Live & Flip

Property Manager part 1 “Finding New Property Managers”

Many of us have chosen to utilize property managers for our rentals. Its a pretty big industry that has a surprisingly low barrier to entry. This means that just about anyone can be a property manager. So how do you find them and pick the best one. Here is a small list my agent and I came up with. Its certainly not exhaustive. Finding a new Property Manager There are two main and very obvious ways. Google and word of mouth. Google can be very useful when finding information on pro...

Contractor Bids and Hard Money

I have been in touch with contractors on the Tree Times house. So far I have taken two contractors through the house. 1 just for electrical and the other for the entire job. I'm still waiting to hear about the entire job bid (broken down into sections), but the electrical bid came in higher then I wanted. I will need about 3 more whole house bids before I make a selection. Here is a copy of the scope of work for anyone interested in a sample. This does not include time lines or cost. Tree...

Inspections

I am currently working through the process for closing on my first property. I want to give a shout out to JScott at 123flip.com. He has an excellent education page on his blog. I am using the property acquisition checklist from that page. Its given me peace of mind that I am getting the proper steps done to close this property. I had the inspection yesterday. It's the same guy who inspected my personal home. He remembered me and did a very complete job. He also gave me a discount and ...

House #1 Under Contract

I just got word back from the seller agent. I am now under contract on my first property. To keep the theme of some of my favorite bloggers, I shall call this house the Tree Times house. I'll explain in a minute. The purchase price is 84k. Repairs are projected at 7k. ARV for fast sale 135k. Projected profit assuming 180 day hold is 13k. Repairs as follows. New carpet. New kitchen counter top. New kitchen hardware. Put missing wall back between main floor bedrooms. Clean up landscap...

2 Properties, 1 Day

I heard back on my offer on the bank owned (formally short sale) property. They accepted the other offer. I really did think I had a great chance at the property. I set the property file aside. Normally I put the files into a collective passed property folder. I decided to keep this one out. A little voice in the back of my head said, "Keep this file together, if the other offer doesn't go through, I would likely get it." Well, the other buyer backed out and I received a counter offer tod...

Wanted:Property Manager

Property Manager wanted for the Denver area. Job requirements are simple, do your job and respond to my calls within 48 hours not 168+. If you haven't guessed I am have some serious property management issues at the moment. My pm has been pretty good up until about 1 month ago. She really started dropping the ball. I have one property that is still missing the Government portion of Sec 8 rents. The other property went vacant last weekend 4 months prior to lease being up with barely a wor...

Silly Bank Profits are for Investors

I just sent an offer out for a property in my target area. $550 above listing. So why bash the banks as wasteful? This is the same property I bid on almost exactly 1 month ago. It was in short sale back then. The bank refused to go below their asking price. Now it is bank owned and listed for 5k below my original offer. Since there is one other bid out there, I am bidding just a hair above. Still its 4.5k below my original offer. I'm sure they have a valid reason (okay maybe not), but I...

Good Networking

I finished my refi on Friday. Took about an hour. I had to sign three sets of loan documents. You can guess what my signature looked like at the end. I brought in bagels for the loan office and you would have thought I brought in lost puppies. They were a huge hit. Doesn't anyone do those type of things anymore? Over my Asiago Cheese bagel my broker and I had a great chat. We discussed purchasing properties like my first two rentals. Only this time, I'm in control of the transaction. ...

Final refi numbers

Assuming I close on Friday, the final refi numbers are as follows. Rental 1 $250 back at closing, $3222 added to principle and payment reduction of $183 Rental 2 $0 back at closing, $1530 added to principle and payment reduction of $59 My home $168 back at closing, $1763 added to principle and payment reduced $127 Total $6515 added to principle - $418 back at closing minus $2235 saved in no mortgage payment for Aug. $369 dollars a month in reduced mortgage costs. $3862 Total Cost/$369 ...

No new personal home (+Late Update)

Just got off the phone with my Realtor. They gave the nod to the other bidder on the short sale property we were hoping to make our next home. Were not discouraged though, the next home is around the corner. I will say that I am very disappointed with the seller Realtor. His communications were very poor, he made promises he didn't keep and overall did not give a good name for his profession. He told us he would not take more offers once ours was in, since it was the first offer in weeks....