All Forum Posts by: James Martin

I know a good agent that works and is from that specific area, if you want his info, let me know and I can message it to you.  He is a solid no BS guy and has been an investor as well.

Things are really tight in the NOLA market right now (just as I observe them).  Because of that, whenever I am analyzing something recently, my first instinct is: if it works on the  numbers side, move quickly and be prepared to find something out later that may nuke the deal.  Margins are really thin around here right now.

I find it well written. I think the math is sound though I don't think that 90% leverage is really a great example. It makes the deltas look much better, but is 75% to 80% is more realistice and would still make the same argument. Maybe you can get 90% LTV, but that would have to be expensive on the PMI and the interest rate and the like. His point is clear though, if you have the risk tolerance, you can be financially free long before you can be debt free if you employ intelligent leverage.

If the management LLC tracked every transaction to each property would this matter? Just curious.

I am not a lawyer or an accountant, which is why I hire good ones and do what they tell me.  I know that every transaction in my management group is directly allocated to a property with a paper trail (literally every nickle of every transaction).

Would that not make this an easier sell (to keep the assets in separate LLCs and run the transactions through a managmenet LLC).

If the paper trails are strong, then wouldn't it work fine?

My take on the bank account question is that you have ZERO bank accounts. Just use the series and the parent to hold assets. Have a separate operating LLC that conducts transactions. That's just my take.

https://www.amazon.com/Turnkey-Revolution-Passivel...

Disclaimer: I am a cursomer of Memphis Invest, though I don't get any special treatment for writing the below.

I recently read Turnkey Revolution and found it to be solid.  I thought that @Chris Clothier covered all the angles of doing responsible turnkey investing.  Obviously the book could be regarded with a jaded eye as an advertisement for Chris's company, but really, the way I read it was "this is the best way to do things, this is how we do things, if you want to work with other companies, you need to hold them to these best standards and practices."

The book doesn't break new ground for people that have been at this game for a while, so if you are already an established REI, you will find that some of it is stuff you already know. If you have not ever bought a property outside of your market but feel that such MAY be for you, then this is a pretty good read in my opinion.

There are plenty of times that Chris notes in the book that Turnkey REI is NOT for everyone and he lays out some occasions when Memphis Invest has told prospective investors NO. I think that is important too. If you are an active investor and like to get your hands dirty and negotiate the ends and outs of everything, then Turnkey isnt most likely for you (and I think that point is made effectively in the book).

For me, I will be keeping the book around as a reference for the next time I need to vet a new provider or a new market that is not local to me.  There are excellent guidelines for doing that.  Right now, I use MI for my turnkey out of state stuff, but if I wanted to go to a market where they are not present, Chris has provided a really good blueprint on what questions to ask and how to ask them to make sure that I can end up with the best partner in the process.  One such place that I might try this out soon is Birmingham.

Just one guys opinion.  Best of luck to all of you in your investing!

@Chris Clothier

When I start getting into less than 20% down, my cash flows begin to get very thin.  To the point that I start asking . . . should I keep the capital and just let it barely cash flow or should I just do the 20% down and let it flow a little more.  This of course then leads to  . . . if I could put zero down but there was a slighlty negative cash flow, should I do it?  That then spins me into logical circular repeting "do-loops."

Understand @Jared W Smith.  My day job is running an engineering company.

I read those often in my day job.  In short, it is common for the group writing the agreement to put that language in there, it is also common for the group signing that agreement to reject that language.  I went through this recently with a company and in the end it was basically, if you want to do the work, that language can't be in there (there is a longer story with mine, but it isn't really relevant here).  I really wanted to use them, they really wanted to do it, so in the end they relented, but it was totally up to them.

I am a local investor here and per the attorney's, louisiana is a hig risk state for doing these tax purchases due to the laws afforded to the people or their heirs in the years that follow.