Lawrence Kansas Real Estate

AR has 5 blogs that mention Darryl Davis.  One person referred to Darryl as her friend in one blog and in another she mentions his shiny penny analogy in regard to making your listing be the "prettiest, cleanest, and most attractive".  Another person wondered whether he should take the followup program that Darryl offers and in another blog he quoted Davis by saying he was ready to take his business to the "next level".  Another blog mentions Davis' 8 main points in his recent Broker Agent News article.

I was fortunate enough to attend one of his free seminars, as I'm sure many other AR members have done, and I took two crammed pages of notes.  Other than the shiny penny analogy, everything else I learned was different from the AR blogs.

I had never heard of Davis before but feel that if anyone takes the time to go hear him, they would learn something since he seems to have something to offer to everyone.  There is nothing really earth shattering but Darryl is high energy and helps motivate you to action and gives you several concrete ideas to put into practice in his free seminar.  I would guess a lifetime worth of ideas would be gleaned from his complete seminar and follow up program.  I hope to take it some time but I was unable to do it at the time offered.

"Okay", you're saying, "What did you learn?"  Of the dozens of ideas, one thing that stuck in my mind that Davis shared was to not be more committed to selling a listing than the seller is.

This was confirmed by a listing of mine where I was doing everything possible to increase the traffic into the home but the seller seemed to be doing everything in their power to deter showings by not making the property available.  Obviously that listing was not renewed.

I have put many other things Davis taught into practice and I'm sure you will too if you get a chance to hear him.

Disclaimer:  I am not related to Davis nor have I or will I receive any incentive for mentioning him in this blog.

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   (same website name if you want to visit)

About a year ago I took a class with Tom Lundstedt in Wichita Kansas.  He teaches weird things like firing your accountant and bifurcation.  Yet, these two tips have become great discussion starters in working with investors in real estate.

There, of course, has to be a valid reason for firing your accountant.  Also, if you do your own bookkeeping, you probably aren't going to fire yourself.  But, checking to see if you or your accountant are making use of tax saving advantages, proper accounting methods, and understanding investment startegies is well worth your time.  There are very few Realtors who take the time to learn these methods through courses like Tom's.  Fewer still are the Realtors who put into practice what they have learned from his instruction.

Tom came up to me after the class and said, "I can tell you're really going to put this information to use."  I don't know whether it was the questions I had asked during class or whether he saw my gears turning in my cranium but I had made up my mind to offer investment property classes to buyers interested in building wealth through real estate investment.

Bifurcation has been written into several of my contracts which provides a tax advantage primarily to investors but also can benefit owner occupied purchases.  While the details and significance of this process are too in depth to go into here, below is a cut and paste from a contract I closed on yesterday.

Buyer requests $140,000 cost to be broken down into the following:  $9,000 personal property, $2,750 land improvements, $115,000 for building, and $13,250 land.  The significance of this step allowed for a tax savings for this buyer in the amount of $676 per year.

Give me a call and bring some friends to my free investment property classes held in four convenient Douglas County Kansas locations (3 in Lawrence and 1 in Eudora).

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   (same website name if you want to visit)

I just closed on an investment property for one of my investor buyers.  At several times, he seemed to be getting cold feet. Now this, in and of itself is not bad when you are making as big a decision as buying real estate but it needs to be balanced with listening to qualified research and statistics.

A Realtor should seek out county information on previous sales information that is available as well as building material quality and county appraisals.  A Realtor should work through the cash on cash return with the investor to show this is a sound investment property.  Lenders should provide peace of mind from the application process on down to closing with a funded loan.  Inspectors should discover any deficiencies in the property so the buyer is not caught unaware after purchase.  The title company should present closing in a professional manner, even though they just received the closing scheduling at 10:30 the same day.  There are others in this team process that work hand in hand to calm any fears of the buyer by answering thoroughly any questions they have.

Having done all that, sometimes, "cold feet" are still present even after the closing.  But if everything has been done by the team representing them to "warm" the buyer up to the property and continuing after the closing with words of encouragement, then the peace of mind they have with the professionals they have entrusted to direct them in their investment in real estate will be confirmed.

Maybe a nice pair of foot warmers is in order as a thank you gift in these instances.

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   (same website name if you want to visit)

www.irs.gov/formspubs is a great website to send to your clients to order tax forms and publications.  Some specific forms that may be useful are:  523 Selling Your Home, 527 Residential Rental Property, 547 Casualties, Disasters, and Thefts, 551 Basis of Assets, 555 Community Property, 587 Business Use of Your Home, and 936 Home Mortgage Interest Deduction.

