Cars and Trucks Under 1000 Dollars - Tips For Buying at Auction

Auctions can often be a great place to look for a car or truck under 00. Local public auctions are generally advertised in the newspaper or on the radio. Dealer, wholesale and estate auctions are also good local sources. Online auctions can be found on Co Part, craigslist, and eBay.

Co Part requires registration on their site to participate in their auctions. They publish their scheduled Virtual Sales (auctions) and allow you to preview vehicles online prior to bidding.

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Inspect the vehicles on the day on the auction or on the specified inspection day if one is scheduled. Know what you're looking for before you go to the auction. Allow one to two hours to check the car(s) over the inside and out. Check the mileage, lights, radio, upholstery, windows, trunk or any special features. Do your research prior to viewing the vehicle so you know exactly what to look out for and to see if it is going to properly suit your needs. Look for stickers that indicate if there is a clear title or that the vehicle is drivable.

The most important thing to remember when bidding is a predetermined amount you're willing to pay for the vehicle you choose. It's easy to get caught up in the bidding and end up paying more than you wanted.

You should asses the value of your target vehicle before the auction. You can do this with the help of online pricing guides like National Auto Dealer's Association, Kelley Blue Book, and Edmunds. Look up similar vehicles on eBay to see the starting bids and final price. Local dealer websites may be helpful as well. You can get a good idea of what similar vehicles are selling for retail that way.

You should read the conditions of the sale before you buy. If you don't pay for or take possesion of the vehicle after your winning bid there could be penalties.

Good luck on your first or next auction experience!

Cars and Trucks Under 1000 Dollars - Tips For Buying at Auction

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10 Hazardous Waste Monsters to Be Aware Of When Buying Commercial Real Estate

Real estate is a lucrative niche for many people, and there is a lot to stand to benefit from acquiring land as far as re-selling, development, and other purposes. However, just as you would want to have a used car inspected before paying for it is important to know what you are getting into when it comes to purchasing property, and for that reason Environmental Site Assessment surveys are extremely important in the buying and property selection process.

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Unfortunately, in this day and age hazardous waste is a real thing and a real profit-killer at that. For this reason, Phase I and Phase II surveys and reports are more important than ever, as they can help to identify ten of the major hazardous waste monsters out there that are destined to kill your real estate profit.

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For your information, these ten hazardous waste monsters are:

o Buried Oil Tanks

o Previous Gas Station Sites

o Asbestos

o Hazardous Waste from Adjacent Properties

o Previous Industrial Site

o PCB's (Typically from fluorescent light ballasts)

o Lead

o Previous Military Sites

o Contaminated water supply system

o Dangerous Farming Chemicals/Pesticides

How to Tell If You Are At Risk

Unfortunately, most of the hazardous waste risks are rather difficult to identify, especially just by looking at the property. Even some basic inspections fail to identify these key problems, so it is extremely important to make sure that you obtain an Environmental Site Assessment just to make sure that you don't have any of these problems to look forward to.

Phase I and Phase II Environmental Assessment Reports can give you an idea of what there is on your property. This assessment is done by inspecting and taking samples of the flora on your site as well as some other environmental samples. The samples are then bottled and taken to a laboratory and the tested for the presence of hazardous waste. This may take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months and it can be a very costly procedure, but very worth it in the end as the value of such a property is drastically lowered.

In addition, the owner of the property or the owner of adjacent properties might also be able to give you an idea of what things to look for before the inspection is even performed, as they can often remember the purposes the site has been used for in previous years.

A Phase I report will give you some idea of what to expect and a Phase II report usually follows as a more extensive version of the Phase I report.

What If There Are Hazardous Materials Present?

If your Environmental Site Assessment determines that you have one of the ten hazardous waste monsters to deal with, that is not necessarily the be-all and end-all of your property investment. A Phase III report can be obtained to determine what steps need to be taken to rehabilitate the property, but this assessment is often financially draining and extremely time consuming as well. Whether or not you want to proceed with the purchase of the property is up to you, but the presence of hazardous waste sucks a lot of the value out of a property and that must be reflected in your purchase price, as this type of project can be very costly to rehabilitate.

If it has been determined that there are hazardous waste materials present on a site that you have purchased, or are thinking about purchasing, it is important to note that the value of the property is drained immediately. It is no longer as valuable a piece of land because even after it has been cleaned and rehabilitated, there are certain things that it cannot be used for. Usually land must be zoned for certain purposes and it can only be zoned for certain types of buildings or uses. After the presence of hazardous waste materials has been determined, it may or may not be in your best interest to proceed with the sale depending on what you had planned to use the land for in the first place.

