All Forum Posts by: David Pittman

@Jim Berman Sounds good. thank you!

@Drew Sygit Thanks for your reply!

1.) We only use licensed and insured contractors

2.) This is how we currently pay our contractors

3.) When we're talking about mechanicals, they are responding to our warranty issues within 24 hours. The AC and plumbing contractors have 24 hour emergency lines.

4.) 

a.) Currently we typically call in to the contractor and they schedule with the homeowner (at least our mechanicals do). Then we verify with the homeowner that the contractor completed. Handyman work we verify.

b.) They currently do

c.) We do not pay anything upfront to any of our contractors. Our mechanicals are net 30.

d.) Yes, but I would expect PMC to verify.

5.) No, we pay most of our contractors electronically currently. The majority of the others are mailed a check, but we do still have a few contractors who pick up physical checks.

I'm also not looking at scaling, I'm just looking at renting this one house. While we are out of the country.

@Dillan Cooper Thank you!

Good afternoon BP!

Me and my wife are looking at leaving the country for a year and then possibly moving out of the country permanently. We have a custom SFH that I built in 2021 (I am a custom home builder).So I have all the contractors I need to maintain the property. We built the house to live in and then sell, but our plans have changed. So it was not built to be a rental house per say. These are a few questions I have:

1.) Will a property manager work with the contractors I used to build the house? I'm not worried about the cleaners or the law guys, I'm thinking about the big ticket items (mechanicals, roof). We still use all the same mechanical contractors and would like to use the vendors I know.

2.) Is it worth getting a PM for just one house? Placement is my biggest concern with doing it myself and the fact that we will be in different time zones is the other. I would be concerned that there would be an issue that I couldn't address, like the AC going out in August/September. 

3.) IF anybody had any recommendations for a PM that is in the Galveston county area, we would love to hear them. The reviews for PM's that I have found so far are pretty bad and we've all heard the horror stories of bad PM.

We want to keep the house because we have family close (as they age we would be very close) and if something happens to us oversees we will at least have a house in the states to come to. The plan would be to rent the house for at least the first 2 years, then make a decision about keeping the house or not.

Thank you guys for any help!

Hi BiggerPockets community,

I'm reaching out to connect with anyone who is currently managing, or has previously managed, a US-based business while living outside of the United States.

Whether you're investing in real estate, running a company, or handling any kind of US business operations from abroad, I’d love to hear about your experiences. I’m especially interested in:

• 1.) The biggest challenges you’ve faced (banking, legal, taxes, team management, etc.)
• 2.) How you’ve structured your operations and communications
• 3.) Any tips or lessons learned for handling closings, documentation, or compliance from overseas
• 4.) Tools or systems that have made things easier
• 5.) Surprises—good or bad—that came with managing remotely
• 6.) Industry you found that works with a remote business lifestyle.

If you’re willing to share your story, advice, or even just connect for a chat, please reply here or send me a DM. I’m hoping to build a network of like-minded folks who understand the unique challenges and opportunities of running a US business from overseas.

Thanks in advance for your insights!

Looking forward to connecting,

Good afternoon BP Community!

I am a partner in a General Contracting business building new Custom and Production homes. We are in a small town outside of Houston that is one of the fastest growing areas in the greater Houston area. For the past 25 years we have been one of a few GC's in this area, but now we are starting to see the big guys come in (Castle Rock, Chesmar, Lennar, etc.). They have met some resistance in our community, but the one thing  they have is financing. We do all our own construction financing in house, but would like to explore the long term financing opportunities. I assume these production companies have started their own financing companies and have deep pocket investors with them.

We are still busy, when other companies are not, but if we were able to do our own long term financing at a lower rate than the banks than we would only be a stronger company. This is the primary reason we don't have even more business than we do, interest rates are too high.

My question is how does one start a lending company, not a brokerage? I don't want to have to have our customers go anywhere else for any kind of financing. We have our own office and showroom. If we added a mortgage office, our customers could buy a new home turn key, just from our office. Is it as simple as starting a company and having the investors and underwriters to back it? If anybody has done this, do you collect a point and the rest goes to the investor? So if we offered 5.5%, our company would receive 1% and the investor 4.5%?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Good morning BP Community,

We are a family owned custom home builder of 25 years, servicing the greater Galveston/Houston area, doing about 20-30 builds a year. We are looking to connect with a CPA that is familiar with the home building industry. Any recommendations would be appreciated.