercial broker, about these investments a couple days ago. His response was the caps are low and the lease is forever, but? The risk may be lower than other re investments, but don't know that for sure? You would have to research that.

The price on the ones I saw seemed awful expensive for the properties, but I was not familiar with the areas either.

Seems to me that post offices stay in the same place until their leases run out?

I have commercial rentals with good bumps in the leases to keep me ahead or at least even with inflation and we structure the leases from 3-5 years depending on the building and tenant. We do have some month to month on small spaces because they are easy to rent and bring the best prices.

Like any commercial rental do the math. If the lease is for 10 years and you are ok with the return over that period and ok with the potential building appreciation etc. it might be good for you.

. The po will probably still be in business after the next 9-11 and so will trailer parks, but marginal tenants may not?

We had problems with a couple tenants after 9-11 and have new tenants that we think can weather the next big storm?

I would like to know more about Post offices myself, never considered that option until recently, when one was offered on the above link. Let me know what you discover.

Have a good weekend………JB

No problem [email protected]

JB

I Just ran across this forum yesterday and it's a hoot.

I live in Washington state where everything is highly regulated, fees are out of this world, the west side (King Co) gov is run by commies, land prices are touching the stratosphere, the taxes are already there and anyone in a rural area gives 65% of their land away to native growth protection if they want any kind of permit to do anything on their property including cutting blackberries, a permitted activity here. Short platting your property say from one to two lots takes 2 years and the county fees run between 26- 40k, that's thousands and that is just the county fees. I could go on for about 40 pages about this garbage and my blood is already starting to boil just thinking about it.

I have been a small time investor in various types of income producing real estate since the early 70's. I built a few houses a year for about 20 years and bought all the land I could afford in my spare time. Some I developed and built on, some I exchanged for commercial properties, a smart move. Must not have been drinking beer that month?

I have an industrial rental property, an office building, small trailer park 18 spaces on industrial zoned land, some residential properties that I am divesting myself from asap. I'm tired of that action. My partner and I own 5 acres of trophy industrial property that we are going to start developing this year.

I've been doing some light investing in Phoenix the last couple years with a fellow that buys Junkers and re-habs them. That market has gone south in the last few months as sales have slowed.

I don't see anyone else on this forum from the Northwest, strange?

That's about it and will be glad to spread what limited knowledge I have around........JB