All Forum Posts by: Sheri Ulm

I would be interested but I buy all my Ohio properties from California.

@ Darrin Carey @ Andy Argonaut

Thank you both...that is what I thought in regards to purchsing for myself.

@ James Wise @ Darrin Carey @ Andy Argonaut

(6) Advertises or holds self out as engaged in the business of selling, exchanging, purchasing, renting, or leasing real estate;

That entire section applies when you do those activities "for another".

I get it but I guess I need to make sure I'm correct as to avoid any run ins with the state of Ohio so I'm asking despite being pretty sure I know the answer...

As an investor buying homes in Ohio to hold as rentals (I am not wholesaling) is it ok for me to advertise, such as on Craigslist etc, for sellers looking to sell their homes, ie: "I Buy Houses" type ads where I state I am an investor? Or would this be considered unlicensed activity since I am advertising for sellers?

Also, some of you may have seen a similar thread I posted on this so forgive me for any repeat but I was recently told by an attorney in Ohio that I could not write an offer/purchase contract for a property im buying from a FSBO or I could get in trouble for practicing real estate without a license but I have a hard time believing I can't legally make an offer to an owner for a property that I want to buy and have the means to close on. I hate to think if I have a FSBO seller that knows nothing about contracts that I would have to hire a real estate agent to write an offer for me rather then just writing it myself. Any insights on if this is still legal, just to put my mind at ease.

In the area of Ohio I'm buying in allot of homes are 20k and under and I've noticed that agents don't do a percentage at all but rather a fixed fee. At 3% the agent on the house I'm buying now would only make $150 but she is getting $1000 and I believe the other agent is getting the same. Here in CA the norm is 6% but that is always negotiable. During the boom a few years back there were a lot of discount brokers offering reduced fees and sometimes sliding scale... Pay this get a,b & c... Pay more get a,b,c,d.e etc and I knew one agent who always told their sellers 7% so they could offer 3.5 to the buyers agent while 'earning' an extra .5 themselves for selling it so fast.

Thanks for the fannie FYI @James Wise right now I just buy for rentals but am thinking of doing a few 'flips' because I get leads on homes that people basically want to give away but they often need more work then I want to take on long distance but my PM knows other investors that would buy these from me but I've been reluctant to wholesale because of what I have heard about Ohio law so if I do pass something on in an effort to help the seller I'm not making any money on the deal... Thus the buy and then resell sightly higher idea....so I can collect a little profit. Of course then you have to account for closing costs on both transactions unless you do a CFD and I have yet to look into the legalities of CFD in Ohio.

Just my opinion but seems to me Ohio wants wholesalers to get a license so the state can collect more fees. My questions are if you get your Ohio real estate license do you have to hang that license with a broker in order to wholesale deals? And what is the broker gonna want?... Some of your money from the deal. And if your a wholesaler but your licensed are you not breaching your fiduciary duty to get your seller the highest price possible? I'm licensed in CA but here when I was an agent my agent duties had to go thru my broker but it was my understanding that if I wanted to wholesale, which didn't require a license, I could do that on the side without my brokers even having to know about it as it was not a part of my working as an agent.

Thanks for the clarification @Darrin Carey @ James Wise ... I'm assuming that if I get a great deal on a property, purchase/close on said property and then resell to another buyer I would not be in violation because I am taking title and owning the property before the resale and thereby acting as a principle, correct? That the "placing the homein contract for the purpose of re-selling the property" would not apply if I actually bought/closed first even if I bought it planning to resell it at a profit?

@Alex T. Managing is the scariest part to me especially since the area I invest in has a problem with vandals etc... Don't want anything sitting empty or or not properly secured. Just yesterday I got a call from my manager who went to clean some trash from a house I'm closing on in a few days and he tells me someone broke in and stole the hot water tank. This house has been vacant for months and was board up pretty tight and now 4 days before closing it gets broke into... Go figure.

I've never been to Ohio and bought all my properties sight unseen. The first two were turn key and #1 already had a tenant in place. 2nd was almost turnkey but the seller failed to finish the job after we closed. Both these were bought with an agreement that the seller would continue to manage both properties (same seller) but after a few months he disappeared and one of the homes got trashed by vandals to the tune of 5k in repairs. Then I hired a guy with a Brokers license and many years in real estate thinking he would be on the up and up but he ran off with a bunch of my money and never did any work. After that I got discouraged and let the house sit for awhile while I took care of some personal issues here at home. Then just over a year ago I decided I had to do something with these houses so I contacted a fellow investor here in CA that I knew had bought some homes from the same guy I got mine from and had also gotten screwed. He gave me the name of a maintenance person who they had been using to over see their properties and who they were very happy with. I contacted him and he got my vandalized house fixed and rented in about a month. He also told me there was a 'tenant' living in house #2... Only I knew nothing about this person... Turns out the guy I bought the house from rented it to her before he disappeared but he never bothered to tell me so she had been living there rent free for almost a year. Lucky she had taken good care of the home but she couldn't afford the rent so we had to ask her to leave. We gave her a couple weeks to find somewhere to go and she left peacefully. That house was rented about a week later.

After all that I decided to give it a year and see how things went. Well, my guy out there has been a godsend. I get my rents on time, properties are kept up nicely, same tenants are still there etc. So now I just bought #3 and am scheduled to close on Fri. This one is vacant and needs about $1300 in repairs, including replacing the stolen water tank, but I only paid 5k for it on a land contract with only 1k down, 3% interest on balance, and my guy says it will be ready and rented in about a week.

I don't tell you all this to scare you but rather to stress that, in my opinion, having a quality manager is key to having success in an out of state situation. If I had it to do over again I would because I learned from it all and it opened the door to me being able to be an investor... Something that seemed very out of reach here in CA. I am currently looking into 3 more potential properties and would like to buy 10 more by years end.

Hope this helps a little.

Sheri

I would like to get some opinions on purchasing a property where only a quit claim deed is being offered. I've heard a lot of investors do this when just having someone "sign over the title" for X amount of dollars but I'm currently looking at a property that is ;isted with a Realtor and the listing says tiutle is to be conveyed via Quit Claim. I've always been a little reluctant to buy without a warrenty deed and title insurance. Any and all opinions, stories etc... welcome, good or bad. Thanks BP!!

Thanks @Terry Hershberger and @Jerry Padilla That is what I have always known to be true but having this guy who is supposed to be an expert tell me different made me wonder if maybe Ohio had some strange rule I wasn't aware of.