Your questions about zillow com real estate

Wize Guy answers:

GO;and ask ,newmexico,(real estate/renting) he was very helpful, to me; ‘ happy house hunting!! for;’house 4 houston’.

Wize Guy answers:

First thing, you can’t go to a website and get the value of your home, I will say it one more time, you can’t go to a website and get the value of your home. These web sites are a guess at best. They are like a blind man in a shooting contest. They all use county data and can not tell the condition or do they know the difference between a one story home or a two story with a basement. They take all the square footage and lump it together and you can not do that with basements or area below grade. They take all homes, regardless of sales date, design or style. They will compare unfinished basements with finished basements. Sorry but your not going to find the vaule of your home unless you do a appraisal. These websites are a joke.

Wize Guy answers:

There are several things here:

1) Getting loans for the down payment can be good in the right situation, but you have to buy right. Remember, interest paid is an expense that will cut into your bottom line. Generally, you want to mortgage as much as you can but only as much as you can comfortably pay off through rental receipts. The more you borrow, the harder that is.

2) You give a wide range of possible rental receipts. That tells me you don’t know the rental market for this kind of property well enough. You should be able to a much closer number – ie $2500-$2750 or whatever.

You need to look at all expenses. First, you have to realize there will be some vacancies – no income while it is vacant, advertising costs, etc.

Then there are things like taxes and insurance, and you need a budget to handle repairs. Both short term repairs like plugged toilets, as well as long term expenses like eventually replacing carpet, roof, repainting and the like.

Investors normally figure 50% of the rental will be taken up in maintenance, vacancy expenses, administrative costs, property taxes and the like.

So if we take $2200 as rent, that means that $1100 would be available to pay for the mortgage.

A 30 year mortgage for a $700,000 property is $4,657.12
at $500,000 it is $3,326.51
at $300,000 it is $1,995.91

This is all assuming you can get 7% financing on a non-owner occupied (investor) loan.

So from my perspective, this is a deal that would send me screaming away in terror if I wanted to do a rental.

If this was truly a $700,000 property, if I could buy for $600,000 then I’d consider buying to resell, but in today’s market I’d have to feel incredibly strong about doing it.

Also, be very careful about Zillow, or other on line sites for getting valuations. I’ve seen these in general (and Zillow in particular) to be off by as much as 30%. So much of determining valuation is based on comparing similar properties. Online services have a great difficulty comparing houses that have been rehabbed vs those that haven’t, as well as other amenities that inpact on value, especially in “transitional neighborhoods.”

So from a rental aspect I’d say this is a dog. It could still possibly be a good investment to purchase and resell, especially if there is some need of repair and rehab because it has been vacant for so long, but then we’d have to talk about other numbers.

Some general advice: Most areas have Real Estate Investment (REI) clubs. These are places where real estate investors, lenders, accountants, lawyers and others meet regularly to talk about issues and to network. If you are knew to the business it is a great way to rub elbows with people who work in real estate, make contacts and pick up real life knowledge.

You can find listings for real estate clubs in your area by visiting www.reiclub.com which is also a great resource for new REI.

Consider getting a mentor – or see about partnering up with an established real estate investor. If you can realistically get financing without a problem, there are loads of investors who could partner with you on a couple of deals. They provide the deal, you provide the financing and get to watch a couple deals happen while you make some money. After 2-3 deals like that you will have learned enough to do some on your own.

There is a widely accepted, 3-levels of real estate investment that goes like this:

If there is a deal you can’t do – refer another investor to it (you’ll get a referal fee)

If there is a deal but you can only do part of it – keep some of the profit and pass the rest on to another investor – either as a partner of assign the rights t them (wholesaling)

Do the deals that you can do by yourself.

Good luck

Wize Guy answers:

google property sales in LA. and you will find any number of real estate brokers, agents etc with their listings on line

Wize Guy answers:

Do you mean the Multiple Listing Service?

That is what most realtors use to check current actives, recent sales, withdrawals and expires, tax information, ownership information, create CMAs, -and also to produce the MLS listing that appears on Realtor.com, flyer sheets for prospective buyers, etc.

This is not free information, although some local MLS systems do have a limited “public” site.

Multiple Listing Services are local (for example, Venice Florida Local Area MLS), are frequently reciprocal (we are reciprocal to the entire Southwest Florida corridor so all agents in that area can access information on all properties in that area); and they offer an extraordinary amount of information for a licensed realtor who is specially trained in this software and is PAYING for the privilege of access.

And, it’s not cheap. Because, this software and these sights require extraordinary amounts of maintenance – the databases involved are huge, as you might imagine.

And they are not necessarily simple to use or understand, and require special training to do it correctly.

However, we do have a limited public site at www.veniceareamls.com that shows some of the information from the database.

If you want to know the approximate value of your home, ask a couple of realtors to do a comparable market analysis (CMA) for you. Most agents will do it for you at no charge.

And, ask them if the local MLS has a limited information site that is available to the general public.

Good luck and best wishes.