All Forum Posts by: Logan Moir

Hi Kalin, Israel Lopez is worth giving a call to find out. He's in the Seattle area and plugged in with  a bunch of the investor communities (like Springboard). Israel is very familiar with lending on all sorts of creative real estate deals that I can't get funded conventionally.

Hi Elizabeth, you've probably already found a title company by now. If not, you can't go wrong with the big companies like Ticor, Stewart, or Chicago Title. If you need a rec for an investor-friendly officer at each, happy to pass a few on.

Hi Jay, I had a similar situation come up. I ended up chatting with a few property managers and paid a flat $700 fee for them to make the problem go away. They didn't require me to continue using them for any other services.

They'll be 100% up to date on state and local landlord/tenant laws, have an attorney on retainer, and they can probably get the job done legally for cheaper than you hiring an attorney hourly.

Here are couple good PM's in the Sammamish area that might be worth reaching out to:
- PMI Arka

- Brink Property Management

Hey Nicholas, are you hoping to JV with a Seattle investor? It looks like your post is tagged for Seattle--if you're hoping for some more Tennessee connections, it could be worth re-posting with a Tennessee tag.

- Have you identified the next few steps, or are you looking for some help figuring out what's next?

- Are you looking to do a partial lien release without losing your incredible interest rate so that you can sell off a couple of the future townhomes and hold onto a couple? Or are yo hopping to sell all (4) townhomes after construction?

- Are you looking to partner with someone who can fund the construction of the (4) townhomes? Or for something else?

Hi Zach, I did the same thing on my last house hack. I'm not a CPA or an EA, and I learned some about this topic here. David Orr started Tax Modern and wrote that linked article--I linked his BP profile. Some takeaways from him:

Treasury Regulations section 1.280A-2(i)(3) gives a couple of ways you can proportion the rental portion of a property--my accountant used square footage.

Under section 280A of the tax code, common areas that you also use are considered part of your personal space and unfortunately aren’t counted as part of the rental space in the proportion calculation.

Hi Marc, is this new construction on a property you already own?

Is the new construction multifamily over 5 units? Or other commercial?

Is it an ADU or DADU, or just a new SFH? Simple addition to a SFH?

Or, are you trying to fund buying a property + construction, and then cash-out-refinance the completed project to pull back out most of your purchase + construction costs to deploy on the next project?

Hard money can help do acquisition + construction. A construction loan can do the same. PM me if you need some WA hard money and construction lender contacts to chat with.  

Hi Naresh, that sounds like a great problem (winning either way). I'd like to know a couple things:

- What are your investing goals and how far along are you to reaching them? What strategies are you comfortable using?

Taking out $500K of tax free money (sounds like Section 121 (married)) through the sale of the property is great if you're trying to scale your portfolio. You could also consider combining your Section 121 exclusion with a 1031 Exchange (if you can identify a property in time). You could also do some small development like a DADU build + condoization to multiply that tax-free money. Reach out if you want to chat through some of these options. 

- Have you run the calculations for your monthly cashflow and rents for the area? How about actual profit after a sale pre-November? 

If not, feel free to PM me, and I'll run through the spreadsheet calculations with you. If you're already at a good place with your portfolio, and just want to maintain rental income, hang on to the property with it's super low interest rate and positive cashflow. If you decided you needed to tap into all the appreciation later, you could take out a HELOC or cash-out-refinance (if rates fall again).

Welcome, Sam! 

I bought my first investment property in WA (where I live) and my second in NC (not where I live). There was so much learning associated with that first deal, and I'm thankful I lived nearby. The second property had very few unknowns after learning most things with the first property.

Before you identify your market, have you already identified your goals? 

You mentioned cash flow in your comment. While there are returns and security in substantial positive cashflow, you also get returns through appreciation, tax deductions, and loan paydown. Depending on your goals, you may be able to deal with lower (or even negative) cashflow to access greater appreciation/tax deductions. With greater appreciation, you can leverage that increased value through a HELOC or cash-out-refinance to purchase or rehab your next investment property.

Where to begin?

There are investors buying in every market every day. Many investors will tell you that they started where they live since they know the area and can physically visit the property if something goes wrong.

- You can find your local real estate investing meetups. You can learn investing vocabulary there (if you're not familiar already), meet potential partners, and get recommendations from active investors for local brokers, contractors, lenders, etc. You'll also learn what strategies are working well for investors in your area to make investment properties work (e.g., DADU development, AADU development, basement ADU conversion, rent-by-the room house hacks, etc.--all very popular in my WA market).

- If you're not familiar with investing vocabulary, there are plenty of books. The one that made me confident to start was this one. Feel free to PM me if you want to hop on a Google Meet call to run through a calculator spreadsheet together.

How to find an out-of-state partner or agent?

- After investing in your local market (if possible, even if you need to partner to fund the deal), you can search "agent recommendation in [CITY]" in the Bigger Pockets forums to see which agent other investors love working with or use the Bigger Pockets Agent Search.

- You can ask your local investor agent to recommend a investor agent in the out-of-state market you're interested in too. They likely know plenty of teams across the country from their own investing and networking.

- Your out-of-state investor agent should have plenty of recommendations for local contractors, lenders (conventional and hard money), property managers, etc. and be able to identify appropriate assumptions for your analysis (e.g., appreciation, vacancy, rent estimates, etc.).

If you have questions, feel free to PM me--happy to help.

Hey Corazon, right after college I sold most of my Bitcoin and Litecoin to buy my first rental property.

It was a move from extreme volatility to stability, and I haven't looked back. That first property put me in the position to buy the next property, HELOC that second property to rehab the first, and then refinance the first to do it all again. I never borrowed against my crypto to expand my stake, but I can and do leverage my property investments.

Getting taxed on the sale of your crypto hurts. With properties, you can live in them for 2 of the past 5 years and waive a massive amount of capital gains taxes on the sale via Section 121. If you sell an investment property outside of Section 121, you can defer your taxes as you scale up via a 1031 Exchange.

Governments, rules & incentives change, and markets change. Gains through crypto felt uncertain to me but still had a draw, so I decided I wouldn't use more than 5% of my disposable income to gamble (whether on leveraged index funds like QLD or crypto). Massive gains on even 5% would be life changing, and losing it all would not. 

I sleep well with most of my disposable income invested in index funds and real estate, while a tiny portion is invested in moonshots. Maybe once I have a lot more disposable income and can stand to lose more, I'll increase that 5% allocation.

What are your thoughts on selling your crypto to buy real estate?

Hi John, I recommend reaching out to a local property manager (search on Google Maps) with many 5-star reviews to see what legal action you can take before the Sheriff is available to execute the eviction.

Property managers specialize in landlord-tenant law and should be able to help you determine a path forward that doesn't require waiting 3 months after the lease ends.