Davemchs's blog

I live in a town of 230,000 people and about 50,000 are college kids. Rental numbers are insane(60k to 100k all in 1300-1600/month rent). I've been working construction for a landlord for 8 years and he only rent to college kids as families in that neighborhood have a hard time paying rent but mom and dads help the college kids out along with 3-5 different incomes instead of 1 or 2. There fore Ive took it upon myself to master the art of college proofing houses. Here are the keys I like to use. More wood floors the better.(easy clean up in between tenants) No need to finish the basement floor just paint, (they have to set up the beer pong table somewhere.) Plenty of white rock parking in alley for extra cars(less maintenance too).

I have a sandwich lease option set up. I'm up $2800 so far and haven't really done much. The tenant is talking about exercising his option to purchase. The problem I've been running into is I can't find a mortgage company/lender to lend him the money because they say I don't own the place and refuse to loan him the money. Does anyone out there use a certain bank for sandwich lease options?

Closed on second deal last week. Assignment fee of $12,500. Got the place so low felt obligated to pay the sellers taxes($948). Got full asking price off craigslist in a matter of 36 hours. Was unsure of my buyers list but it didn't matter in this case when you make a postlet and throw it on craigslist the deal gets out to so many people. I just placed an add that said had to be cash and had to close in two weeks. Had offers the first day. Had one appointment the second day and ended up showing 6 different people as they just kept coming out of no where! The guy tried to negotiate me down as he was staring at my assignment fee but I wasn't going to rewrite the contracts and had other offers. Got the deal done and on to the next!

Thanks for the education DG Family!

Lucky I forgot something and ran back inside to hear my phone ring. Call from a bandit sign of course. Lady said she wanted 50k for the place. Good thing I paid attention to Matt Larson negotiating techniques. "How low can you go with a cash offer?" on the phone. Then looked at the house and gave the classic "the problem is your competing with foreclosures that are going for well below assessed value". She said she could do 25k. Called her back the next day and said I could do 20k and we met at 22,500. She said she would pay past taxes but after doing more research on the property the price was too low and I told her I would take care of the taxes. 6 bedroom 2 bath stone castle in a perfect rental neighborhood. 20-30k in rehab and will rent for $1200/month.

Finally closed my first assignment of contract last weekend. Put it under contract for 20k and did an assignment for a $2500 fee and $500 up front to hold it. Got both contracts signed in a 45 minute window. I picked up the closing costs of $700. Had a couple issues with the title getting probated over correctly and when the title changed before that apparently the deed was signed in 1979 on a row boat from an uncle so of course there was a misprint in the legal descrition. Got the sellers attorney to fix the mistake he made in probate and an affidavit signed saying both parties were aware of the misprint on the title. Only took an extra 6 days. Title company has agreed to carry the title insurance if the buyer ever resells it again.

Got the purchase contract and assignment both signed within about 45 minutes for my first deal. Got a personal check for $500 to hold the property until closing which is scheduled for Thursday. Should get another check for $1800 more or so. Should have negotiated better but really wanted to just get my first assignment done.

Got picked as one of RG Williams 6 new apprentices for 2013. Can't wait to get my business stream lined. The way him and Matt Larsen talk about 2013 I better get in gear. Were all going to rock the real estate market this year!