All Forum Posts by: Diego Alvarado

Hi Austin,

Insurance business is complex, and I wouldn't rely in an agent that is asking you to leave things "as is".

In my case, what worked is to build relationship with at least 3 to 4 agents, so I can easily email my portfolio and they quote me based on that. Then I work the magic with the numbers and in many cases like now, I have 2 different companies that I have insured my portfolio because for some houses, the one that was cheaper for some of the properties when 3x to a SFH so I moved that one to another company.

Insurance nowadays are not small money so it makes a difference to get a cheaper one so that you can get a better cashflow.

You don't need to sit with them, but call them and you may need to spend an hour or so to get you setup with them. In the end, they are all sales people that they want your business so they will what has to be done to get that.

Reinspections are required for some companies, but in my case, when asking they couldn't confirm that the property will be inspected and then it got inspected and declined. It is a hassard but it will be difficult to avoid that 100%. That is why is so important to have already the 4 quotes.

Hope this helps.

I am currently using apartments.com since I was using cozy before and apartments.com both them, but since then I was looking for a replacement.

I checked before Zillow but it was not user-friendly, however, I have just checked it back since Nicholas comment, and it seems that is a better solution than what I have today.

There is also a new app called rent.app that it seems good as it has an app. Not sure if Zillow has an app for landlord and tenants.

I am in this too, I have been doing work for some investors oversea and this is the pain falls that I found (time difference is only 3 hours though):

- Tenant screening, we found that sometimes without meeting the tenant, everything looked good until the meeting. I believe a good remote system should be good enough, but the tenant feeling that they are not checked out is difficult.

- Maintenance between tenants, this is doable in my honest opinion, if you can make the call. The main problem that I saw here is the rotation of contractors, so that then you have to find another one.

- Maintenance when tenants are staying, what you said is doable too, the only pain fall that I am seeing is to trust the maintenance company and do a recurrent inspection.

- Urgent maintenance issues, this is the most tricky part, in my case I have 3 of these situation and the go-to contractor didn't even answer the phone, so I had to find someone else, so made many calls to get this sorted quickly.

One of my investors lives in Chicago and found that the house was destroyed when the tenant left so his wife came to Dallas for 2 months to fix everything so they can put back in rent. 

Property managers are unlickely to offer this kind of deals as the comission are low enough

Wht I am now doing with my investors now is a price agreement for certain things that they want to offboard, but this is not property management, but a sort of limited service agreement.

If you are interested we can talk as I live in the area.

By the way, I heard that e-sign contracts signed overseas are unenforsable, I would like to have a attorney to comment about that.

Michael has answered you the main questions, but adding into my experience here, when I was looking for a property manager I was looking someone that manage mainly the leases, check-ins, inspections, and repairs. For payments, I want to be myself responsible for that in which case I found that sometimes tech implementation and a good realtor could do that.

Your decision is if you want to be 100% off or you want to be involved an in what level.

Hi Christian,

As a person that relocated many times, I would recommend you to rent first. There are apartments that allow you a shorter stay than a year, though the apartment prices are a bit high, I don't think that you will waste your money renting so that you get familiar where you want to be. That is an investment in your wellbeing, as the hassle to choose the wrong house will be a problem difficult to solve. 

First of all I would recommend you to reach out a realtor that can help you with your strategic move.

Depending where you are I can help you, you can reach me out via dm.

Hi Lisa, 

As an investor, I have worked with all types of realtors, but for investment property I would say that you have to have an experienced realtor in investment properties or you have to have enough experience for the deal to work with.

Experienced Realtor will help you with the contract (which in many cases are not simple), but most importantly with spotting issues in the property that could cost you thousands.

Your concern is valid so it is important to sign a Buyer Representation Agreement, in which case the realtor has to work for you over his/her own interest (or you can sue him).

The idea is not to sue them, but to make sure you trust them enough to work with them. 

It will be always situations where the realtors will like what they see, but that is why a written agreement has to be in place.

A professional realtor should not cause you any issue in this case.

Quote from @Samuel Qandah:

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Hey Ben,

Are you working with a lender or are you planning to buy all cash? 

