All Forum Posts by: Todd Snyder

Thank you so much for the reply! This helps clarify how to proceed with this one!

My wife and I have been aggressively hunting deals in our market. Our goal is 6 deals this year which is a little scary for us, but we are determined to meet this goal! This property was up for sheriff auction but got cancelled a week before the bidding started. So we found the owner on Facebook and have started talking to him about buying it before he loses the house. We don't have much experience in sheriff sales and we are looking for advice form experienced Investors on how to approach this deal. We live and Invest in North East Ohio. Any laws or things we need to be aware of proceeding with this deal? There is a lock box on the door and it has been winterized. Does that mean the bank has taken possession of the property? If so then what reason would the auction get cancelled for a second time? Does the owner still have a right to sell us the property? Any help in all of these areas would be helpful! Thank you for your time in advance! Stay awesome BP!

Thanks for reaching out! I hope what I have learned and researched helps you in some way. The biggest piece of advice that help me break the metal block I had towards contracts was the fact that you could scribble something on a napkin and as long as you have 2 signatures (yours and someone else) its a contract! This means that anything can be put in the contract! If you walk though the place and like the dining room table you can put it in the contract! I am not recommending this but you could if you wanted.

Once we broke though that metal block, we decided to read though several online contracts. We picked one we felt was buyer friendly and gave us the most customization to fill the sellers needs to sell. We have sense used the same contract for 2 separate deals to great success! I do want to point out that this was personal experience and not legal advice. I am not a lawyer!

Owner must go, its to risky keeping him. Especially with his attitude. Keeping him is a lawsuit time bomb!

We post our listings on Facebook and Zillow we get crazy responses fast. We also use Cozy for applications and background/credit checks. You might even be able to put the link to your Cozy application form in your Facebook/Zillow post (not sure, but its got me thinking). This could work great especially if you have upgraded to virtual tours of your property! 

Does she have room at her new place for her things? Have you tried to offer her help moving them to her new place or offered a storage unit for them? Storage units are like 50 bucks around here and that would allow you to start turning your unit so you can start getting rent again sooner. 

Have you thought about getting a shed at Lowes or Home depot for the property? They can cost anywhere from $600 to $2000 around here and you could store her things there and slightly up your rent if future tenants want to use if for storage. This also has the added benefit of not moving her things off the property so you wont need to inform her if she has been nasty and a headache for you. Just make sure her things are safe and don't damage them in any way.

I heard in one of the podcast someone charging $50-$75 extra to store things in the storage sheds. This doesn't even need to be one of your tenants renting the shed, your neighbors might pay to store things in it.

I recommend picking up the book of property management from Brandon and Heather Turner.

The first thing is handling any safty problems with the property. I would get a list from your tenants of all the safty problems in the property with pictures of you can and hire a local handy man to come and fix them all, and send you pictures of the completed projects. 

After all the safety problem are fixed you start to have some choices. First choice is offer cash for keys and hope they take it. If they don't they might hold out until you can get an eviction. The good news is if they take it the sooner you can get your property back up and running!

Second option is hold out and collect as much rent as possible till you can evict them. Ethier way these tenants have to go If you want to ran a strong business.

Lessons to learn from this

First, don't accept partial rent. As soon as you accept money from a tenant it count as rent in the courts eyes no matter the amount you actually received

Second is make sure you have something in you lease that says no alteration can be made to the property with out owners consent.

Third is include your PM on any calls and emails you have with the tenants. By the sounds of it your PM quit because you have the option to reimburse the floor even though the PM said it was a bad idea.

Check out Jerry Norton with flipping mastery tv on YouTube! He does a GREAT job teaching cold calling and gives free scripts on how to talk to motivated sellers! Its a great channel with GREAT information for investors learning the ropes!

I recommend using the website Cozy for management and background checks for your properties. It will cost your prospective tenants $40 for the background and credit score check. The best part is, if they complain about paying the $40 then they are going to complain about giving you rent! You should strive to find tenants that not only can afford to give you rent but also want to give you rent!