Appliances for your rental

Let’s talk about kitchen appliances. In your own home, you may want nothing but the best. And you’ll take care of it like it’s your own (because it is!).
Tenants don’t care for your property like it’s their own. In fact, rarely do I find a clean stove and oven when a tenant moves out. A [...]

1508 Hickory, Waukegan

What a charmer! This 1920 northside home boasts 2,324 sq. ft. and detached 2-car garage. A recent addition to the rear adds a master suite, bringing the count to 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. A large screened porch overlooks the back yard.
The roof looks like it was replaced recently, but the workmanship was lacking, and [...]

Clues from a street number

I don’t know how it works everywhere else, but in my neck of the woods the street number indicates whether the home is in an incorporated or unincorporated area.
Addresses with four digits or fewer are incorporated; five or more digits are unincorporated.
For example, 1973 Walnut is in an incorporated area.
11973 Walnut is in an unincorporated [...]

The fallacy of short sale price reductions

Foreclosure property pricing is pretty straightforward. The bank-owner sets the list price, and agrees to sell for that price. If the bank-owner receives a full-price offer, the buyer can be pretty confident his offer will be accepted.
Not so for short sales.
I’ve written about short sales in the past; properties offered for sale at prices lower [...]

Will the numbers work?

How do you know if a property will operate at breakeven or better?
An excellent rule of thumb is to use the 1% Rule.
The 1% Rule says that one month’s rent should be at least 1% of the cost of the property. So, if you are considering a home costing $140,000, the question is will it [...]

113 Metropolitan, Waukegan

Call me Chicken…

…but I refused to go into the basement.
Yes, that’s water reaching the second step. “Bargain-priced” at $75,000, the floors are uneven, roof is shot, and the best thing to do to this house is kill it and start over.
More pics here.

1512 Woodbine, Round Lake Beach

When does an REO owner not want to sell?

When the owner is Deutsche National Bank and the property is 1512 Woodbine.
The home has an interesting history; a HUD foreclosure that sold for $115,502 in 2005, it was resold for $152,000 in 2006, only to be foreclosed in 2007.
Deutsche put it on the market in late 2007 for [...]

Getting a loan without a real job

As far as getting a loan, my situation is probably not the typical scenario. Of all the good things I have going for myself, a recent steady work history is not one of them. Which for some reason is important to lenders. Even with great credit and a good sized down payment, I knew a [...]

My 1st invesment property.

This blog is being set-up as a record of my 1st investment property. A 4 bedroom, 1 bath, 1 1/2 story, brick house in Waukegan, Illinois. I’ve been a little slow on setting this up, but not much has happened to this point so I’ll be able to bring it up to date quickly. My [...]

Countrywide Wants To Sell You a House

The foreclosure boom means they’re the seller, the lender, and maybe even the appraiser. Would you buy a home that way?
By Mark Gimein | Slate
Posted Friday, April 4, 2008, at 11:42 AM ET
Countrywide

So, you’ve heard about the foreclosure crisis, and to you foreclosure sounds a lot like opportunity. Maybe you’ve scanned the lists of [...]