Buying Property is both at the top of the category list and the start of all our careers as real estate investors. As I look back over the last 12 months, here are some notable posts.

Buying Investment Property Category

• Best Type of Property for First Time Investors
• Don’t Get Emotional About Rehabs
• Buy the Short Sale or Wait for the Foreclosure
• 7 Questions to Ask Your Realtor About Investment Properties-My Response
• LowBall Offers on Bank Owned Foreclosure Properties
• Don’t Trust What You See or Read on the MLS
• 8 Tricks to Getting Your Offer Accepted on that Foreclosed Property

These are not necessarily the longest, the most popular or the most detailed, but I think they are a great resource for Buying Investment Real Estate.

Have you always wanted to buy investment property, but never knew where to start? Don’t Wait! Get Started now.

Most real estate blogs rarely make it to 1 year. Many start out strong only to die on the vine. I wrote my first post on this blog on August 6, 2007. I made it!

I am happy with where this site has taken me and my readers. I think it has put some good content on the web for new and seasoned investors to read and improve or start their investment property portfolios.

For the geeks in the room, here are some statistics about this blog:

• Self-Hosted WordPress Blog
• Posts=180 (average about 15 per month).
• Comments=369
• RSS or Email Subscribers: 119 (subscribe)
• Average Visitors per Day: 155
• Average Time on Site: 2 min., 11 sec.
• Backlinks (per Yahoo): 3,691

I know many of you have found this blog in the last couple months or so. Maybe you went back and read old posts, maybe you haven’t. Over the next couple days, I am going to list the best posts in each category to review everything that I have written.

You will see some old favorites and maybe find some new ones.

Scott

Every week I talk to new people interested in investment real estate. Most of them can see the incredible opportunities in the market these days between all the foreclosures, short sales, and generally the lower prices of investment properties. Add to that one of the strongest rental markets that we have seen in years and good interest rates and you could call this the perfect storm of real estate investing.

Despite all these indicators, I do run into an occasional fence-sitter. This person who is sure that the market is going to go down a little more and the deals are going to get that much better. They are going to wait until the absolute bottom of the market. In their minds, they are able to do what none of the experts even claim to be able to do. They think they can predict when the bottom of the market is.

I am hear to tell you that will only see the bottom of the market in the rear view mirror. Here are two reasons that you do not want to wait to start building your investment property portfolio:

1. What indicators are you using to predict the bottom of the market? Prices, housing inventory levels, average time on market, or maybe just how long your neighbors house took to sell? All of the above stats are lagging indicators. In other words, they show was has happened in the past. And what if they show that for that one time period that the market is upturning? You have already missed the “bottom of the market”. Plus more simply, if real estate investing is considered a long term wealth building prospect, who cares if you missed the last .5% of value decreases before you buy?
2. Waiting to buy may actually cost you money as interest rates and mortgage regulations may make your cost of money more expensive. We have seen massive changes in the lending requirements for investment properties. We are expecting to see even more. Where once you could buy a 4-plex investment property in Minneapolis for only 5% down, now you need 25% down. In fact, the lending requirements have actually sidelined many seasoned investors because of the elimination of stated loans.

Get started now. Stop waiting for that perfect property or the best deals or the bottom of the market. Now is the time.

Evictions are a necessary part of being a landlord. Depending where your investment property is located, you may do them once every 5 years or once every 5 months. Ultimately, though, I see an eviction as the last resort. At the same time, I can’t allow my tenants to push me around and simply never pay me. But unfortunately, 95% of my evictions result in me collecting ZERO dollars from the tenants. I am left with a big bad debt right off.

Two weeks ago while I was down at Hennepin County, filing another eviction (5th one for 2008-not a good year), I read about doing Pre-Filing Mediation. This is a procedure in which a neutral third party, at the request of the parties to a dispute, assists them in reaching a mutually satisfactory settlement. In mediation, both parties need to agree to meet with each other and the mediator. The mediator is not a judge and will not decide the solution, he is more like a facilitator to help the parties find a agreeable solution.

3 possible outcomes to pre eviction mediation:

1. An agreement is reached and signed by both parties, no court case is filed, no fees are paid, and no record of this action exists. Good for everyone.
2. The parties can not agree during the mediation session, they are served right then to appear in court in 7 days. This case will be one of the first ones heard by the judge in Hennepin County eviction court.
3. If one of the parties is not willing to use mediation, the case is referred back to housing court and the eviction will proceed as normal. This case will be one of the first ones heard by the judge as a reward for attempting mediation.

Benefits to Mediation for the Landlord:

• No filing fees if the case is settled
• Priority status on the Hennepin County Eviction Court Calendar if the case does not settle

Benefits to the Tenants:

• If the case is settled, there is no court record of an eviction action being filed against the tenant.

In my case, I decided that the tenants just needed an authority to wake them up to the fact that they are not living in Mom & Dad’s house any longer. They have signed a lease and they have obligations to pay. Although we did not go to mediation, the letter from the mediator quickly motivated them to work out a payment plan with me. As of now, they are on their way to paying off their back rent!

Although I may not use this in every situation, I think mediation can be a softer approach that may get you your past due rent paid, instead of just clearing out your apartment.

Have you always wanted to own investment properties, but never knew where to start?

I have written several times about Minneapolis Rental Licensing challenges:

• Minneapolis Rental Licensing Searching for Unlicensed Rentals
• New Minneapolis Rental Conversion Fee

I do understand the need for some regulation, even if I don’t agree with the above items. The newest tale in the Minneapolis Licensing saga came up at the end of last week. Our rehab contractor was at the City of Minneapolis checking on which customers would be required to pay the Rental Conversion Fee on the North Minneapolis houses that they just purchased.

When the city person checked the computer for a very nice 3 bedroom, 1.5 story house at 34xx Russell Ave N that a customer had recently purchased, she told our contractor that this property had lost its rental license. At first, this made no sense as I always understood that the property held the license, but just the owner/manager could lose the license on a house. I assumed (I guess now incorrectly), that if the house was sold, the new owner could apply and receive a Minneapolis rental license.

I was wrong. This house had its license stripped and even going through foreclosure, having a new owner, and paying the rental conversion fee, would not allow this property to be a rental. I have come to understand that the status of a rental license is like the “grandfather” status that we refer to in regards to code compliance. Definition of grandfather status: As building codes have changed over the years, houses previously built to the then current codes are said to be grandfather’ed in and they are not required to be updated to the current code standards. This is why you still see knob and tube wiring in houses built 100 years ago, even though that code changed 50 years ago.

Luckily this buyer was still in their inspection period and we quickly cancelled the contract. If we had not found this issue, this investor could have been left with a house thats only use was for an owner occupant. The only option would have been to flip the property, which could have been a difficult situation to resell even a rehab property in North Minneapolis.

The city said that restoring the license is very similar to obtaining a variance on any other city regulation. There is a large packet of information you need to complete. Then you will need to speak in front of the licensing board. I have been told that in these situations, you are almost always fighting an uphill battle as it is much easier for them to deny your request.

Despite buying and rehabbing almost 100 houses in Minneapolis, this is the first time that anyone in our group had seen this issue. I recommend that you confirm license availability prior to closing on your next Minneapolis Investment Property.

It is amazing how people can use different products to seal up openings or glue items together. Like some of these excellent repairs from a North Minneapolis foreclosure:

First you have the canned expanding foam to plug some holes (no doubt to keep the mice out):

Then you have the masking tape to cover a hole in the ceiling as you go downstairs:

Last but not least, the ever reliable and multiple use Duct Tape is used when you just don’t have any metal screws (to hold in the window):

Are you searching for investment properties on your own and running into similar properties?