All Forum Posts by: Levin Angeles

Quote from @George Azita:

LLC's are a waste of time and money as far as using them for protection against lawsuits since you already have insurance that covers most claims and your LLC will not protect your assets for any amounts above your insurance policy since is is simple to get a Charge Order to go after your personal interest in the LLC. Most savvy vendors and creditors don't want to do business with LLC's or they require a Personal Guarantee. LLC's are over-rated and don't provide any true value. I've seen many investors have serious tax problems when they pass away because it is common for some property tax collectors to consider that properties in an LLC belong to the LLC, nor to the owner of the LLC and the property tax benefits do not pass to the LLC owner's heirs.

I'm always willing to learn more so if you have any literature, you can recommend on this issue, I'd love to read more.  As I understand it you'll eventually hit a limit with how many personal mortgages you can carry so you need to use an LLC to get past that limit.  I'm obviously not at that limit yet but it does factor into my decision as well.

Thanks for the replies. Ohio LLC it is!

I live in NYC and I wanted to refinance my duplex in Toledo into an LLC. I've always heard you should have the LLC be located in the same state as the property but my lender recommended to form the LLC in the state where I live. Can anyone direct me to some information that outlines what the benefits are for both options?

If it's relevant, the property is currently personally owned and financed so I will be forming the LLC to refinance into a commercial loan. I would have considered just doing an umbrella policy instead but the loan is 15 years so I have to refinance anyway.
 

My wife and I purchased a new investment property in Toledo this year.  We went with LaPlante after doing our due diligence and am pleased with our relationship thus far.  I would suggest you continue to do your due diligence instead of taking my word for it.  I searched BG for any reference on LaPlante and other Property Managers read what they wrote and what others said about them then DMed people that used LaPlante to see how their experiences were.

Might I ask why you're intent on an all cash purchase?  Since this is my first purchase I knew I'd need as much cushion financially knowing that there's a ton I still don't know.  

So I'm selling a property with my Father.  The property was seller financed and the last payment was paid for over a decade ago and we've been using the property for business since.  We've since decided to sell the property and the previous lien is still showing up.  I managed to track down the previous seller and informed him it was his responsibility to file a release of mortgage form and even provided him with a form already filled out for him to sign and notarize.  He has since informed us that it would be too difficult for him to accomplish and that offering him a present would induce him to do what he's already legally obligated to do.

The problem is that we already have a seller lined up and this is the only thing holding up the deal.  The seller agreed to set aside $30k in escrow for this issue and we can go ahead with the sale.  We can also pay this guy off for a tiny fraction of that price to get this done quickly.  Since this rightly irritates me, I'm considering setting aside $30k in escrow then suing my would-be blackmailer for that sum or whatever I'm entitled to.  Naturally that would incur lawyer fees.

On principle I don't want to pay this guy off but as a business it might just be a smart thing to do as a cost of doing business.  Any advice would be appreciated.

In my area the general demand is for 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  Is there a difference if that 3rd bedroom and 2nd bathroom comes from the basement?  I'm interested in one such 2 bedroom single bathroom property with an unfinished basement.

On another note, how much of a barrier to sale does a standing violation.  I'm in discussions with my wife about selling our current house as an option to free up more capital.  When we bought the house, it came with what I consider a minor violation.  There's a brick fence on the front property line that also partially straddles the boundary with a neighbor who confirmed with me that they didn't think it was a big deal.  It adds a lot of curb appeal as it's connected to brick arches as well, so we decided accept the violation so the deal could go through.  So would removing the violation be a good investment?  How often will buyers withdraw their offers over such violations?

My wife and I are new investors looking for our first break. We had wanted to get more educated and gather more information before we got to this point but right across the street from us, a potentially good deal just opened up.

We just came back from seeing the property and it looks like it needs everything done.  Can anyone point me to the best way for me to quickly breakdown the costs for rehab?  I'm already familiar with the price ranges of the neighborhood since I live here and the asking price is already low enough that I think I can renovate with a healthy profit but I'd like to breakdown the costs item by item to better analyze the deal.

There's already multiple offers for the property and even if I don't get the deal I'd rest better knowing I didn't passively give up just because I didn't try my best with getting even a conservative offer on the table.

Thanks for any help.

As of now my wife and I are going through all the webinars and reading as much literature and we're coming to a point where we have to decide how best to use our assets. We've owned our own home for about 3 years. We got the best rate from a FHA loan for our home, renovated the basement and bought the house when the real estate market bottomed out.

My wife and I have enough money to do a renovation. First we talked about renovating our kitchen and bathroom and then selling our current home for a second FHA loan for another house we could renovate. We read about that strategy from the Bigger Pockets Book on buying with little or No Money Down. While a possibility, we rather like where we live now.

A second option would be to get a loan with a hard money lender.  Third we could form a partnership with one of my relatives who has more capital than we do.  Those are the options we're considering most.  We don't want to move but with the other two options we're scared of running out of our savings before we finish renovations.  I love my relatives too but involving money with family makes me hesitate just a little bit.

What would you suggest we do with our assets?  We feel like we have one shot to do this right so we want to consider all options.  Also which literature or seminars would you suggest I look through?  Any help is appreciated.