All Forum Posts by: Vern Gassen

We have identified a couple of homes that we would be interested in while Driving for Dollars and we have a name and address for the  current owner.  I'm hoping that some of you might share the letter and technique that you use to make first contact with a potential seller.  

Thanks you,

Vern

Brad, It looks like there are a few of us in the Indy area. My wife and I just purchased our first property this spring. We are self managing. We haven't found a local meet up, so if you hear of one, let us know. What area are you looking in, SFH or multi?

We have a tenant that is moving out months before their lease is over. We have agreed that they will continue to pay their rent until a new tenant moves in. We expect to clean it, touch it up and re-rent it fairly quickly. My question is, do we switch the utilities back to us for the interim, that period of time between when they move out and a new tenant moves in? I don’t expect there will be a problem with this tenant shutting them off early, but I could imagine a worse case scenario where a tenant moves out, shuts off the utilities and you get frozen pipes or worse. Also we will be using the utilities while we prep the unit for new tenants, is it fair to have them pay for that?

Also as a Follow Up question; Is there any reason not to get the keys from them and change the locks after the move out inspection even though they are still technically paying the lease?

Thank you everyone!

We have located a SFH within our budget for a loan, but it has a challenge. Within the basement, there is mold on the lower 12 inches of sheetrock on two interior walls. Our lender has informed us their appraisers won't approve it for sale without remediation. The property is VA-owned and they will not address the issue. It is minimal enough that it could easily be resolved with a few hours of work which we are prepared to do.

Any lenders you are aware of who will finance under these conditions? We know a hard money lender would be an option but wasn’t one we were prepared to go with just yet and that option might put the short-term numbers in a place we can’t manage.

We are planning to purchase a home in the college town our child will be attending, renting out the other bedrooms. We started reading about "kiddie condo" FHA loans (FHA loan where both parent and child are on the loan, child will live in the house year round). However most of what we have found is at least a year old. Does anyone have any recent experience with this process?