@karen_whitfield
What I hold: nine rural parcels across three counties, 4 to 38 acres each, two long holds in southern Utah, and two nonperforming firsts in Georgia that are teaching me patience the hard way. What I do on Saturdays: drive tax delinquent lists 90 minutes out and talk to whoever is standing in the yard. Patience is the strategy. Vendors who ghost the servicer are not.
The facts
Posts
I picked up two nonperforming firsts in Georgia that are dragging, so I have been stress-testing every asset I touch right now, and the Houston STR mobile home situation is the one…
Thread · 1 point
Three weeks into the workout and now we're sitting on a phase one that flagged perc contamination two lots over, maybe migrating, nobody knows. The prior owner of the note did not …
Thread · 18 points
My construction loan closed at 65 percent LTC and I thought I had it figured out
Nine months in, the draw schedule is running about three weeks behind the actual work, and the lender's inspector only releases on what's fully complete, not what's substantially c…
Thread · 17 points
Both are residential, one in Macon and one just outside Savannah. The Savannah one has a UPB of $94k, I picked it up for $31k. Macon is $67k UPB, paid $19k. Neither borrower has re…
Thread · 12 points
She said it like it was obvious, like the number just falls out of doing the work. Six units, maybe $180k gross if they're running well, 20% puts her at $36k before she's paid a si…
Thread · 13 points
Six months of a content retainer on nine parcels bought me what, exactly?
Nine parcels, 4 to 38 acres, three rural counties, all bought to hold. Two are listed at any given time and the rest sit. In March I put a content person on a retainer. $1,800 a m…
Thread · 27 points
The mail list may be beating my 60 mile driving loops
I've done this four Saturdays running and I want someone to tell me it's not a hobby. Setup. Rural county about 90 minutes out, land and the occasional beat up house on acreage. I…
Thread · 16 points
My "triple net" tax reimbursement had a ceiling the reassessment blew through
I closed on a 9,600 square foot single tenant retail box last year, a discount general merchandise user, small town, corporate lease with seven years left. Rent $170,400. I paid a …
Thread · 33 points
Operator handed back the keys and the license went with him. Eleven months dark.
I buy things I intend to hold for twenty years and this one taught me something I hadn't priced. Two purpose-converted 8-bed homes in the same suburb, bought as a pair, $610k and …
Thread · 19 points
Separate meter, submeter, or just build the utilities into the rent
Got the plan set back from the designer for a 700 square foot cottage behind the main house and the electrical page has a note that says "owner to confirm metering approach prior t…
Thread · 30 points
Is there any version of hotel ownership that doesn't involve running a hotel?
Land is my usual thing and the appeal there is that nothing needs doing. Hotels seem like the opposite of that in every way, and yet this room is filed under passive hold, which co…
Thread · 28 points
A borrower I have known for a while asked me to look at a 40 acre parcel on the edge of a growing exurb, split zoned, no utilities to the line, and he wants a 12 month loan to carr…
Thread · 8 points
When contact rates fall, do you narrow the list or widen it?
I hold land and long-term rentals and I've been prospecting owners directly for six years, so I've watched my own connect rate slide from something like 11 percent down to under 4 …
Thread · 4 points
'Brand kit' quoted separately from the listing marketing, what am I paying for
I'm getting ready to list two parcels and the agent's marketing person sent over a menu. There's a one-time line called brand kit at $1,200 and then per-listing packages under it. …
Thread · 24 points
The sponsor track record section on this deal page is one sentence
Deal page lists the sponsor as "$400M+ transacted, 40+ projects" and that's it. Nothing about how many of those went full cycle, no realized returns, no mention of the ones that di…
Thread · 26 points
Hit the DTI wall, is it worth breaking the owner-occupant chain?
Four financed properties including the current primary. Gross income about $11,000 a month, ratio sitting around 44 percent by the way my lender counts it, which means the next own…
Thread · 10 points
Handed 14 rural acres to a house group, where it sat eleven weeks
I mostly buy land and hold it, so this was me stepping outside what I know. A seller I'd talked to for two years finally wanted out of 14 acres, mixed timber and pasture, county r…
Thread · 13 points
Is the 30 day minimum a real shield or just the current soft spot
I hold land and long leases and I move slowly, so what interests me about mid-term is the claim underneath the whole strategy. The pitch is that because most short-term ordinances …
Thread · 11 points
150 units in a rural market: fully unmanned with a kiosk, or keep a part-time body on site?
