Starting Small with Incoming Producing Real Estate Investment Properties

Getting started with income producing properties is not very difficult. The three challenges that need to be overcome are as follows:

• The Knowledge Challenge
• The Mindset Challenge
• The Financial Challenge

Evicting a Tenant in North Carolina

The eviction process in North Carolina is a relatively straight-forward process. This will be a high-level guide to the process, please let me know if you have specific questions.

Why evict? The most likely reason is because the tenant has failed to pay their rent, but there are many other reasons: you believe the tenant to be involved in illegal activity; the tenants are causing trouble with the neighbors; or any other number of issues that have led you to want them to move. Regardless of the reason, you need to make certain that you have the right to evict the tenant. There is a clause in North Carolina’s landlord/tenant law that does allow the landlord to evict with no cause. Therefore, the landlord doesn’t need a reason to evict the tenant; the landlord has the right to evict for no cause.

How to evict a tenant? The first thing to do is to give notice to the tenants that you are evicting them. Unless noted otherwise in your lease agreement, you need to give a ten day notice for monthly renters and a two day notice for weekly rentals. Once the notice period is up, then you file paperwork: a magistrate summons and a complaint in summary ejectment. You can get these files online or you can pick them up from your local Clerk of Court office. The paperwork is relatively straight-forward. If you are uncertain, they can help you at the Clerk of Court office. Once you take the appropriate number of forms to the court to file and pay the appropriate fee, then the Clerk of Court’s office will assign you a day and time to come to Small Claim’s court.

When you come to court, bring a copy of your lease agreement and your records book showing the payment history. If you are evicting someone for failing to pay their rent, you will need this supportive documentation. If they have breached the lease in some other manner, then you will need to bring the documentation which supports your claim. If, however, you are evicting someone for no cause, then you may want to bring only the lease and your record book, but you shouldn’t be required to prove any wrong doing on the part of the tenant because you are not evicting them for any breach of contract.

Once the magistrate rules in your favor, you have to wait ten days to execute the writ of execution. If the magistrate does not rule in your favor, then you can appeal. The tenant has ten days to appeal the magistrate’s ruling. If the appeal has grounds, then you must wait for the new court date. During the time that you are waiting for the new court date, the tenant must make payments to the clerk of court’s office. If the tenant does not appeal, then at the end of the ten day period, you go back to the clerk of court’s office and execute the writ of execution. The sheriff’s office or local police department will then get into contact with you to meet you at the property to put the person outside of the home. You need to meet them there and change the locks while at the property with the officer. If they have not removed all of their property from the home, you need to check with the local clerk of court about how to handle their property. Typically, there is a time that they have to get the property within. If they don’t, then you need to follow the guidelines provided by the clerk of court.

I realize that this has been something of a whirlwind tour of the process, and you may have many questions. Please feel free to ask them in a comment, and I will get back with you ASAP.

Joseph Griffin

How to Analyze an Investment Property Part 1

In Real Estate Investing there is always question as to whether or not a particular property is a good long term investment. This question is difficult for most people to answer because they do not know what other questions to ask. They may know to ask the simple things, such as how much it costs, how much can I rent it for, how much will it be worth in ten years, and the like, but these questions are not enough, although they are necessary. There are two basic parts to analyzing the whether or not to purchase a particular investment property: the quantitative and the qualitative.

In this post, I will address the quantitative, and I will address the qualitative issues at a later date. There are four basic legs, if you will, to every real estate investment: 1) Income, 2) Depreciation, 3) Principal Reduction, & 4) Appreciation. All four of these items must be considered, if one is going to have a complete view of the investment.

We are going to answer these questions with the use of an Excel spreadsheet, as I cannot post an excel spreadsheet I have created a .pdf file showing the relevant information; you will need to make the calculations manually, however. But if you e-mail me, I will send you the Excel spreadsheet. You can view the .pdf file here. This spreadsheet was primarily taken from a class I took from Tom Lundstedt. Tom is a fantastic teacher with a lot of great material. You can view his website at www.tomlundstedt.com.

Income is the first question if everyone’s mind. How much can I make? The questions seem easy to answer at first, but you need some key numbers to correctly answer this question. Let’s begin with a sample investment property; below is the relevant information:

Foreclosure Listings Request

I have uploaded a couple of links to current foreclosure listings, and I have separated the foreclosures into two separate lists. Just click on the links below to see the foreclosure listings:

Click Here to View Caldwell Foreclosure Listings

Click Here to View Catawba Foreclosure Listings

If you have any questions about any of these listings, please either leave a comment, give me a call at 828.302.8530, or e-mail me at jgriffin@bengriffin.com. 

Joseph