All Forum Posts by: Brent Shields

@Stephanie Martinson If your just borrowing money on a property from someone,  I would call a title company, they usually draw up a note for free if you do your escrow through them.

@Brandi T. The syndications I have invested in have the best returns and are the most passive from all the different investments I have done over the years. 

I completely agree with John, I wish I knew about them when I was younger.

A close second would be NNN investments, the returns are usually less and they are a little more work.

Buying notes you might get lucky and get one here or there, but once you have a few of them at a good rate they turn into a job. 

If you have any questions you can send me a private message, I love talking with people about real estate investments. 

I know you need a real estate license if you are going to charge people a commission for doing real estate work for them.

It does not sound to me like your doing any real estate work setting up a website.

If you are just dealing with a few people you know then I would just borrow the money from them

and pay them an interest rate. 

The paperwork is a lot easier that way.

@Adam Moreschi for small loans you would loan money to the individual owners of the mobile homes

if you had larger amounts you could loan to the mobile home park owners.

@Frank Procopio and @Patricia Steiner   I agree with you when a broker is working with you and putting in time that changes things.

I didn't make it clear I was talking more about brokers who have only added me to an email list or spent a couple of minutes on the phone, something like that. 

Early in my real estate career, I bought a property using a broker. A short while later I bought another property using another broker and the first broker got really upset with me. 

So that does happen, and I probably could have avoided most of the problem by making it more clear that I would not be doing all of my business with him.

I always try to be fair and reasonable with people, and brokers live off their commissions so they are very important to them,  but I do think it's ok to talk to everyone you want to.

If you develop a relationship with a broker some will start to expect that you do not talk to any other brokers, others will not.

At that point, I think it's important that you let them know you have already talked to other brokers and will continue to do so, that way they do not get the expectation that you are only going to work with them. 

However, if a broker first tells me about a deal then I would go back to that broker to buy it.

It does get a little tricky when a broker has sent you a deal then another broker tells you about that same deal. When this happens I contact the 2nd broker as soon as possible and let them know someone has already talked to me about that deal.

Some brokers will get jealous and upset about this, but that's what I think is fair and reasonable. 

If you never want to upset anyone then just find one broker you like and only work through them. 

Definitely check with your CPA, but what I remember is that if your income is $100k or less then you can take up to a $25k loss and write it off against any income you have on your 1040.  

If your income is $150k or more then they don't allow you to take it.

I am not a CPA and not giving tax advice to anyone, but... on my taxes, I list all my expenses for my properties on a schedule E then I carry that schedule E amount over to the main 1040 page and deduct it from all my other income, not just other passive income. 

You should probably talk to a real estate CPA about the details, your taxes might be different than mine.

I have seen a handful of hard money lenders at the courthouse steps ready to make a loan if their client won the property, but I would say it's not that common. My guess is that most of them had a preexisting relationship with the people they were going to loan money to.

So probably you need to get a hard money lender, make a few regular loans with them and then ask about that possibility.