All Forum Posts by: Ben Riechmann

Julie Hartman Yikes indeed!

I have family and different people all up north Ivan that are in real estate or were looking to buy or sell a home across the country.  The market has been crazy.  In areas, I have never seen people buy properties above the asking price there are stories of people buying homes above the asking price.  Not saying that will happen to you even if you are in one of those areas.  However, the big talk is how crazy hot it has been.  Now it has seemed hotter last year than this year.  But interest rates are going up a little and some of the last year's home buying may have been people wanting to have a solid investment like a house for themselves and their family.  However, I hope this does not mean if we have a slow down in the economy we don't have a bunch of people over their heads with their mortgages.  I am not as worried about that happening due to how low the rates were, but how crazy people were on the bidding and what some were bidding on.  I would think now would most likely be a good time to sell your property.  I sold some of mine as the market was so hot in areas I did not like as much due to I did not like how the town treated investors in that area.  

1. I would check with someone in your area if your area is up north and seems to be as hot.  Ask around to see how house sales are going.

2. If you do sell, do you have a plan on what you will do with that money to minimize taxes, and do you have a better investment you could put it into?  Do you have a property you could do 1031 on?

That is awesome Kevin!  Congrats!  They are harder to find.  I assume this is one you do not live in?

I and some other investors have held out some cash from some different investing as we are not sure how sustainable the current real estate market is where so many people are buying homes above the asking price.  This seems to be happening nationwide although I don't hear this happening as much as last year.  Interest rates are going up some but that may not mean much, it would be interesting to hear from professionals in the marketplace what they think?  Either way, you can find deals new investors, even more so in bear markets.  I am just interested in what some of the veterans are seeing and thinking about in the near future.

I have bought some in the past.  Often the bank person that was in charge of them was not anywhere near Ohio.  I would look at the property, put an offer in and keep looking.  Often I would hear no on the offer as the person in charge of the foreclosure would be in some state far away and had not even seen pictures of the inside of the house.  I would then have a realtor call me sometime later and tell me they are selling that property for what I had offered or for less.  Often then I am on to another deal by then.

1. Has this happened to many other investors?

2. When I did look more at foreclosures it was closer to 2008 than now, have those investing in those found it has changed a lot over the years?

3. Could I hear from investors from Ohio and outside Ohio to hear different experiences?   As I often try to help outside of state investors.
 

This is the one profession where I have run into people that everyone says they can do it but that does not mean they are quality!  Sometimes a college kid ends up doing better than someone who has been painting as a "professional" for 20 years!  Lol.  So what you pay really does not mean you are going to get a better job.  I try to warn new investors of this all the time.  Really important to check references and find people you know that have used the painter before.  If I have the time, I often like to do it myself, but nowadays often do not have the time.  If you find a good one, it is good to keep that one.  We hired ones to paint one of our brick building, came highly recommended.  They got paint strokes down the brick wall hall where they were not supposed to be painting at all.  Looked like they were drunk where they were supposed to paint, although our head of maintenance let them in and checked on them and unfortunately did not check the work.  It is good to have workers take pictures during their work progress and send them to you if you can't be there.  These were new painters that we tried once that we never used again.  Do you have any painter stories?

I help people rebuild credit and build credit as a way of paying foward.  The problem with at least fedral student loans is if things go really south and you go bankrupt, that is a debt you cannot erase as the government wants to get its money back.  There are a whole lot of different ways to fund a deal.  Seller finacing.  Partnering with someone. The list goes on.  Also I don't know what happens if they find out you have been using funds for something it was not designed for.  I like that you are thinking out of the box, but I would keep on pushing your creativity to other ways of making a deal happen.

I agree with Landon statement as LLC's do not protect as well as they once did. You will want to have an umbrella policy for all your investments anyway and will protect you from a whole lot of things. I know non-investors that get them to protect themselves from sue happy people and were glad they did. I am not saying not to get a LLC, but make sure to get an strong Umbrella as that may help you more.

You can talk to a mortgage broker that may find financing from a lender that will finance you.  You can find a seller that will seller finance a deal with you, sometimes these come from investors that want to get rid of their rentals or a homeowner that is having trouble selling there house.  It can also be a seller that just doesn't need all the money right now and likes the idea of making interest off the sale.  You can also do hard money deals, but you would want to know you can get some kind of financing down the road to refiance it for less or be able to flip it.  These are just some examples.  By the sounds of it, you may be most comfortable with a mortgage broker and they have access to more lenders all at once for you.  Hope this helps.  Happy investing.

In ohio it varies from city to city on yearly inspection per property Nathan.  The city then charges the Landlord per property.