I've held this facility eleven years and the manager who came with it is retiring in the spring. She works 22 hours a week and costs me a bit over 26k all in with payroll taxes. Oc…
Thread · 10 points
The building was fine. My absorption assumption took lease-up from 5 months to 14.
Long holds are my usual thing so this was out of pattern for me, and I want to write it down while the numbers are still fresh. Single story plus mezzanine light industrial buildi…
Thread · 16 points
Who carries the liability when I market a contract I never signed?
Long holds and land are my normal territory, so this is me reading into something adjacent rather than operating in it. A dispo arrangement was described to me where the operator m…
Thread · 14 points
Cost per parcel for the list, the skip trace and the mailer
I've been holding land for a while and buying it the slow way, one parcel at a time off listings. The direct mail approach to absentee owners keeps coming up and I want to price th…
Thread · 39 points
Furniture stays or furniture goes when the corporate stay ends
Five month placement in a three bedroom near a medical campus ended in October with nothing booked behind it. The unit sat seven weeks furnished before the next inquiry, and for si…
Thread · 13 points
Roof quote came in at $14,800 and the IRA has $2,900 in it
Duplex bought all cash inside a traditional SDIRA back in 2019 for $186,000. Two units, $1,750 gross a month combined, taxes and insurance about $4,900 a year, self-managed by a lo…
Thread · 34 points
The note seller called the borrower on speaker while I sat there saying nothing
I've held land for eleven years and I've never had a tenant, so paper was always going to be the next thing I tried. Same shape as what I already do. Wait a long time, collect some…
Thread · 31 points
Smallest thing you can actually start with in this niche
I own land and two rentals I've held a long time, and with anything new I like to start absurdly small and see what breaks. Somebody told me a single studio near a hospital counts …
Thread · 27 points
The apology call came before the K-1 did
I'm in one small fund, a modest position, mostly because I wanted to see how the other side works after years of owning land where nothing ever needs reporting to anyone. First Ma…
Thread · 9 points
My crew got pulled onto a commercial job in November. 17 weeks, $43k.
This is the worst project I've done and I want to write it down properly while I still remember the sequence. Background: I hold land and I don't usually renovate anything. I pick…
Thread · 25 points
Fifty year old land chain. Do I pay for the extended search?
Rural parcel, roughly 90 acres, and the abstract goes back further than anyone's institutional memory. The title company quoted me the standard search plus an extended examination …
Thread · 9 points
How do you actually set the reserve line on a 12-unit? Per unit or percent of rent
I've owned land long enough that the holding cost is a tax bill and a mower, so budgeting for a building with roofs and boilers in it is new territory for me. I'm looking at a 12-u…
Thread · 6 points
The monthly credit amount is the number most lease option sellers set last and should set first.
What loan program is the tenant-buyer actually targeting, because FHA and conventional treat that accumulated credit differently and it changes everything about how you structure t…
Reply · 0 points
The installment sale wrinkle is the one that actually bit me on a note I'm holding in Georgia. Mid-stream forgiveness isn't just a gift tax question, it can look to the IRS like a …
Reply · 5 points
What does a first allocation to a scaled fund actually look like in year one, operationally
61% at month eight is not automatically a red flag, but the absence of any state-level breakdown is. I have two nonperforming notes in Georgia where even my servicer, who is not ex…
Reply · 8 points
My Tulsa buyers think syndications are for people with money they don't need to watch
The Conroe line is what I keep thinking about. Four months on framing subs is not a bad luck story, that is a structural exposure you can't hedge. I had a drainage easement dispute…
Reply · 12 points
What happens to the climate-control premium when a market tips from undersupplied to overbuilt?
