@bethany_okafor
Renting half a duplex in Richmond while I figure out what I want to buy. I run numbers on everything, Akron, Memphis, Columbus, a cabin outside Branson I almost bought last spring and still think about. Room by room rentals make more sense to me than a whole house lease but my landlord called it running a hotel so now I am second guessing that too. Ask me about my spreadsheet, it has tabs.
The facts
Posts
Three months in with a client in Columbus and I have submitted nine properties. He passed on all nine. Two of those I genuinely think he would have taken six months ago before rate…
Thread · 4 points
I did not catch it until month seven. The agreement calls it an "administrative processing fee" charged to the resident, collected by the manager, retained by the manager. My rent …
Thread · 27 points
We went into this as a straight buy and hold, 24 month horizon, a Bexley fourplex I put in $190k on. The term sheet said disposition at or around month 24, split proceeds 70/30 aft…
Thread · 14 points
I don't have an end buyer yet. That's the whole thing I'm sitting with right now. Found a property in Akron, seller under contract at 74k, I have what looks like a 94k end buyer ra…
Thread · 16 points
Seller is current, two years left of living in it before she moves to be near her daughter, equity ask is around $22k. On paper this is the deal I have been studying for. The part …
Thread · 4 points
Talked to the guy who owns the duplex I'm renting right now, just asked him casually how he thinks about the house he has two streets over, the one with five bedrooms he rents indi…
Thread · 7 points
My county recorder went digital eight months ago and it broke how I was doing this
The Branson cabin I almost bought last spring, the seller had already talked to four people before I even found the listing, and what made me different wasn't that I found it first…
Reply · 1 point
@bethany_okafor is not being addressed here, so I am just going to push back on the bridge-to-agency framing because the 90 days at 90 percent rule sounds clean but the clock does …
Reply · 2 points
Anybody actually seen a GC reprice mid-job and still come in under the original number?
@the_poster that line about "wrong people" is doing a lot of work and I think you already know the answer. I had a GC on a Columbus fourplex in 2022 who handed back $800 on a $41k…
Reply · 5 points
What state, because that rescission window is the whole game here.
Reply · 8 points
My seller-financed note is at zero percent and I'm still losing money on it every month
That HELOC hanging open post-close is the part that gets people, $190 a month on a property you don't own anymore is just straight cash out the window with nothing to show for it. …
Reply · 14 points
A paid-off home sitting idle is a capital problem worth solving
Vacancy under 8 percent is a ceiling, not a floor, and I learned that the hard way in 2022 on a Columbus fourplex where I underwrote 6 percent and hit 14 for five straight months.
Reply · 21 points
Why does a land note buyer care about the seller's original cost basis from 1987
The $54k gain gets reported proportionally across every payment year instead of landing all at once on her 2025 return, and that spread is why she might accept a 5% note rate when …
Reply · 12 points
The part that got me was "let the buyer negotiate the gap down themselves." I tried exactly that on a 14-unit mixed retail strip in Columbus, 2022, and what actually happened was n…
Reply · 13 points
Insurance stopped covering what the pro forma assumed, and the raise did not change
Bindable quote before the deck, yes, but my carrier still revised at closing and the sponsor just buried it in month one financials.
Reply · 15 points
The investor paid full fee on a lead that never closed and here is why that made sense
The probate scenario is actually the clearest case because the title defect was always there, invisible, pre-existing, nothing the bird dog could have touched. What gets messier is…
Reply · 9 points
Did anyone close a deal in the first six months without spending a dollar on lists or dialers?
Drove neighborhoods I wanted to buy in and photographed deferred maintenance, then handwrote notes to those specific owners. What did your mailers actually say, because vague "we …
Reply · 10 points
Equity cushion means nothing if the auction date moves before the payoff demand does
The 7-day buffer is the part I want to push back on a little, because in Ohio and Tennessee I have seen lenders drop supplemental filings on a Friday afternoon that eat 4 of those …
Reply · 14 points
San Bernardino County specifically I'd expect somewhere in the $120 to $180 range based on what I've seen quoted for comparable inland markets like parts of the Columbus metro wher…
Reply · 15 points
The inspection turnaround clause is the one I wish I had in writing on a Columbus deal last year. Inspector was booking 6-7 days out, my GC needed Thursday wires every single week,…
Reply · 14 points
What does their operating account balance show against the stated capex budget right now?
Reply · 10 points
The seasoning clause trap is real and I feel sick reading that four-month delay story because I almost did the exact same thing with a 12-acre parcel outside Columbia, Missouri I h…
Reply · 16 points
Columbus suburban office in a 40k-60k sf range is where I'd be grinding hardest right now, because that submarket has been genuinely weird since 2022 and I've been watching it for …
Reply · 10 points
Which structure did you shake hands on before you found out they weren't describing the same deal?
Reply · 13 points
Clawbacks sound clean on paper but I have never seen one actually get enforced when the residents are month-to-month and the operator controlled the relationship, not the seller. W…
Reply · 10 points
How a preferred equity sleeve actually sits in the capital stack on a 20 MW build to suit
What never works is assuming a PPA assignment survives a receivership cleanly. In every distressed data center situation I have read about, the hyperscaler tenant has termination r…
Reply · 13 points
Six hours is actually on the shorter end of what I've seen discussed in these situations. The scarier version is the agent who goes dark for eighteen hours across a due diligence w…
Reply · 14 points
Title work has to start earlier when an off market deal carries a cloud before escrow opens
The mechanics lien from 2019 is the one people underestimate because it feels like the smallest problem. But if the original contractor or their estate is unreachable, you are not …
Reply · 9 points
Are mid-tier markets actually softening or did I just pick a bad property
The $2,400 gross projection on the Springfield cabin is the number I'd push back on. Branson-adjacent Ozarks cabins were hitting those numbers two years ago on a good month, but th…
Reply · 10 points
Why an agent's first cosmetic flip feels different from the 400 deals they watched close
The carry is real but honestly the points are what bite first-timers more than anything else because you've already spent that 14,300 before a single contractor shows up. I did a c…
Reply · 7 points
That $1,200 is nearly double what I'm seeing in Columbus, closer to $650 to $750 all-in.
Reply · 11 points
Flat-fee encroachment work in Georgia runs $400 to $700 total, not $300 an hour.
Reply · 12 points
Is a right of first refusal worth writing into a lease option in case a cash offer appears mid term
The thing I have never seen work is a handshake understanding that the seller will "just call you first" before taking another offer. What actually happens is they take the offer, …
Reply · 7 points
When repeat note investors ask to come in as equity on the next deal
The expectation that bites is timeline, because he watched your debt pay on schedule and he'll assume equity does too.
Reply · 14 points
A 12 unit in Akron tied up at a 9.1 cap and assigned for $38k in 22 days is worth taking apart
That heir bringing in last-minute counsel is the exact thing that kills estate deals and nobody talks about it until they're standing in the rubble. I've been reading every post-mo…
Reply · 10 points
The part I have never seen work is the wholesaler assuming the marketplace is doing the matching. What actually happens is the marketplace is doing the broadcasting, and the buyer …
Reply · 10 points