With Form 551 Basis of Assets, I remind buyers when they purchase a home to bifurcate the cost of the property right in their contract to purchase.  That way, there is a "basis" of record.  Here is a recent cut and paste from the special provisions section of one of my client's investment property contract:

Buyer requests $140,000 cost to be broken down into the following:  $9,000 personal property, $2,750 land improvements, $115,000 for building, and $13,250 land.

A standard accountant will usually just enter $140,000 into their software and let the program bifurcate the cost into 80% building and 20% land.  However, this is a disservice to their clients taxwise.  Tom Lundstedt, in his residential and investment real estate classes, teaches if this is what your accountant does, fire him and get a new accountant.

Form 8396 Mortgage Interest Credit should prove helpful to your clients as well.

Disclaimer:  A professional tax consultant should be retained for proper tax advice.  This blog is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered tax advice.

A few other AR tax blogs:

Geena's third in a series of 8 http://activerain.com/blogsview/38587/TAX-TIPS
John's http://activerain.com/blogsview/23576/Don-t-Forget-Your
Vickie's http://activerain.com/blogsview/38314/Tax-Deductions-for-PMI and http://activerain.com/blogsview/38601/Homeowner-Tax-Perks

For many more on taxes click here. 

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   (same website name if you want to visit)

Lake view from loft bedroom

Lake view from loft BR & front yard. Spring Creek Park across road, loft BR is open but will be enclosed by Seller if desired. Move-in ready, bring all offers, new flooring, newer paint, HVAC, siding, roof about 6 yrs. old.

5 Acres Zoning AG. Four Minutes SE of Baldwin. Spring Creek Park Across Road.  Built 1988, Well, Septic, 1,300 sq ft slab, 1BR, 1BA, loft off of living room is non-conforming second bedroom, lake view from front yard. Home is set back 700 ft off of road. 3 acres fenced for pasture of brome, tool shed, metal 14x20 shelter for cattle. 

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   http://www.letrobdoit.com/

Lease 1 or more office spaces in former law office, shared mini-kitchen area, FREE wireless internet, 2 parking areas, shared utilities. This #B-4 unit is 14'11" x 10'10" and rents for $300.

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   http://www.letrobdoit.com/

Lease 1 or more office spaces in former law office, shared mini-kitchen area, FREE wireless internet, 2 parking areas, shared utilities. This #B-3 unit is 13'2" x 15'9" and rents for $300.

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   http://www.letrobdoit.com/

NOTE:  This blog was written in the past about properties on the market at the time of the blog being written and should not be considered as active listings beyond the date of this blog.  

$150,000 APPROX $20,000 BELOW COUNTY APPRAISAL!!

Schools: Sunset Hill Elementary, West Jr High, Free State High

four bedrooms and two bathrooms

Move in ready, easily converted to a duplex

1756 sq ft total

Huge work/bonus room under full sized two car garage

Walkout basement from 2nd living area to patio, large backyard

5 year old Central Air and Forced air gas

Built in 1960, Lot size 8040, 16 x 20 second living area, Partial smooth wire and wood fenced backyard.

Bring all offers. Recently remodeled: new carpet & linoleum and refinished wood floors.

Newer roof, newer siding, Great mature trees in fenced backyard, beautiful Colorado chalet at end of the block.

Close to KU campus, could be easily converted to a duplex with two bedrooms up and two bedrooms down.

Click here for visual tour, call Rob at 785-393-2274 for showing. Ask Rob about 0% down payment, 5.5% financing, no PMI option! For other homes in this zip code visit http://www.66049homes.com/ and for other zip codes visit http://www.66006homes.com/ http://www.66044homes.com/http://www.66046homes.com/ http://www.66047homes.com/ and http://www.66025homes.com/

Rob will help you find previous sales information, county appraisals for the past three years, building material quality, block analysis, and more. Been renting? Visit http://www.renters2buyers.com/ to discover that you have actually been buying. Fire your landlord and quit buying the place for him. Become a homeowner. Rob at 785-393-2274 will show you how. Free 2-10 Home Warranty with every home Rob lists or sells. Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate. 

Let's face it; not everyone has GPS equipped vehicles yet.  So a nice addition to our listings would be to have a map with a map pin that shows where the listing is.  Well, one such tool exists and it is called RentVine.

