All Forum Posts by: Jeff Stone

Quote from @Steve Tse:

What do they charge if they are not able to reduce your taxes ?

Their 25% fee is based on the actual property tax savings.  If they aren't able to reduce your taxes then they don't get paid.

I assume they are selective about which appeals they will take on since there is no benefit to them or the homeowner to not be able to win an appeal, but I have no knowledge of their internal business logic.

Hi All - I'm looking for recommendations for a real estate attorney for the Lumpkin County area.  Looking to do an as-is private sale of an investment property to someone who wants to do a short-term lease to basically lock up the property for them while they get their financing finalized.  Otherwise I was just going to list it with an agent and take offers that way.  Anyway, want this situation to be legally tight and need support for writing the contracts and the closing.

Originally posted by @STEPHEN YUAN:

@Jeff Stone

I have not heard of using equity as collateral. You need to go through either cash out refi or the HELOC route.

House hack sounds like a good starting point too. Maybe you can try yard hack by building a tiny house in the back yard.  Check this out:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSzgh3D7-Q0

 Hi @STEPHEN YUAN

I like how you think.  I had actually been thinking about a tiny house (not necessarily a mobile version though -- I'll have to revisit that).  The current house is only ~850 sq ft and it is on a full 1 acre rural lot with no garage or other outbuildings, so I think getting permitted for another structure would be easy enough).

A tiny 1-bedroom / 1-bath place probably goes against conventional wisdom for a rental house, but the place has mountain views and I think something like this might be able to attract a good renter, even with the small size:

http://www.houseplans.com/plan/262-square-feet-1-b...

I should probably just be focused on renting the main house and stop the daydreaming about the cool tiny house for now though.  :-)

Thanks!

Did they mention what that is up on the roof?  Goat's blood?  Red paint?

That looks like additional vandalism that was just so much less significant than the other things that it wasn't even reported...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3010992/Ho...

Originally posted by @STEPHEN YUAN:

If you have equity in any of the property, you can take the equity out and use that money to buy a REAL rental property.

Thanks Stephen.

Is there a way to use the equity as a sort of collateral on a loan for additional purchases or would I have to actually pull the equity out first (e.g., cash out re-fi, HELOC)?

Thanks for the advice @Pyrrha Rivers.

The house still needs some minor rehab before I feel good about taking on a true (non-family :-) renter, but will definitely be planning to get a renter in there at some point.

I'm Jeff Stone.  I live and have some properties in north Georgia.

I own a large parcel of raw land which I bought from a bank (no specific plans for it yet) and a rental property in a college town (which currently houses one of my own kids going to school there because buying a small house turns out to be a lower monthly cost than room & board at the university).

So, counting my primary residence, I own 3 properties -- but can't really consider myself an "investor" because I haven't made a dime on any of them.

I'm interested in figuring out a way to do buy-and-hold rental properties to start building a cash-flow cushion to back up my day job.  I'm a good carpenter and handyman and would love to do flips, but skeptical that I could do a good job at that and my 60-hour a week day job at the same time.

Happy to be here.  And yes, I'll scrape up a profile picture soon...  :-)