All Forum Posts by: Chris Eidson

So I see a house on CL and research tax assessor records to see owner history and to try to find out how much the owner may have in the property to prepare for negotiation. House is listed at 100K and needs plenty of work just from the photos. An LLC is the listed owner and just bought it 2 weeks ago with a warranty deed with lien showing a 118k lien with a lender. So what's up? Why would someone purchase a home by taking out a 118k loan and then list it for sale at 100k only a few weeks later?

@Ricardo Diaz

The person behind the new tax laws made all of his wealth in real estate.  There's the first clue that it's a favorable tax climate for real estate investors.

@Eric Traboulay

The REIT guarantees 7%?

@Marissa Perez

@Marissa PerezBefore you even start here's my advice:

1. Believe in yourself and your plan and commit to do everything necessary for success.

2. It will be harder than you think and easier than every "guru" says.

3. You still have to have some money/investor backing to get started.

@Juan Santos

Once you start into them, you are going to be constantly up-sold.  You will get some info (which won't be anything earth shattering), then they will convince you that you need the next level, and so forth and so on.  Your "mentoring" will likely not be what you expect and in the end, you will wish you just bought some books, listened to some podcasts, researched on the internet and followed BP.

@Bill B.

For clarification, I turned it to rental when I remarried.

@Bill B.

Does any of this change if you owned the property prior to marriage.  In my case, I owner occupied for 22 months before turning it to a rental.  If I moved in after 2 years of renting, lived there at least 2 more months, would I still have to pro-rate the exclusion?

@Tony P.

You do have a point about an umbrella policy covering. I've been in the insurance business for 25+ years. However, I still have my properties in LLC's. Unless you have very few assets to protect or it is cost prohibitive to the amount of your investment, I would say better safe than sorry. Nothing is fool proof.

@Rebecca Knox

Thanks. I am going to hold it for rental, but I still like to know what my appreciation opportunities are. This was more of a general question as I look for future deals as well. It seems to be much harder to project ARV in a speculative neighborhood. Obviously, I could go into a neighborhood that has already fully turned, but typically opportunity for returns and cash flow diminish. I'm trying to get ahead of the curve. That's the main reason for my question.

@John Williams

I would recommend you carry as high a deductible as possible and make sure you have a fund set aside to cover it.  My day job has been in insurance for 25 years and I can tell you that you don't want to make small claims anyway, because it can make it hard to keep and get insurance in the future.