Starting New with the Investment

We had secretly hoped that we would be able to make money right out of the gate with our first investment. We weren’t really expecting to, but we were hoping to. We knew from very early on that the building needed to have a new roof and new siding put on, but a few other surprises have popped up, along with their price tags.

Our first priority was to have the roof and siding done to prevent further damage to the building. This property had a history of deferred maintenance, so we wanted to try to get some of the big problems out of the way to try to protect against further damages. Our property manager set it up for us, and we spoke to the contractor ourselves before starting.

What we weren't expecting was a notice from the local police. We knew that the building was in a bad neighborhood, but we did not know that the police were cracking down in the area and putting pressure on property owners who ignore the problems with their properties. Fortunately it is not in my nature to do unethical and immoral things involving other human beings. I saw this as another opportunity, not only to improve my investment, but to improve the whole area for everyone involved. So, we spoke to the police officer about how to improve the property. So, we are going to be putting in security gates at all the access points to the central courtyard. We are hopeful that this will solve some of the crime problems and give our tenets some security. Of course we are also putting in policies to screen potential tenets, and will evict any tenets that cause continual problems. So far it is working well.

Our property manager asked us today if some of the tenets could contact us directly. Of course, one of the main purposes of having a property manager is so that tenets do not call us with every little problem, but we have given them our mailing address. Now we just have to wait and see, but the manager made it sound positive.

Closing

The trial and tribulations of closing on this investment seemed never ending. In fact we were due a small refund at the time of closing which we still have not received after a month and a half. (I am told that it is in the mail.)

The entire closing process was a very daunting task indeed. I only made it worse by how worried we were about the whole thing falling thru now that we had finally reached the end. The paperwork was never ending. I am sure that we duplicated information many millions of times. We had to supply all sorts of forms to the lender, not just the basic application forms with the details about the property, but notarized forms to prove that we were who we said we were, and even a form to say that there was never a dry cleaning business on the property. At points I thought that the paperwork would drive me insane. Every time I thought that it was all over and I had sent in everything that I needed to, they would request more. Maybe it was due to the lender, maybe the type of loan, or maybe the type of property, I just do not know.

My plan is to put together a list and copies of all of the documents needed for closing, or at least the ones that we needed for this closing. So then in the future we can have the items available in advance to make the process smoother. I have just not had the stomach to go over it all again. But when I do I will post it as a reference for everyone else. I hope that it will be a useful tool for anyone who is on the selling end also since the seller supplied a large number of the items.