All Forum Posts by: Tony Sepassi

Thank you for the advise.  I have heard the same about DC not being landlord friendly and it is true the affordable places is not places I would want to invest or live in.

Does anyone have any experience in buying and renting out a apartment building in DC area?  It seems the NW is to expensive to get into unless there is 2 or 3 investors partnering up and the only place that is affordable is SE but I don't like the area.

Would like some pointers or advise.

Thanks!

I have been looking into Baltimore, it seems the rents are great but I don't see the properties appreciating much?

There is no broker, he is a an independent agent and there is only him and his wife or someone else that works with him. I would have gone to the higher-ups if he was working for someone else.

My current agent contacted the MLS and they are sending him a violation notice today via notice. If he doesn't respond they will start fining him each day for not complying.

I'm seeing an attorney on Monday. What this guy is doing is not right and now I realize I did the right choice by terminating the contract with him.

And what J Scott posted is exactly what I'm thinking. He knew about the pipe bursting and it was resolved within days , I wanted to contact my insurance company and he said not to do it. And now 4 months later he is updating the MLS and mentioning that when he knew about it from the start.

The problem is now the new agent can not list it until this idiot change the status in the MLS from temp hold to withdrawn status

This is long but here it goes:

I hired this real estate agent to sell my property back in November 2013

In Mid January I get a call from him that there is water coming into my neighbors townhouse, so he went to check to see what was going on with the property. It turned out the property wasn't winterized and a pipe had burst in the first floor. The fire department came and turned the water off. We had just put new carpet in the first floor and new paint, so the next day or so had a guy come out and replaced the new carpet again and another guy replaced the burst pipe and put in a dry wall and paint the bathroom since that is where the pipe burst from. I wanted to file a claim with my insurance company but the agent told me not to file a claim with the insurance company since then the insurance company will know about it and the buyer agent can find that out and it would detract from the value of the house. Almost 4 months had gone by and I wasn't happy with him since he never contacted me and keep in the loop with what is going on other than a website he gave me a link to and a password to check what is going on which he hardly updated. So on April 28th I gave him my 3 days notice to delist the house and that I will have to go with another agent. This is 3 weeks before the termination date and he wasn't happy and was very rude on the phone with me and with my brother via email. Since then, he has been trying to be a pain. First he had the key to the property and I emailed him that either I or someone will come by to pick up the key but he never responded and my new agent found out he had left the key in the property and locked the door. I was fortunate enough to find an extra key we had.. I found out on May 7th from my new agent that he has gone into the MLS and mentioned that the property was flooded back in January and that the fire department had to come and shut off the water, before he told me not to file a claim and now he is mentioning this on the MLS. He also has not withdrawn the property from the MLS but the status is showing "Temp Off" when it should be "Withdrawn" status because of this the new agent cannot activate my property as a new listing in the MLS. I have clearly instructed him via email on April 28th to take the property of the MLS. I have emailed him twice and texted him regarding the status on the MLS and he has not responded. Can I take legal action against him?

Thanks for the information. I also noticed when they do list it on the MLS it is not worth the amount.

I decided to checkout the courthouse auction and it doesn't seem like a good deal. Lender is trying to auction off a property at the loan amount which at some times is more than the actual cost of the property and nobody buys so what happens next?

If you have the funds I would say stick it out and fix the violations and make sure you get a contractor that is license and knows what he is doing. Think of it as the extra fund spent as a lesson in the business.

Of course any property near the metro will be a catch. Roger it seems you are not the only one saying that the growth will continue in DC, two of my other friends have said the same. It is just that so many developers and like you said the cranes are all over the city. lol Maybe the older properties will lower their prices since the buyers may lean toward the newer buildings.

One thing , the coops market is not going to do well.