All Forum Posts by: Ari Bachrach

It seems like most people on BP don't like condos. I started with condos and own a few. Here are some good and bad things about this.

In my market real estate is so expensive it's very hard to make things cash flow. Condos haven't appreciated as much, so it was easier to make them cash flow, even with their high HOA fees. Your mileage will obviously vary, just don't forget to count the HOA fees in your calculations. For example the 1% rule becomes to 1+HOA% rule.

Vacancy is a bigger deal because you're paying HOA fees. How long will it take you to get the place ready to rent? If it will take 3 months, it will take 3 months of HOA fees too.

While they cash flowed better on paper, smaller units are the hardest things to rent out. Don't fall for cheap 1 bedroom units like I did. Except near universities no one wants to rent those.

You will have much lower capex - there's no roof, no foundation, no gutters, no hot water heater, etc. I know a lot of working professionals that only do condos for this reason - they just don't have time to deal with the increased aggravation of a house.

Here's an idea - list your home FSBO and let agents call you. I listed a home FSBO on zillow a few months ago, and my phone starting ringing off the hook with agents who wanted to represent me. (Note to agents using that strategy, you are not the only one to think of that). Of the 20 or so who called me about 4 or 5 said right up front that they were willing to cut their commission. I guess if you're trying to represent someone who is going FSBO you know what they value.

I've been investigating Israeli Tama-38 projects lately, and I'm curious to know if anyone else has ever invested in one and if so what their thoughts were. Any tips on what I should look for when investing?

If you've never heard of Tama-38 and are curious, you can watch this as it's the best English summary I've found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuozqevgMnk

That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you.

However, I'm still not seeing it show up in the forum list, and I'm suddenly wondering if there are other forums I'm missing too. When I go to the forum menu I select the local real estate tab, and I see a second menu which contains links for a few states (TX, FL, CA, NJ), and a link for all local, which is a link to this page: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/86-local-real-estate-networking. I don't see a mention of the international forums. I'm sure this is just a UI thing that I'm not comprehending, but other than your direct links, how would I find those forums? 

Can I request a new forum? I've seen a lot of chatter in various places on the topic of investing internationally - it might be nice to consolidate it into a single forum. There are lots of special issues when it comes to international (currency risk, legal issues, foreign taxes and tax credits, different countries laws and opportunities, etc.) that would make this a very useful forum.

Thank you *all* (seriously, there are more of you to thank in this thread than I can count). I guess my first incorrect assumption was that this llc would be treated as a disregarded entity just as a single member llc was. 

I looked at the 1065 and it doesn't look too bad. I'll have my CPA prepare that and the K-1s at the end of the year. (On the plus side, by thinking of this ahead of time I won't be rushing in April)

@Ashish Acharya thanks for the tip on S corp taxation. When the dust settles from this and we sit down to talk about our next project, I'll add this to the list of things to discuss.

I'm signing the papers to sell my first flip in a few hours. Despite everything going wrong that could have gone wrong, we're actually going to make money on the deal. (Wooo!) The flip was done in a multi member llc that me and my partner each own 50% of. I kept very good records of every expense incurred throughout the project. At the end of the year I assume I'll need to generate some sort of forms for tax purposes that show how much money each of us made. What do I need to do? Do I actually need to give myself and my partner a 1099? Do I just make the distributions to each of us and then each of us reports it on our own returns as other income without an official form? Something else?

I got those from redfin. They allow you to download a csv file and then I parse that.

Yeah, I noticed that too - the properties with the highest cap rate are ones where the purchase price is fake - auctioneers to do to attract attention, even though everyone knows they'll end up selling for more. Same thing with short sales. Since I don't know where an auction will end, the only thing I can think of is to search listing for the word auction and remove them entirely from the list. Would that be better?

I've put together a spreadsheet of every property currently available on the MLS for PG county along with it's estimated rent (from zillow), taxes (from SDAT), and then the calculated expenses, income, net cash flow, and cap rate. If you want to see it, I've shared it here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZCyGxTIO-r...

Note that there are some variables you can modify on the second tab to see how they effect your calculated cash flow and cap rates. Just copy the sheet to your own account and then you can modify it.

* Interest rate (default is 5%, but you can change it. For the moment everything assumes 100% financing)

* Repairs (default is $2000)

* Vacancy (default is 10%)

I also make sure to include HOAs, management fees (which vary based on property type), and insurance (which also vary based on property type, and are just estimates).

The list is up to date as of this evening (June 6th), but it's static so it won't be updated unless I update it. If people find this useful or interesting I could potentially set up something automated to keep it updated.