Hazardous waste materials can definitely be a killer when it comes to dreaming of a certain use for your site, but know their presence is not always a deal killer. There are things that can be done to make land usable after the presence of hazardous waste has been determined. If the numbers make sense on the allowable use for the land, it is just a matter of negotiating a purchase price that works and rehabilitating the property for development.

10 Hazardous Waste Monsters to Be Aware Of When Buying Commercial Real Estate

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Buying A Gas Station? Don't Get Mental Over An Environmental!

If you're looking to buy a gas station or convenience store, one of the main reasons banks and other lending institutions do not like to lend to this asset class is because of supposed environmental concerns. While it is true that the likelihood of having an environmental issue is greater with buying a gas station than it is with purchasing an apartment building or office building, reality is often clouded by perception.

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Gas stations, convenience stores and truck stops can have environmental issues from the following areas: 1) Leakage 2) Spillage and 3) Migration. Leakage occurs when the tank or the lines from an underground storage tank (UST) develop a leak and contamination in the soil occurs. In truth, this happens significantly less because of improvements in underground storage tanks and leak detection equipment. Years ago, a lot more steel tanks were used and even single walled fiberglass tanks. Today, it's almost a given that a double-walled fiberglass tank will be purchased and the incidence of leakage has gone down significantly. Spillage is either where you have spilled fuel from overflowing your tank while filling up your car or from a fuel truck filling up the underground storage tanks. Again, improved vapor recovery systems have improved so that those incidences have decreased. Migration is where there has been soil contamination on another property and it is migrated to surrounding properties.

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In truth, the average cost to "remediate" a gas station (which basically means to clean it up) is less than ,000 and in most cases, gas stations and convenience stores do not even close down to have the site cleaned up. Most of the time, these costs will be paid by the State's LUST fund, which is specifically set up to pay for cleanups from leakage, spillage and migration. Not all leakage and spillage are created equal. Spilling a gallon of fuel from the car from overfilling is certainly different than a tanker truck spilling thousands of gallons of fuel, yet they're both considered "spillage." From a lenders point of view, they are concerned about liability and the borrower's ability to pay their note if the site is closed down. Every now and then you hear about a gas station that has had huge leakage from an underground storage tank and it contaminates the neighborhood and the bank is liable for the costs because someone did not pay their premium to have it covered in the State pool or the State pool is insolvent. This is VERY rare. In most cases, most bankers are not experts on environmental issues and concerns nor do many of them take the time to learn other than on a cursory level.

If you are looking to purchase a gas station or convenience store, what should you look for? The first thing you should ask the seller is if there is an open file on the site with the State's environmental division (called DEP, DEQ among other names). Some sellers will know more than others depending on how long they have owned the property and if they had to finance it. If they have a loan on the property, they most likely had a Phase I done on the property and they will know if there is an open file or if the site has been cleaned up (remediated). Do not make the mistake of simply asking "are there any environmental issues with this site?" That is a nebulous question because an issue to one person is not an issue to another. Ask if there has ever to their knowledge been any environmental issues, leakage, spillage, cleanups, or if the site has ever had or if it currently has an open file with the State. You can ask them if the fire marshall has ever had to visit the site due to a complaint of fuel vapor smells. The gas station may have had an issue ten years ago and it's gone through two owners since then, so not all sellers will know this information. Many think there is not an issue because the site is in the cleanup fund covered by the State and they have an open file, but because they know they are not liable, they feel there is no issue. Again, ask more questions.

A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) is when a company will look online first to see if there is an open file with the State and they will make a site inspection to see if there are any obvious signs of possible environmental issues. For instance, the will go where the underground storage tank is and look to see if there is dead grass (obviously not in winter) above where the tank is. That is a possible sign of leakage. They'll look at the condition of the property, look to see if batteries, tires, oil are properly disposed of. The generally will not take a soil sample. A Phase II is generally when there is a recognized environmental condition (REC) and will take a soil sample and will go into much greater detail. If the site does not have an open file with the State and the bank wishes to do a Phase II (which cost a LOT more money to do), you probably should find another lender. In most cases, there really is no reason to do a Phase II if there is not an open file and there are not recognized environmental conditions.

You can usually do your homework and find out in a very short period of time if a site is worth pursuing when it comes to environmental issues. Obviously older sites are statistically more likely to have issues than newer ones. Sites with steel underground storage tanks are statistically more likely to have issues than newer ones. If you're looking at an older site with steel tanks, check around sufficiently because you don't want somebody else's problem becoming yours.

Buying A Gas Station? Don't Get Mental Over An Environmental!

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