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- How To Get Listed on PadMapper.com
- Latest Grand Rapids Property Rehab Project: 831 Watkins St. SE
- In Michigan, 2 out of 5 Home Sales Are Foreclosures or Bank-Owned Properties
- How Low Will They Go? Banks Now Prefer Short Sales to Foreclosures
- Zillow to Zero? Zillow.com Opens at $60, Drops to $32.50 In First Day Of Trading
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How To Get Listed on PadMapper.com
Renters love PadMapper.com because it aggregates rental listings from across the web and displays them on one simple Google map. The website also allows searchers to filter results based on a number of factors, including rent range, bedrooms and bathrooms, amenities, pets, and location. As the filters are changed, the map of listings continuously updates. In a nutshell, PadMapper eliminates the hassle of scrolling through page after page of unorganized Craigslist ads, and it’s a great way to compare rents across …
Latest Grand Rapids Property Rehab Project: 831 Watkins St. SE
Here are before, during, and after photos of Short South’s most recent Grand Rapids rehab. The property is 831 Watkins St. SE, a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom single-family house. We purchased the property on September 9, 2011 for $14,250, $2750 more than the asking price. Leasing went quick: new tenants signed a lease before the remodel was complete and are set to move in November 1. Living Room Before: During: After: …
In Michigan, 2 out of 5 Home Sales Are Foreclosures or Bank-Owned Properties
It shouldn’t surprise, but it still does: In Michigan, foreclosures (in some form or another, including pre-foreclosures) and bank-owned properties accounted for a staggering 40% of all residential real estate sales in the quarter ending June 30, 2011. In a report published by RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosures, the average foreclosure in Michigan sold for $70,765, a hefty 40% discount off the State average. Bank-owned buyers did even better, getting close to a 46% discount. And pre-foreclosure sales—sales …
How Low Will They Go? Banks Now Prefer Short Sales to Foreclosures
The average time for the foreclosure process—from the time of the first notice to the completed foreclosure—has ballooned to a staggering 400 days. Instead of keeping these bad bets on their books that long, however, the nation’s biggest banks are responding by encouraging delinquent and underwater borrowers to pursue short sales. By definition, the lender loses money at a short sale, wherein the lender approves a sale by the borrower for less than the loan amount, with the lender—not …
Zillow to Zero? Zillow.com Opens at $60, Drops to $32.50 In First Day Of Trading
Zillow.com, the popular online real estate database, went public on Wednesday, pricing itself at $20 a share. After opening at a sky-high $60, a 200 percent jump, Zillow dropped to as low as $32.50 before treading in the $35-$40 range. At its peak, Zillow.com was valued at $1.6 billion—not bad for a company barely turning a profit. Zillow’s $70 million float follows HomeAway.com’s, which raised $216 million in June.
In Michigan, 36% Of Properties With Second Mortgages Are Underwater
According to a report released today by real estate data analysis firm CoreLogic, 36% of Michigan homeowners with a second mortgage are underwater. Michigan fares slightly better than the rest of the country, where 38% of second-mortgage borrowers are underwater. Nevada, at 63%, has the highest rate of negative equity. Adding to their troubles, underwater homeowners seeking a short sale—selling a property for less than the value of the outstanding mortgages—have a much harder time doing so when they have a second mortgage, because all the …
Michigan to Shorten Statutory Redemption Period on Residential Property From 6 Months to 3 Months
Michigan legislators have introduced a bill that would shorten the redemption period after a foreclosure sale from 6 months to 3 months. Statutory redemption, in general, is the right of a defaulting mortgagor to regain ownership of property after a foreclosure sale by paying what the property fetched at the sale, with interest from the date of the sale at the interest rate provided for by the mortgage agreement, plus costs. In Michigan, as it is currently written, homeowners in …
Convert Microsoft Word Lease to Fillable, Editable PDF Form Lease
Beginning in 2011 we committed to becoming a completely paperless property management company. To that end, we converted our Microsoft Word lease, which we often printed and mailed or delivered to prospective tenants, into a fillable, editable PDF lease. Click here to see our sample Michigan lease.* Digitizing the leasing process speeds up sending, receiving, and executing lease documents. PDF forms can be emailed as an attachment, eliminating the need to mail or fax. PDFs can be posted on …
Carpet installation: An easy do-it-partially-yourself renovation to come in under budget
We work with seasoned investors with a stable of properties, out-of-state homeowners with one house they can’t sell, and everyone in between. Yet it’s always the same: property owners want their house ready-to-rent under budget and on time. This picture is from a property located near Heritage Hill in Grand Rapids that an investor bought to rehabilitate and ultimately rent out as a single-family unit. The previous tenants had destroyed the property, and the owner later lost it to …
HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, and VacationRentals.com Inquiry-to-Booking Ratios and Costs-Per-Booking
In March 2010 we listed our Grand Haven Cottage on HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, and VacationRentals.com. The results have been great: the Cottage was fully booked for most of 2010 and spring and summer 2011 are already nearly full. However, as it becomes time to renew, I questioned whether all three listings were necessary to maintain our current occupancy level. So I sourced all bookings back to their original source. Here are the results: Leads Bookings Ratio Cost-Per-Booking HomeAway.com 40 5 8 …