 Hi Erik! I am using a hard money lender

 Also since you aren't using a realtor, did you draft a purchase contract yourself? Are you using a title and escrow company? 

I didn’t draft a purchase contract. I believe the lender will coordinate all of that and get a title and escrow company

 Got it. And your lender didn't provide you with a closing cost estimate? Are they using an appraisal? 

Nope I’m just wondering what the common items are for closing costs and which one’s for the buyer and which one’s for the seller 

 Seller wouldn't have fees to pay. You would be responsible for the cost which could include Title and Escrow Fees, Lender points, appraisal (if any). If I were in your shoes I would request a fee estimate from your lender  

Hi Erik, why wouldn't' seller have to pay any closing fees? Is it typical for a buyer to take on seller and buyer closing costs/ fees when doing a seller/ buyer transaction involving a wholesaler?

In a wholesale transaction the seller is in some kind of financial trouble which the wholesaler is helping to resolve.
You have two options an assignment or a double closing:
I haven't done an assignment myself so not sure completely of the process, but in a double closing there is already a contract with the seller and the wholesaler who is fixing the liens on the title, when that is resolved there is a closing date where the wholesaler execute the contract with the seller and you execute the contract with the wholesaler.

In general the closing cost in these type of transactions are covered by the buyer which it could be around 3.5% and it does not include sales agent fees.

There is one thing that I didn't understand, it seems that the hard money lender is in charge of the transaction. I am not sure why is that but you have to be careful on what are the agreement on that contract.

In this case, I would recommend to get involved with a investor friendly realtor who will help you as it could be many issues during the process as the titles are not clean in most cases and many variables have to be checked.

It is always good to build your network locally. You might be able to find some materials online but you gamble on the quality.

In my case this is what I follow:

- Construction material locally so we quickly can resupply 

- Flooring locally (I find better prices and service this way)

- Plumbing locally (I bought online for my first remo and quality was really bad) locally are more expensive but I don't gamble anymore as plumbing is something that is always a time constraints to complete and continue other works.

- Electronic fixtures like fans, etc online. Much better deals.

You have to talk with your mortgage providers to see if they are allowing you to move them to an LLC.

In rental is good to have an LLC for liability however for taxes there isn't a big difference in small investments.

Your credit report won't show the mortgage anymore but you still have the liability in your history. As soon as you remove the mortgage you will see an impact on your credit report.

Another thing is that you have to make sure the LLC has its own bank account or you will be commingling.

One thing that I am seeing that won't benefit you is that you can't benefit of homestead if you do this which will increase your property taxes though I am not sure how that is impacted in California. In Texas is a big deal.

Homestead has other benefits but those depends on the state too.

Quote from @Jeronimo Loscher:

Hey Chris, it is great that you are asking if it works or not I had the same question.

My story is similar to most people. I wondered how on the TV shows there where people that bought distressed homes, fixed them, sold them and made a profit, then I saw an ad on TV late at night about a program on how to flip properties, I started doing some research about that program and found out the most people were not happy about it, and the main reason is because they assign you to someone that it is not willing to dedicate the time to teach somebody that has zero knowledge of real estate. So I kept looking for a local program near my area, And this is when I found the Flip Coach program by Ryan Kuhlman, I actually went by his office to see if they had physical presences here in south Florida. After doing my due diligence I decided to schedule an appointment with Ryan.

The first thing Ryan told me was, ¨you do not need any real estate experience, and do not worry about the money to fund the deals, I will teach you from no knowledge to closing a deal¨, so I decided to jump into my real estate journey. It was the best decision I ever made.

If you are wondering if I have made money with the program? The answer is yes! Did Ryan guide me through the whole process? The answer is yes he did!

I am still working on deals with Ryan after 2 years. He has been there for me every step of the way. If you are committed on your real estate career, and this is the part of real estate you want to embark on, to answer your question at the beginning, and as a student of Ryan myself I can tell you that it works 100 %!!

Good luck!

 This is really scary, if these two new BP users just created an account and reply to this post but they don't comment on Ray, I will be running if I was you. Same tactics will be used during the course for you to spend money.

Hey @Chris Diaz you are also new here, are you Ryan?