Good afternoon. Don Wede. It is Wednesday, June the 7th? Yeah, 7th, 2023. I’m in Metro East St. Louis right now. I’m across the river from St. Louis, Missouri. We do do business over here. I have to go look at a house over in Belleville, Illinois, over by O’Fallon, Carterville, this whole area over here. I’m sorry, Carterville? No, Shiloh, Belleville, Swansea, Fairview Heights, O’Fallon. But I’m going over to Belleville, had to put into the GPS. Apologize for the inaccuracy, but we’ve got a property over there. Somebody jumped on our website, filled out a form about a property they want us to take a look at. It’s in disrepair. It needs work, so that’s usually where we come in and shine. So going to take a look at the property, do an evaluation, see what it needs as far as labor, material for fix up and repair.
And another thing that we have to consider, a lot of people don’t, especially new people in the business, is what we call holding costs. Holding costs start from the day that you sign the paper when you own the property. Real estate taxes don’t ever stop. So you buy it day one, you don’t turn around and sell it day two when you’ve got to fix it up and repair and market the property. So you have to consider that as part of your cost when you are evaluating a property. It may be three months or six months that it’s going to be sitting before you can get that thing sold. So you have to consider that as far as taxes, real estate taxes.
Also, you have to consider utilities. You can’t work on a property if all the utilities are shut off. Some people try and it’s a fallacy, it’s a joke, it’s a mistake. So you have to have utilities at the property, and if you’re smart and not some idiot trying to cut corners, you also get insurance on the property from day one. So all those costs keep ticking, and those are what we call holding costs. I don’t know what other people call them, but that’s what I call holding costs. They need to be figured in on the evaluation of a piece of real property when it’s purchased.
So we’ll take a look at this property today. I’m in East St. Louis right now. Looks probably a little strange if you see people walking around. It’s a video for another day. I’m at the East St. Louis Southwestern Illinois Correctional Center in East St. Louis. So that’s an another little side thing that I do, but we’ll talk about that later. Has nothing to do with the real estate end of things. But I do some consultation over here at the prison and inspection.
So if you need to get ahold of us, you’ve got a problem you want solved, a real estate problem in the Metro East Area or St. Louis, Missouri, or throughout the state of Illinois, Southern Illinois, give us a call. We’re widespread. I travel the whole state. And if it’s not me, it’s an associate’s going to look at this property. We look at every single property before we put an offer in on them. But give me a call. You can call me at 1-800-255-8250 is the phone number. The company’s Heartland Funding Inc. The website is www.heartlandbuyshouses.com. Thanks for watching this video today. Bye.