Insulation Or Wall Covering
I found a culprit of the coldest room in my house. I found it was a closet that may not have insulation behind it. I wanted to know if it was something that I could line the walls in the closet with to stop this. I just need to bandaid it until there is some good weather where I can remove the drywall and put good insulation inside the back wall of the closet. Please help.
Air is a great insulator. Depending on your need for asthetic beauty, you could attach a sheet of 1" thick styrofoam bead board or other foam board to each cold wall. Actually, you could paint this, panel it, paper it, or?
Which may solve your problem now and may suffice for your semi-permanent fix.
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Why not just by the wall insulator. It looks a lot like wall paper, goes on like wallpaper but is actually insulation. Just paint over it and voila. I forgot what it is called but Home Depot ordered it for us
I have installed a good bit of the Dow Corning 3/4" and 1" blue rigid insulation board for this very purpose. On one job I insulated a garage ceiling that had the master bedroom above it. The difference was night and day according to the customer.
Since your closet is heated space, stick with the blue color (not the white EPS sold for basements) 1/2" or thicker. Install with a bit of the proper type adhesive and roofing type nails.
Hope this helps
Where I live the county tax records are available on line and you can look them up by either the owners name, or the street address. If you type in the address the name and address of the person receiving the tax bills comes up as well as the tax value for the property and if the taxes are current. Check and see if your county has this service, then you can find your properties after work and on weekends and look the owners up online.
You could change your hours. You could work 10hr mon-thrus with every friday off.
You could work 4 9hr days with the the 5th off every other week still adds up to 40 hrs. This would give you 3 day weekends every other week.
You could also approach the MLS differently. You could have the realtor search for houses that have been on the market long enough to create seller motivation.
At the end of the day the county research methods may not be for you. There are other ways to be successful in investing. A strong direct marketing program should get the sellers calling you.
You could hire somone part time for 10 an hour. How many more deals could you do a year if somone worked for you 20 hours a week? An at 10 an hour and 20 hours a week it would be about a 10k a year investment. Kills me when people will pay 3k, 5k, 10k for a guru course or boot camp, but will not pay that money to have somone work for them for an entire year. How much could you make from from that 10k investment?
Brenda
bgrossnickle, what is the average rate of success for a good bird dog? 1 or 2 properties a month?
REIA have been a good source for networking and creating win-win situations, I am currently working on 3 deals with 3 differrent members of my REIA.
bump...
sorry, nothing to add. just wanted to keep track of this interesting thread.
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Actually, the tax records and deeds for NJ are online, searchable by county and city. Call the clerk in the county you are looking for and ask them what the URL is. If you want to email me, I can give you what I have (see my profile).
My ad read something like this ...
Work from Home - Real Estate Investor looking for office manager. Must have good computer skills and reliable transportation. P/T to F/T - $10 an hour. No benefits.
As I said, the first person was a disaster. She would never give me an end of day update and whenever I called she was at some noisy place but still managed to clock in 40 hours.
My new one is a gem. She was a professional who then stayed at home to raise her child who is now 4 years old. She also happens to live within 5 miles of my house which is very convenient for me to leave things for her to pick up and drop off. I have increased her salary to $11 an hour and $200 per house that I sell. I also pay for her miles.
Every morning I send her a long email that has all of our outstanding issues and what she needs to get done today. At the end of the day she emails me an update. The next morning I copy my previous email, update it with her update and with anything new and send it again.
She has a company credit card with a 5k limit. I pay for her 5000 minutes cell phone. Also bought her a laser printer and and all in one. She already had a computer and DSL. Another key is efax. All faxes come to her email and my email. So we both see them.
I also have several spreadsheets that are important for sharing information. I have one spreadsheet that has all my tradespeople and professional and their contact information. Another spreadsheet has all my rental property information - tenants name, lease start, lease terminate, late date, late fee amount, property address, repairs needed, last inspection date, etc. Another spreadsheet is for buy and sell properties - sellers name, contact information, property address, lien information, short sell information, etc. About every two weeks I ask her to update the spreadsheets with any new info and send them to me, then I update them with my new information, and send it back to her. now we both have the updated info. Another spreadsheet is all my accounts, passwords, phone number etc - efax, freedom voice, webs site, credit cards, bank accounts, etc. She knows so much about me that she usually just says that she is me on the phone.
Important software is MS Office, MS Streets and Trips and Adobe Acrobat (to create PDF documents). I already had an extensive list of Internet favorites that I copied to her computer.
I still oversee the rehabs and I do all the talking and negotiating with the sellers. Unless they speak spanish, then her husband talks to them. can you believe it - her husband speaks spanish! My phone has rung 5 times today. 2 were sellers and three were freedom voice paging me to let me know someone had left a message on a rental.
I really, really appreciate your input on how you run your business and how you interact with your employee. Very practical information.
Thanks a bunch,
Nate
bluefox1081
There are a ton of new investors in your shoes... Everyone wants to make money in the real estate investment business..
I believe you need to answer a few questions first about what it is you expect. And the main question would be.
What amount of income would you like to derive from this new venture?
From that answer you will be directed to what type of property to buy at what price point It would also help you determine if you’re a flipper, LO or landlord. And all of those are okay.
I always caution new investors to find the money before finding the property to buy...
Without the ability to perform financially you will not reach your goals..
Money comes from; credit cards, family, wholesaling, hard lenders, TIC, and terms from sellers. It’s important that you find it first...
Now once you have done that.. Take 2 days off and make your connections...
You will need the following resources of people in your corner...