This map can be found on my Visual Tours Listings Website which also directs customers to my Zip Codes Listings Websites (link to subject of my last AR blog).  This is just one of several things you could do with this great mapping tool.  But wait, the best is yet to come!

Talk about impressive!!  This was a first for me.  I was editing this RentVine map for my real estate listings and experienced a minor problem that was generating an error.  I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working.  Normally, it has been very easy to do the mapping of my listings with map pins, adding text, price, photo, and description and I would be done with the map in about a minute and ready to cut and paste the code onto my website.

But this time, no matter what I did including deleting the map and starting over, it just kept generating an error.   I heard a ding so I thought I would take a break and check out the email that had just come in (a ding works for me instead of "You've Got Mail").

Anyway, the email was from Dave Dugdale of RentVine's Support Team asking me what I had done right before the error was generated.  I thought I was dreaming -- I didn't have to call anyone and wait on the phone, tech support was contacting me!!

Well the problem turned out to be a corrupted photo of my listing that Dave had me email to him.  He fixed the graphic by resaving it in his photo editing software and uploaded the image to my map for me.  He fixed it for me!  I would have expected something like "You'll need to get another photo" but he fixed it!  Thanks Dave and RentVine for such a fine product and fantastic immediate tech support!

Disclaimer:  I have no financial interest in RentVine, will make no money from writing this blog, and have never heard of Dave Dugdale prior to his tech support contact with me today.

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   http://www.ihaveaddresses.com/

I started thinking of ways I can easily get info on homes available to sellers so they can do a mini CMA.  I decided to buy six domain names of zip codes that I service followed by the word homes.  They are:

http://www.66006homes.com/  http://www.66025homes.com/ http://www.66044homes.com/ http://www.66046homes.com/ http://www.66047homes.com/ http://www.66049homes.com/

Except for Coldwell Banker whose listings I had to pull out due to their desires not to IDX (anyone understand why they don't want others to promote their properties??), both buyers and sellers can see what is available on the market now.  I will eventually be adding another part to the page or a link to another page that lists the SOLDs and the prices that the homes received.

If any of the rest of you make some zip code pages, let me know by commenting below.

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   http://www.ihaveaddresses.com/

He was recently released from prison in Mansfield, Ohio, after serving time for forgery and theft.  On his way to Kansas, he was arrested for an open-container violation in Indiana.  January 29th last year he was arrested in Lawrence Kansas after he allegedly snatched a purse, and is now out on bond.  His girlfriend has a previous arrest for the manufacture of methamphetamines.  Right now they are looking for an apartment!

Ray Higdon posted a great AR blog a while back on sexual predator websites that are available for free.

My son runs a national tenant screening business and can be contacted at http://www.ksrental.com/ or by phone at 785-542-1771.  The charge is $25 and can be paid online by credit card or you can mail payment with rental application.  Zach can get you rental application forms, rental denial letter, and other landlord docs that may be of help to landlords in an 11 page packet that can be emailed as a .pdf.

The $25 Tenant screening includes: credit report, civil, criminal, sex offender, jail logs (that don't lead to a case), police incident reports of the subject's address, etc.  He checks the background of your prospective tenants and employees (pre-employment screening available too) in every county and state where they've lived, and in federal courts as well.  The credit report will show if the applicant has had trouble paying utilities and phone bills that are usually linked with rent expenses (if you can't pay the phone or utility bill, you probably can't pay the rent).  For $10 more, Zach will call the previous landlords and verify the present place of employment.

As Ray states in his blog, most sex offender links are free but there are some sites that are by subscription basis only and historical civil and criminal records going back to 1988 are not available in many cases unless the records are collected into a database which Zach has access.  To save yourself the time, receive a credit report, have a thorough background check performed, and have peace of mind, call Zach to check out your next tenant applicant.  Feel free to pass a link on to this blog to investment property clients who have tenant screening needs as well.  Again, the applications are available online at http://www.ksrental.com/ or Zach can be reached at 785-542-1771.  If you lose track of this blog after reading it, remember AR has a great search engine that allows you to select "Blogs" and enter a search phrase such as "tenant screening" which should find this article once it is indexed.

Thanks!
Rob Lang, ABR, ePro, GRI Realtor®
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
300 Rockfence Pl, Lawrence, KS  66049
785-393-2274 (cell)   785-542-1661 (fax)
rob@LetRobDoIt.com   http://www.ihaveaddresses.com/