All Forum Posts by: Joe Norman

Speaking as an agent - you are correct that most (at least experienced/successful) agents will not want to waste their time submitting 10 low ball, presumably sight-unseen, offers per day - thats basically a full time job with little chance of earning a commission for the work. If you do decide to go this route then you may find a newer agent willing to do this for the experience.

My advice is to identify the neighborhoods you want to invest in, firm up your criteria for those neighborhoods, and submit fair non-contingent offers. It won't be 10x offers per day, and I guarantee that you'll have more success and strengthen your reputation.

It sounds like you understand the pros and cons of investing out of state andjust need to make that decision for yourself. Do you want to save more to invest in the Bay Area, or take on the added (but not insurmountable) difficulty of investing out of state? If you go the OOS route then building a strong team with folks you trust is even more critical - especially your Realtor and Property Manager. Good luck! 

Good luck!

To me, no its not worth the headache or the more expensive financing. If you do go that route then remember that each LLC needs its own bank account, its own set of books, etc. Any commingling of funds or businesses activities will weaken your ability to silo the RE in its own LLC.

My understanding, after speaking with a couple of lawyers, is that this liability protection is more theoretical than it is practical when it comes to small scale REI. The advise I received, and that I follow, is to keep the properties in my personal name and carry a substantial umbrella liability policy.

REI takes work, no matter what the books and gurus say. If you don't even want to put the work in to manage a management company, then you're probably not ready to take on REI. Really consider how much time you're willing to invest in this before pulling the trigger on a purchase.

Why do you want to transfer from your name to an LLC? There are plenty of costs, headaches, and potential landmines (Due on Sale clause) with this strategy, and not really any upside.

I ended up going with the Kwikset Key Control Deadbolts but am not 100% sold on them yet. I've had some issues with rekeying the Master/Landlord key to be consistent across all my locks which I'm not sure if its user error or what. I still have some trouble shooting to do before I'm sold on this system but I have high hopes. Feel free to check in with me in a week or two - I'd be happy to do a video chat to show you my system when I'm comfortable with it.

Someone above did comment that the Landlord Locks people are Amish and that that might have something to do with the poor website.

If its a good deal then finding the money to do it should be the easy part. There are plenty of national Hard Money Lenders, and I would suggest looking for someone more local. Start a new post with the subject: "Looking for Hard Money in Burlington, Iowa" and the key details of the deal and you should be good.

I wouldn't sell strictly because of COVID, but there are a lot of other reasons why it might make sense. At the end of the day you need to decide whats more important to you: the cash flow the unit produces or the cash proceeds you could get from selling it.