All Forum Posts by: Dean Letfus

When you assign it if you can or latest at closing. You can ask for it when you physically sign the assignment contract. If getting it at closing use your closing attorney to make sure you don't get jacked

If you think the value of the property will increase keep it and use surplus rental income to reduce principal and sell it for more later.
If you think the value is unlikely to increase in the next say 3 to 5 years get out with a small profit and do better on the next one

IF you're pitching it to an investor or flipper like myself the main thing is to know what I want and bring a deal that fits. Just give them the facts, contract price, your fee, conditions on the contract, don;t bluff or lie. Make it easy for the investor to make a decision.
I personally prefer email over personal or phone as I need to look at the numbers. So I would ask the buyers preferred method of communication.

I think there are 2 main factors, rental demand and property values.

Demand is driven by growing population, employment and rental/ownership demographics.

Values are driven by population, employment and property cyclical conditions.
All of that data is publicly available so do your research and pick your city. I ended up in Memphis and Phoenix after my research but that was 4 years ago.... City-data.com is an awesome free resource for data.

Providing you are willing and able to close the contract if you don't flip it then it is purely a business decision for you to make. If however you intend to walk away if you can't find a buyer then disclose it so you can sleep at night without risk of litigation. In smaller markets you can get a reputation quickly and find it harder and harder to get your offers presented by agents at all if you are considered a time waster.

Because you know how to flip I would focus on a 5 to 1 strategy. Buy 5 and flip them making enough to own 1 free and clear. You can then decide whether to borrow against that freehold one or keep it clear.
Having survived the last 5 years I personally have become anti debt so I prefer to create the cash flow now with minimal debt. YOu need less houses = less management issues and you don't care what the world economy is doing. :-)

Getting you 10 % genuine net unleveraged is super easy in Memphis Mary. Even higher end homes in white collar streets we can get that!

Love to Jon but it's not possible. Memphis is so spotty it comes down to streets and even ends of streets. The only zip codes that are 100% ok are not investor areas.

I think once you factor in vacancy and headaches a lot of higher end properties can out perform lower end ones.
I find in Memphis a 100K home that shows 11% net will actually deliver 10%.
And a 30,000 20% net on paper might put 7 to 8% in your jeans.

If you can fund it go for the good stuff!!

The flipper will make more money than the real estate agent. An average flipper would make more money than many of the top agents. Agents work for (almost) nothing in my opinion.