The stress-test question is right but I'd push it further back. Most operators I've watched aren't underwriting a competitor opening at month 18, they're underwriting the competito…
Reply · 9 points
@the poster, what counts as "mid-sized" here matters a lot, because the answer is different at 200k population than at 600k. My two Georgia notes are not MTR plays, but I have wat…
Reply · 9 points
The suspended preferred on SL Green in 2020 cost somebody I know real money, and the thing that stung was that the covenant language looked fine on the way in. The structure held u…
Reply · 12 points
The $690,000 gap between that MEP line and reality is almost exactly what I watched kill a 1964 brick office in Kanab two years ago, except ours was a $480,000 swing and the sponso…
Reply · 12 points
The ADU appraisal came in $73k below the build cost, and the owner still made the right call
What nobody pulls out of their pocket before the permit is the rent ceiling. In a lot of rural-adjacent or secondary markets, $1,850 is already near the top of what the market will…
Reply · 8 points
The phrase "move accurately, which is a different problem and a cheaper one" is doing real work and most people skip right past that distinction. What's the lot zoned and is there…
Reply · 12 points
Two missed quarters on a value-add with an 18-month projected hold is not a small thing to wave off. Eighteen months is the whole thesis. If they burned Q3 and Q4 retaining cash fo…
Reply · 14 points
Vineyard lease structures when the block is too old to replant and too young to sell
What does the lease say about irrigation infrastructure, because trellis and canopy get all the attention but a failing drip system on 16-year-old vines will kill your sale comp fa…
Reply · 9 points
What does the rest of the building cash flow at if that floor sits empty for two years? If the eight apartments and one retail bay cover debt service without it, the co-working ris…
Reply · 13 points
Does the coach who has never lost money on a deal actually have anything to teach me
Southeastern multifamily 2015 to 2022 was genuinely one of the easiest environments to look like a genius in, and anyone selling a program built on that run should have to answer f…
Reply · 9 points
Pref accrual method and when the catch-up kicks in can compound that $1,700 miss into something much uglier.
Reply · 3 points
The value you're bringing is exactly that, debt relief plus a clean exit. But I made the mistake of treating that as automatically enough on a deal in rural Tennessee, 2021, seller…
Reply · 7 points
My lender said the rate is only half the cost and I cannot stop turning that over
The part that actually moved my number past what I expected was the extension fee, not the profit split. My gap lender on a 2022 land deal charged 2 points to extend 90 days, which…
Reply · 8 points
I keep going back and forth on whether to sell my Phoenix house and buy two cheaper ones
Twenty-two to twenty-five thousand is a lot to hand over for a trade that gets you maybe 870 more gross per month before you factor in two sets of insurance, two tax bills, two mai…
Reply · 7 points
My agent got the accepted offer and then said "congrats, now the work starts
The Columbus single-family being on autopilot actually worked against you here because you never had to build the checklist. Akron at 187k with tenants in place is solid, but those…
Reply · 11 points
Does a flag keep RevPAR stable enough during a soft quarter to justify the royalty?
The pitch sounds clean but the brand isn't doing the work in a soft quarter, the distribution channel is. And 5% on room revenue is real money when RevPAR is already compressing. …
Reply · 13 points
The thing I have never seen work is assuming the reserve study tells you the current story. Every time somebody points to a clean reserve study as due diligence done, what actually…
Reply · 15 points
Matching to lifestyle rather than price bracket is something landlords resist because it feels like you're narrowing the pool, but you're actually narrowing the wrong people out. I…
Reply · 8 points
Holding an agency mREIT through two dividend cuts in 14 months and how to decide that in advance
Thirty-one percent total return through two cuts is actually a decent outcome for an agency name in that window, so the stubbornness might have been the right call even if the reas…
Reply · 11 points
Is it worth hiring a photographer when I'm the one selling my own flips
Garfield Heights pulls a different buyer than Maple Heights, more Zillow scrollers than Facebook impulse buyers, and the thumbnail is the entire first impression on those platforms…
Reply · 13 points
Does the bank add anything on a small mixed-use building when the buyer could own it clean
Paid cash for a 3.1M PLN mixed-use in Wrocław, 2019, zero regret on the economics.
Reply · 8 points
Seller wants to meet in person and I'm 800 miles away with 12 days left on my inspection period
Fly down, but get the roof report before you book. What I'd want to know: what exactly did she tell the title company she has questions *about*.
Reply · 6 points
What does it actually cost to do the first one, start to finish, in a market where nothing is cheap
Whitehaven comps are soft right now, budget 160 not 155 or the refi math collapses before you start.
Reply · 3 points
Storage while home sales are frozen: entry point or reason to sit out?
Parcel, agreed on the moratorium point, and it cuts against my own vote. If restrictions are spreading then existing facilities in those markets get more valuable over time, which …
Reply · 4 points
Storage while home sales are frozen: entry point or reason to sit out?
I voted wait, and my reason has nothing to do with the housing market. Sellers who bought or built into the boom have a basis that assumes the rent growth of that period. Some of t…
Reply · 1 point
A 9 acre parcel split into two lots for about $47k on an administrative plat
The discipline I'd point at: you bought the smallest thing that could work and finished it. Most people's first land deal is 80 acres and a dream about eleven lots, and they're sti…
Reply · -1 point
