Potential Windfall For Foreclosure Investors

CNN is reporting that the Senate has passed a bipartisan bill to address the foreclosure crisis. Among the provisions: a tax credit of $7,000 for people buying foreclosed properties! Wow! It's unclear if this will apply to investors or just owner-occupants, but..holy cow.. A $7,000 tax credit! Not a tax deduction mind you, but a tax credit. That will certainly spur a wave of buying from investors if they can claim it!

Of course, this is just the Senate's version of the bill and the House version did not contain that credit... The credit will probably never come to pass, but it would be a nice present.

Changing Management Companies Is A Pain

Last Friday, I fired my property management company and hired a new one. Unfortunately, my contract stated that I have to give 30 days notice that I am canceling the contract. I had hoped that they would not enforce that, since they are not making any money from me. I don't pay them a monthly fee is the property is vacant and it is, so there is really no point in them holding on to the contract - unless they think they can get it rented in the next 30 days and, given that they haven't been able to do that in the prior 5 months, I don't think they can.

So in my fax on Friday, I asked them for written confirmation that they would release me from the contract. I have not received it. I called them on Tuesday and left a message requesting that. I called them again today. The owner is deliberately avoiding my calls now, since she was in but when the receptionist got my name, she was suddenly unavailable. So again, I explained what I wanted. The receptionist said they normally don't put any cancellations in writing and they just have to wait for the 30 day period to be up. I explained it made no sense for them to enforce the 30 day period. The lady said she would again talk to the owner and request written confirmation so that I could hire another property management company. She said even if they did waive the 30 days, they could only give the keys to the new managers. I would still have to wait 30 days for my deposit to be refunded. Sounds like a bunch of bull to me.

Good News For Multi #1

When I first started posting about my potential investment in a multi-unit rental complex in Houston, much of the comments warning me against it mentioned the horrible economy and how the Houston market is deteriorating. Just thought I'd pass along this article that says the opposite.

Rental #1 Under New Management

After five months of sitting vacant, I have fired my property management company and moved to a new one. Hopefully, this one will be able to get some tenants for me.

The contract I had with the old management company specifies I have to give them 30 days notice to terminate the contract, but I think they will waive that since they aren't getting paid anything while it is empty. The new management company is allowing me to just start with a leasing contract with them and I won't have to sign a management contract until they actually get someone in the place. I've instructed the old management to turn over all keys and deposits to the new management.

I must say, I am disappointed in the old management company. I spoke with them almost three weeks ago about lowering the rent to $750 a month, yet when I checked their website today, the rent was still listed at $800. The link to show a map of the property does not work and there are no pictures of the property. I should have fired them three months ago. Anyway...

I did find out some more info about the property, thanks to a fresh set of eyes viewing the property. The new management company sent someone out to look at the house. Their report is a tad disconcerting, but it does perhaps explain the problems faced by the old PM and highlights their shortcomings as well. The property is in gang land. I forget the exact name of the gang, but it is a latino gang. There is no doubt it is in gang land because the gang has spray painted their gang sign on my porch! (Why did the old PM not know about this or tell me?) It's not entirely a bad outlook though. This is just a little island of gang land and there are very nice homes and neighborhoods a few blocks away on either side. The PM thinks if I can hold on to the property for 5 years or so, the good areas will take over the bad and I'll then be in a good position. The question is can I hold out until then?

So the new PM has a marketing plan. The old PM has a sign up in the yard, but that is probably all the advertising they have done, apart from listing it on their website. The new PM is going to place ads in the Latino newspapers and local markets, written in spanish. They are also going to post flyers at the nearby hospital, which employs a large blue collar workforce and is within walking distance. They will advertise that they will not run credit checks or charge applicants an application fee (although they will still run criminal checks). They will also send over their maintenance guy for about 1 hour a day for a couple of days, so he gets some exposure and people see someone is there working on it. Painting over the graffiti could be done in less than a day, but by spreading it out several days, he has more visibility.

If the property is still not rented in 30 to 45 days, it will be put on the market and will most likely have to be sold for a loss.

The new PM is quite a talker, but based on the conversations I've had with her, I think she knows the area much better than the old PM and is much more savvy at marketing properties. I am mildly hopeful the place will rent soon.

Multi-Unit #1 Is Still Alive

Despite my earlier pessimistic outlook for this deal coming to fruition, it appears it now stands a good chance of happening. There is a group of investors that will be coming in to fill the funding gap that the loss of the mezzanine loan created. They still have to raise the money from their investors, but they have analyzed the deal and have a "high confidence" it can be done.

I know some readers don't feel this is a good deal. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, but it has been pointed out that the setup of this investment has some significant advantages over other similar investments by other groups. The principals of this project have structured it so that the bulk of the cash flow goes to us investors - the 9% preferred return. The principals have not marked up the purchase price of the property and do not earn a commission on the purchase price. They charge a 2% fee simply for their time and effort in putting this together. Further, after the 9% return to investors, the profits will be split 50 / 50 between the investors and principals. However, if the annualized total ROI drops below 20%, the profit split changes to 70 / 30 in favor of the investors. In short, the principals make much more money if the deal performs as they projected.

Of course, the biggest point of dispute is how accurate those projections are. If there is no profit, no one gets anything. While some people don't think the projections are realistic, I trust the principals and their knowledge and experience in this area.

Escrow is now set to close at the end of April. I look forward to that happening!