All Forum Posts by: Charles Carillo

@Albertinny Colin

Speak to local lenders; local banks and credit unions. This is where you are going to be able to build relationships that will yield more favorable loan terms. Since loans are only going through a board of a few local people; there is a lot less red tape. 

@Muhammed Mbye

You need to zero in on a market before you find an agent.

What are you trying to accomplish? Do you want the property to appreciate mainly? Do you want cashflow? How big of a property would you like to buy? How much can you afford to invest with still keeping reserves?

When we choose markets; we look for a steady increase in population, a steady increase in jobs and a steady decrease in crime...over say a 20-year period.

Brett Swarts knew he wanted to work in real estate at a young age. He grew up with a single mom, poor, but had a large vision in mind. When he got married, he took the leap to find solutions for his clients that really work. In comes the deferred sales trust as an alternative to a 1031, and it can be used even in the event of a failed 1031.

The main advantage according to Brett is that you don't have to pay capital gains on a sale. Instead, you are lending the money to this trust, where it can be put to use in the economy. In this sense, it is a big win for the government too because the money starts to circulate. This is why the IRS is on board with this solution and it's 100% legal. However, there is only really one law firm that does this deferred sales tax the way that Brett Swarts does. It's no wonder that signing an NDA is part of the agreement. Brett Swarts explains that if you want to take money out of the sales trust, all you have to do is pay the income tax on it. The DST is usually for ten years but it can be renewed. It can even be inherited in families.

Since Brett Swarts lost everything in 2008, he understands the need for a novel solution in selling property that doesn’t involve being hit with the double whammy of capital gains tax as well as income tax.

There really is a lot of information about the deferred sales trust in this podcast. Even Brett Swarts says you might hear the information and be overwhelmed. The government is bringing in new regulations, but so far, this system for the deferred sales trust works for avoiding previously inevitable taxes on sales.

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Welcome to Strategy Saturday; I’m Charles Carillo and today we’re going to be discussing How to Successfully Hire and Train Virtual Assistants. Every entrepreneur should be outsourcing tasks to a virtual assistant, but where do you find one, how do you vet them and how do you hire them? In this episode, Charles discusses what the process is to find, vet and train virtual assistants.

Talking Points:

➡ I started really using virtual assistants after reading Tim Ferriss’ Book, “The 4 Hour Work Week” – the book describes how outsourcing daily tasks and activities to virtual assistants within one’s business can free them from the workaholic lifestyle; which was exactly what Tim has done and the book explains his journey from 14-hour days to 4-hour weeks. I highly recommend this book to any entrepreneur.

➡ The main question really before using virtual assistants or VAs is what can I outsource to them? There are seriously thousands of activities that can be outsourced to VAs. With a few internet searches you can discover list of activities that are outsourceable.

➡ We utilize a number of VAs in our business. We have a VAs to; edit our podcasts and YouTube episodes and images, handle our marketing and social media, for performing online research, for our web design, handling incoming emails and messages, performing recurring tasks, property underwriting, updating our email newsletter, updating our CRM, writing content, posting content, bookkeeping and more. I actually had on of my VAs research Chicago Steakhouses when I was meeting some of our investors there a couple years back. You will be amazed at how much you can outsource.

➡ We mainly use UpWork.com for our virtual assistants and it is fairly easy to create a job post using their website.

o I also make sure to have a unique phrase in job postings toward the end of them so I am sure they have read it when they apply. About half of job applicants, I have found, do not read the full post. This phrase will be like “make sure to reply with “I have experience with HubSpot” in the first line of your response when applying.” You can add this phrase in the second to last paragraph to weed out people who are applying and not reading.

o Next, I will confirm the job particulars when they apply. I have had it before when people have no idea what they applied for or that they want to renegotiate the rate. You can delete these as soon as this happens.

o I will always state that we will start off with a couple or a few hours a week before increasing. If you have 10 hours of work; tell them you will start with 2-4 hours per week and then grow from there.

o The biggest mistakes I see people make with VAs is that they hire them and think they are trained. It takes dozens of hours to train people fully, for every hour you are outsourcing. For example; if you are outsourcing 5 hours of work per week; prepare to spend 50-60 hours training them over the first couple of months.

o When hiring, read reviews and job success rate; take this into consideration when choosing a VA.

o Compensation depends on the skills of the person and where they are located. You set the price you want to pay when you create the job post.

o Make sure your budget matches the job; I have some highly paid VAs and I am not going to pay them to do online research; I hire someone separately to perform research and save their findings into a Google Sheet that I have setup for them. There is no limit of VAs you can hire. I am always trying to recognize new things I can outsource.

o Spend a week and keep track of what you do consistently; weekly, daily etc. Identity activities that you can outsource and start with a couple easy tasks and then build off of that. Sometimes hire more than one and see which one does a better job or connects better with you. We get all of our VAs onto our Slack channel in order to communicate with them easily.

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@Guillermo Rodríguez

The financing aside, how are you planning on adding value to the property and generating a return? We have been offered fractured deals in the past and we always turn them down. You only own 20% of the property and need to run most, if not all repairs, renovations and rentals past the HOA. You are probably not getting great loan terms because of the riskiness of the deal. This might be a great deal to pass up; especially for your first deal.

@Sami Yacoub 

Yes, you can definitely find a lender to refinance you out faster, but the rates and terms will most likely not be to your liking. Good permanent financing usually requires a 6-month seasoning period. I would use the next 6 months to add-value to the property through renovations; this will make it much easier to refinance at a higher value.

@Hannah Espejo

I would focus on increasing your income and increasing your savings. At that time, you will be able to get a better interest rate and have a solid reserve for issues that will happen.

When purchasing real estate; one of the major issues investors get in trouble with is not having enough money. You use your savings for the down payment; what happens when a HVAC unit or hot water heater or roof needs to replaced? What happens when you are unable to rent the units for months? What happens if people stop paying? You need to have a solid reserve, or you are going to get into trouble. I have been a landlord since 2006, issues happen, and you need cash (right then) to fix them. 

This episode focuses on how Andrew Cushman, a chemical engineer, got into the business of real estate investing. He started with just one purchase in Macon, Georgia. However, his journey was not easy to find investors and contractors to work on the property. He had to make over 4,000 phone calls just for this one investment to work out.

Real estate investing is not an easy feat, but Andrew Cushman was committed to building wealth and growing his business. He was able to make more money investing in real estate than he did at his day job. Today, Andrew has repositioned over 2,300 apartments. He sticks to his lessons, like not buying in flood areas and getting all the numbers and estimates in before he makes an offer.

These days, you will see Andrew spending more time on the relational side of the business with new and existing investors. This episode will help the listener get an idea of what it takes to be a successful real estate investor.

Listen https://podcasts.apple.com/us/...

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@Justin Burns

I would not worry about what potential buyers will say, I am more concerned with the transaction fees that you are incurring. I personally would do the repairs and sell it but if you are worried about the housing market, you can always list it and see what happens. (You most likely received some sort of a discount for paying cash, you could tell potential buyers that you are now just selling the property at market price.)

@Joseph Henry

Speak to your real estate attorney to draft the lease agreement. A property worth that much money with a pool should really have a lease reviewed/drafted by your attorney. They have done this many times over and know what points are important to include.