Title rep, Escrow officer, Realtor, Attorney, Termite inspector, Roofing contractor, home inspector, and mailing company...
O don’t forget to keep God in your corner too.
Once you have established that you have the financial means and the people resources to start make sure you don’t jump in too far from shore..
Start economically slow, and what I mean is that don’t waste resources..
Make sure the ad you put in the classified section is the correct one.. Make sure the letters and postcards are the correct ones. In the beginning you will not have enough energy to make the wrong decisions about marketing..
You asked about how to find good deals... You don’t they find you...Through the types of marketing you do...
AND stop using a realtor to buy through...
Call your title rep and she will get you set up on their online property search system, they will also give you weekly NOD lists, your realtor will give you MLS access for comps and the expired lists, although they are not supposed to. If they don’t find one who will... Pay for it with commission on the houses you sell through them..
With those lists and a few long nights you will create a mailing system to touch the NODs expired and FSBOs. Keep touching them... use the Internet to reverse look up telephone numbers and call those people as well.
We have the scripts to help you...
One of the nice things about calling at night is no one does it.. And most people who can’t pay their bills are home at night...
BTW either *82 before all of your calls or set up your telephone line so your business doesn’t show up on their caller ID.. if you can use the name "Mary" most telephone companies will accommodate you on the name change.
I tell people all of the time to schedule yourself to success… What I mean is that if you don’t on purpose schedule you marketing you will fail.. Marketing first buying is second..
We have all been on the only seller lead, only to pay too much because it was the only one we had…
Set a system in place that gives option to buy at the best price possible…
What else.... It will be difficult to break through but it is worth every cent...
_________________
Michael Quarles
"Marketing is the key to Successful Investing"
[ Edited by IBuyHousesInc on Date 12/02/2005 ]
I Buy,
I have been reding a lot of your posts lately and I want to thank you for taking so much time to help others. You have been an inspiration to me, and I am sure many others.
What you just posted is almost an exact script of what I am trying to do at this time. What I really could use though is some phone script ideas, anything from incoming calls from motivated sellers, to cold calls out to possible leads. A big time saver is the first phone contact with a lead, are they motivated or not? Find out as quick as possible, then move on to the next.
Thanks for your help, I am sure many on this site would agree.
Don S.
Tenants in Common (TIC) is a shared property where you own a separate, tenant-in-common interest.
I just posted an article about tax deferring into a TIC property, but the article also explains the concept of the TIC, as well as the pros and cons of TIC investing.
http://www.thecreativeinvestor.com/residential/Articles1067.html
Enjoy!
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Your county website states this is a new page,
http://www.co.burlington.nj.us/departments/taxation/search/index.htm
Is this what you are looking for?
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Way to go, Brenda. Thanks for sharing that info.
Bluefox...Have you tried Merlin Information Services to locate owners of abandoned properties? They work for me! www.merlindata.com They are cheap to use,too.
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Place adds in the paper, send out mailers, get a website and drive traffic to it with adwords campaigns etc.
We get 5-10 deals a month with people coming to us from these sources.
The key is to get the seller to come to you, this equals a motivated seller.
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Hi
I attend my local REIAs and learn of deal from the quick pitches there. Because most of the people know the "formula" that most rehabbers or buy and hold want, you can find some good deals.
The people that I buy from are doing this full time. They have their marketing engine going and getting the properties under contract. You still have to do your due diligence but I have found some good deals at the REIAs.
Linda Green
We Invest In You, Inc.
I have always been told that if the numbers work, then why not.
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"Its in a very popular neighborhood. "
So it will sell quickly? Great!
Excessive holding time/costs are a killer.
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For me, structural issues are an immediate deal breaker. The cost of structural remediation can vary all over the map. The numbers you quoted look very good, but unless that 25k number came from a reputable structural firm that is insured and will stand behind their diagnosis, I would look elsewhere.
Good Luck.
JS.
If you want to do this right, go to the local building inspector/code enforcement officer and get their opinion on what the property needs structurally. They will be able to give you- probably in writing- what it needs for them to sign off on it. Get at least 2-3 bids from reputable contractors to do the work. Find out how your $25k number holds up. If all that pans out- go make some money with it!
Our experiences with serious structural problems have shown that they frequently require more repair and downtime than originally estimated. We have a soil condition in some areas here called “shrink-swell” and repairs on identical houses across the street from each other may need different levels of cure. Also, for us, these cured problems have to be disclosed to buyers which can make them nervous.
So in a hot market with firm estimates from licensed and insured companies we would go forward but in falling or flat markets we would shy away.
Jim
[ Edited by jimandlacy on Date 01/31/2006 ]
In our market I would jump on this property! The numbers work and 25K in structure is not a major deal breaker.
I generally make a lot more on properties that need major rehab (it scars the novices away).
If I could plan on selling at 150K you could work backward.
$150,0000 Sale price
-$25,000 repairs
-$4000 holding costs (12% simple interest 120 days)
-$4500 realtors 3%
-$2000 in closing in and out (should over utilities as well).
_________________
$59500 profit
This leaves plenty of room for unforseen problems.
If your a novice rehabber then you need to make sure that the people you are using are not...
Use real contractors and make sure that you have two bids, use the higher figure to run your numbers with.
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Hey FullHousley,
It sounds like you have a real winner. If you are a member of a local REI group, find someone who you know and trust. Let him or her know about the deal and cut them in for part of the profit for helping you out. Partnering with someone can be one of the most beneficial relationships that you make. I have been the one who takes a deal to someone and now people bring deals to me to help them get it done.
Look for someone in your area who you can trust, split the deal with them and you will both win, BIG.