All Forum Posts by: Thomas D.

One thing I neglected to mention. If your agent spends money out of pocket to "advertise" your listing get a new agent. The only thing that sells is PICS + PRICE. Priced right your house will sell in 30 days. If its on the MLS people will find it. They don't need ads or flyers or brokers open houses. Generating buzz is kooky Realtor speak for pay me 3%.

Think about this. If your neighborhood has 500k houses that are beautiful and some nut came by and advertised their own beautiful home in the same neighborhood for 300k you think that house needs a flyer, advertising or brokers open??? No way. Buyers (the market) recognize condition and price only. That house would be bought in under an hour. The market will tell you about your price. Is it deal or not based on how your house looks. You think its beautiful and it hasn't sold in a month well then you are dumb and you need to drop the price because the market disagrees. Let the power of the MLS mass market tell you what to do.

The myth of the Realtor is the great white goose of investing. Here how to do it. 90-95% of houses sell on the MLS. That's the conduit that sells it; not your agent. Here are my rules.

1. If the agent brings the house to me I use them to sell it if they give me a discount on the sales side after they made their commission on the purchase. 5% is OK here.

2. If I find the house I use the agent I like to buy it with. I work with 3 to 4. THEN I use a separate discount agent who charges me 1% and the buyers agent gets 3%. This is a business don't give away money just because you feel bad. :(

3. The discount agent uses my pictures. THAT IS ALL THAT SELLS YOUR HOUSE + Price. I hire a good photographer and pay them out of my pocket. This takes the ammo out of the agent talk that they bring value. Its a Facebook culture. Pics sell and price closes the deal.

4. ** Here is my power phrase that helped me weed out stuffy bad Realtors. "yes you can list my house BUT if you bring the buyer I will pay you 3.5% commission. If the buyer comes from another agent on the MLS I will pay you 1%; because what did you really do?" That's why in Realtor classes to get the license they say "list to live." Listings to sell is easy money with little effort.

Add up the time to write a contract, drive to your house, drive back to their home, answer all calls, show up for termite and other inspections and actually go to close. Add all that time on the clock up and its not even a single days worth of work in accumulation. Would you pay thousands of dollars to someone for 1 days work NOPE.

5. In my opinion open houses never sell your house, ever. Its not a value added in any instance.

I hope that the economy tanks every day. I'm ready to buy at the bottom at the next crash. Plus when the economy tanks renters flow like water into the streets. Always bet contrarian and buy. Friends I have who bought in 09,10 and 11 have become millionaires because they bought at the bottom. Always have a "Crash Cash" account ready to buy property with when banks go down.

Why pay someone to manage just a single property. Do it your self. Do you spend tha much in repairs yearly living there? Cut down on the damage by up charging another 100 to 200 bucks a month a get a good renter. Also, its illegal but who cares only rent to single women or old women. f you are nervous go with the easiest person who will do the least amount of damage.

Yeah I have been to city hall more than almost anyone I know. The main issue is that DD at Zoning is the best of the best. Really top notch person. However, getting anything straight thats black and white from anyone other than DD can be so on and off down there its depressing. Calling down there is almost impossible. At least I know the secret parking spot so I can park and walk right in. For me finding the land has always been my specialty. Its the other stuff that stinks. 

It is crazy here but with 3 colleges and the state Capitol here and the local Fortune 500 outlook on the up and up the city looks strong to me. Plus I'm in the long long long term game so even building at near break even to me seems justified if I have a 20 year outlook. 

I'm considering building a 25 unit building in downtown Richmond. Any one have any thoughts on the city and the return on a property like this? I'm most concerned with fees associated with the city to actually connect to utilities and other odd items that I have yet to research. I own multiple small single family and under 4 units and I have loved the rental market but saturation might be setting in due to some larger projects coming on line recently.

I buy a lot of Duplex/Triplex deals in my city and I love them because they are the easiest to understand the math on. Dont use all the figures you mentioned above. My simple rule is this. "Will the rent from unit 1 pay for the building." Thats is. If unit 1 can carry the whole thing then you are gold and you should buy it.