All Forum Posts by: Andrew Faukner

I'm looking at buying some property in California that has a couple of junk vehicles. I have a feeling the seller will not want to remove them.  Chances are he doesn't have pink slips. It looks like they have been sitting for quite a while. I don't want to make this a deal breaker. If I buy the property with the vehicles left on the property, how do I get rid of them?

I think a lot of us on BiggerPockets have heard about OZ investing. What are your specific questions? I think there are some really good opportunities with them, but some at BP would disagree with me. You really have to look at all of the finer points to decide if it will be good for you. There are three of the major stumbling blocks for investors. One is that you have to improve the property, which will take a lot more money than just buying the property. Another is that you really need to hold the property for 10 years to take advantage of all of the tax benefits. And lastly, the money that you use to buy AND improve the property MUST come from capital gains, either the sale of other real estate, or from the sale of stocks. Good luck!

Has anyone had experiences, good or bad with Property Meld? My property management company, with over 300 offices uses them to schedule repairs for rental properties. I really dislike the system, because of poor communication from them, but that is my opinion. Have you had any experiences with Property Meld?

I agree, staging makes a big difference. My question has always been, where do you get the furnishings to do the staging? I can see that in an area with a large population, like Los Angeles, there may be companies with warehouses filled with furnishings to do staging, but in the rest of the country, where do we get the furnishings?

Maybe there is a business opportunity here for someone. Rent a warehouse, buy a bunch of furnishings, and start marketing your staging business to real estate agents in the region. 

@Christopher Smith Yes, we pay the $800 CA fee for LLC's.

@Pat L. Are you using Legalzoom? The fees could vary from state to state.

If you have Legalzoom as your Registered Agent for your LLC, be aware, they increased the fee this year from $159 to $299. Plus, on their own, without asking me they tacked on $100 to let me use their forms. I called them, and they gave me a credit for the $100 fee for forms, since I never use them. But an increase from $159 to $299 in one year for being my Registered Agent seems out of line. I should probably investigate becoming the Registered Agent for my LLC, but I already do almost everything for the LLC while my partners don't have to do a lot. Check your bills from Legalzoom if you use them to make sure it is correct.

@Dan Rivers Your title said in an Opportunity Zone, but it doesn't sound like you are taking the tax advantages for being in an Opportunity Zone. Other than that, sounds like you made a good deal.

@Haley Sooudi Hi Haley, one aspect of OZ's that people don't realize when starting their research is that you have to pay to improve the property. For example, if you buy a property for $500,000, you have to invest another $500,000 to improve the property. The reason? Part of the purpose of the OZ's is to improve the neighborhood where the property is located. This seems to stop a lot of people from investing in OZ's. Good Luck!

Just the general fees, like Matthew Ryan mentioned above, $20,000 in permit fees for a 1,300 sq.ft. structure in Sacramento. At my place at Tahoe I have a well. To switch over to city water, neighbors have told me they paid about $15,000 in fees. If cities want these changes, they must reduce fees.

Hi Jason, OZ is an Opportunity Zone. The federal government has approved part of South Lake Tahoe as being in an Opportunity Zone. The short definition is that if you have capital gains from the sale of stocks or properties you can invest in an OZ, and avoid paying any capital gains taxes for about 7 years. At 7 years you would have to pay the taxes on the original capital gains minus 15%. Now here comes the good part, if you sell that property after 10 years, you don't have to pay taxes on any capital gains that you may have made on that property. AND if I understand it correctly, any rent you charged on that property during the 10 years would be tax free. This could result in a huge tax savings. One purpose of the OZ's is to create more housing in areas like South Lake Tahoe. 

The downside for some people, is that the money has to come capital gains made by the sale of stocks or property. The money can not come from ordinary income, like that person earning a huge salary in the bay area. The purpose of the OZ's is to encourage investment in housing and businesses to improve these areas. I believe that because of the fees charged by South Lake Tahoe, this money for housing may go elsewhere. 

The state of California has a new website up talking about the OZ's: https://opzones.ca.gov/ You can find a map of the OZ's in California under their "toolkit". I hope this helps.