All Forum Posts by: Jim K.

@Jennifer Doyle

That's way high, as indicated. Get a quote from a contractor to do it in PEX piping instead of copper. It will be faster and much cheaper. Again, this is not a full replumbing. You just need new water supply lines not DWW installations.

@Sebastian Najera

There will be no bar to starting an LLC here as a foreign national, as you said. I've been through this with foreign medical graduates and the ECFMG. USCIS is very sensitive to the chances of drug profits being brought back from abroad and reinvested in this country by foreign nationals. This is not something you're really going to have to worry about in your real estate endeavors, Dr. Najera. Welcome to the USA. We need you badly.

@Jesus Moreno

Maybe 30. The big thing is knowing what you're talking about, of course. Not to pat myself on the back, but that wasn't so easy.

@Marie Withelidua

This will cost you about $400. Go on Craigslist and post a notice offering fifteen bucks an hour and lunch for men under 40 years of age and above 5'11" for 2 hours of casual labor. You should be able to get ten guys in on a specific day when you know they're home to accompany you on a walk over to their door to talk to these people. Do not make threats during that conversation.

@Marie Withelidua

Clearly, you expect these people to respond well to guilt or shame. They obviously do not. They will respond to fear better. You need to inspire that fear.

This turns out to be a really difficult question I keep coming back to. I don't think of myself as a success. I've made some money in real estate, it's true, and I believe I see a way to make a lot more, but a "success"? That conjures up images of fabulous glittering wealth, statues and buildings erected in my honor, my name engraved on the collective consciousness of humankind across the ages.

I am also very aware of the very human failing of self-congratulation. We love to pat ourselves on the back and think of ourselves as good people, when from other people's perspective, we're often not. I've met an immense number of contemptible people who will say the most amazing things about themselves in order not to think, at any cost, about who they really are and what they do in the world.

So, a success? No, that's not me, not at all. Someone who's made some money in real estate? OK.

What's helped me most so far, I would like to believe, is a tendency not to take myself or the world too seriously. Call it questioning received wisdom or a simple cynical willingness to believe everyone in the world is full of s***, it seems to have helped.

Private money lending. Someday I'm going to have enough to partner with American Indians and build a casino in a backwater with a long history of really miserable math achievement scores in the local schools. Video slots, closed circuit greyhound races, cut-rate coffee and donuts, no windows, senior citizens, dudes in trucker hats.

Hey Sebastian, welcome to BP. Get going on the green card, get going on the investing at the same time. You will probably need to marry the girl, but you know that already.

Plan to put the money you bring with you and as much of your earnings as you can spare in real estate.

Immigrants have routinely made money in this country for at least the last hundred and fifty years this way. You're going to find a huge number of foreign nationals in this business here in the States, just as @Marc Middleton indicated.

@Julie Marquez

That'll work. Good on you!

@Alec McGinn

You should get the inspection.

We regularly make no-contingency, all-cash lowball offers on properties. I am a home improvement contractor and have a lot of experience doing this.

You will never find a seller other than a professional selling for top dollar who will welcome an inspection.