All Forum Posts by: Deena Laugen

Hi everyone! I have 6 properties (5 sfh and 1 duplex) that we purchased in our personal names in order to get better rates, etc. I recently formed two new LLCs to quit claim deed these properties into, but then had a thought: What happens if I'm looking to get an additional mortgage for a new property and now the banks look at all these mortgages and see that they have been moved into LLCs? Has anyone run into this? Any suggestions and guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Deena

@Frank Hinck Is there someone in particular that you work with at Hellmuth & Johnson?

Thanks, Frank!

Thanks, Amber!

Hi everyone! I'm looking for a real estate lawyer in the Twin Cities, MN area. Anyone have any recommendations? Thanks in advance!

@Monika Haebich I would love to get the calculator! I’m new to vacation rentals, but am starting to research the market. Thanks for being willing to share!

@Jordan Moorhead Could you share your snow removal contact that you reference in this post? Do they offer lawn service in the summer as well? Thanks!

Hi Everyone,

I have a SFR under purchase agreement in St. Paul, MN that has been a duplex in the past. The place is rough, but I'm planning to fix it up and turn it back into a duplex.

During the inspection, I ran into an interesting problem. This area of St. Paul runs on a sand rock sewer system. Basically, instead of the pipes located 7ft under ground, these pipes are drilled through solid rock and run 40-60ft underground. There’s a huge break in the line on this one (not uncommon) and it costs a minimum of $35,000 to fix these because of the depth and need for specialized equipment. It’s running fine now, but if tenants start flushing stuff they shouldn’t, a block in the pipe would be a huge ordeal. Plus, whenever I would sell, I would have to disclose that this problem exists. Then I’m the one who would be stuck with the problem.

Has anyone else dealt with this before? There were a lot of other extra issues that came up with this house and I’m going back to the sellers to renegotiate, but I’m not sure they’re going to cover this situation. If I don’t get the numbers I need, I’ll walk, but I thought I’d reach out to this incredible wealth of knowledge before that happens.

Any information or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks BP community!

I did this in MN and it cost about $20k. The engineers said it’s about the same cost to divide into two lots as it is to divide into five. 

Great questions, @Alexander V.. I’m an investor in Minneapolis, MN and have done SF only so far. I don’t know if this is a different search criteria from SF to multi-family, but I always look at school ratings to get a feel for the neighborhood. The schools on the two properties you used as examples were all 2’s (out of 10). To me, that’s a red flag. Anyone else out there use school ratings as a quick way to assess a neighborhood?