All Forum Posts by: Carol D.

Jaron - Thank you!

Real estate investing is a numbers game, not an opinion based debate to find the best city. You can use a million strategies and take a million paths to success but I would focus on the numbers first. What is budget for the first property? What type of property does that afford? Are you looking for cash-flow, value add, or flip deals? How far do you want to live from the investment? When you answer those questions you'll know where to buy.

Agreed! What I am trying to figure out is DOES THIS NEW CITY MAKE SENSE. The surface numbers seem to but how do I dive deeper. To answer your questions... Budget - anything but in this city it looks like I can get a nice SFH for under $50,000. Definitely cash flow. And I live very far from all my investments. What I see in this city is a lot of good homes for sale for really good prices. But what I also see is a lot of available rentals. My concern of diving in is buying a house and then not being able to rent it or to rent it at the price I need. So just looking for ways to better understand a city. Possibly my next best step is to visit the city and find a property manager. Thanks for any advice on this!

My investing has been limited to a couple small towns.  I'm interested to start investing in a larger city.  However, there are a lot of rentals on the market in this city.  Are there some strategies to analyse a city to see if it would be a good place to invest in or a place to avoid.  I would appreciate any ideas / advice.  Thanks!  (I am focusing on Single Family Home Rentals).

Today Big Picture Retirement Podcast had the topic of:

Protecting Rental Property

https://www.bigpictureretirement.com/protecting-rental-property/

My question that arrises from this is.... "Is this overkill?" (They were suggesting series LLC and separate tax return for each LLC which would also mean a separate bank account for each LLC).

Has there ever been a RE liability case where the plaintiff exceed $1,000,000 from insurance and then pierced the LLC and sued the landlord personally?

I have my property insured for $1,000,000 liability... I have a property manager... and it is in a pass-through LLC. I realize I could do more but should I do more?

Thanks for any comments... advice...

 Corby - Thank you!  This is very helpful.  I called a few more lawyers and found one that seems more in tune with RE because he had a set fee for a quick claim deed... which was $160 plus the county filing fee.  So, I will take your advice and start at the courthouse.  Ultimately I have several houses to retitle into LLCs so if I can do it myself it will save chunk of money.  Thank you!

 Jaysen,

Thanks for your reply!  I had a lawyer I've used in this town but not happy with them... so I just looked online... hard to discern who really does RE... but the firm I called came up under that title "RE" and they said they did handle this kind of thing.  So just wanted to see if this price sounded right... and if it was something simple I could do on my own or do I really need the lawyer.  Thanks again!

I have paid off one of my rental properties and would like to move it into an LLC. I can create the LLC online easy enough... but how do I transfer the title? Should I do this myself or just have a lawyer do it? I contacted one lawyer and she said it would likely be billed as 1-hour at $325. Does this sound reasonable? Thanks for any advice or input.

I have several homes... I would like to put each of them into a LLC (1 LLC for each house)... and would like to have an LLC as the holding company of all the other LLCs so that I can have just 1 bank account where all the income and expenses would flow into and out of. Is this a good structure? Any advice? Thank you!

Grant,

I've used 30 year mortgages to finance my investment properties.  You can use a mortgage broker and build a relationship with him/her.  But he/she will sell each mortgage to a different bank.  I think dealing with one bank could be risky - that is the Dave Ramsey story.  His primary lending bank was sold... when the new bank reviewed their loans they felt Dave's business was too risky and called his loans.  When other banks Dave worked with her about it, they too called their loans.  If you are looking for a business loan then building a relationship is probably going to be the best way to go and as you are faithful they will increase their credit with you.

CT

Craig,

I just removed a tree like this... $3000 - just the tree removal!  So yeh it's gonna cost you - and there is no measurable return on your money... but I'd do it.  As a rental you open up your driveway.  If you choose to sell it - it will look so much nicer and you could potentially lose a sale from someone who says - I'd buy that house if it were not for that huge tree in the driveway!

Good Luck!

-PC

I am considering taking the Salesperson Pre-Licensing Course and Property Management Course in 2016.  At present I do not have a goal to do either of these as "jobs".  I have a good agent that I use and likewise a good property manager.  As an investor I want to broaden my understanding of real estate business.  I am considering the online courses offered by MetroBrokers Academy (http://www.metrobrokers.com/academy/online-courses).  

I want to ask for your input BP people - is this a good way to go?  Anyone have experience with MetroBroker's online courses?  I'm open to other suggestions if you have any to share???

Thank you!

CT