All Forum Posts by: Maureen Healy

Hi Scott. Wow you have already gotten a lot of responses! I currently live in the Portland Oregon area, but I grew up in Hampton during the 80s and 90s I know many neighborhoods in Hampton itself pretty well. I can give you comments on specific Hampton areas. In general, I think some areas of Norfolk, Virginia beach, Williamsburg maybe Yorktown would be good. FYI, last I knew the neighborhoods just outside of Langley Air Force Base were not do good. However, I have not lived there myself in several years.

Hi Mark. I am a property manager for an apartment complex in Oregon. First, you should check your state landlord-tenant laws. Take a few classes if you can; some situations are very, very tricky and some tenants are very savvy and will work it as best they can to bend the laws. In Oregon, we are able to give tenants a 60 day no cause notice for termination of their tenancy and it can be issued 60 days before their lease is up so that they have to move out on the day their lease ends. If you would like to get them out and start fresh, see if your state has a similar type of notice that you could issue. You may be stuck with them for a while until the lease is up, but then you could get new people. I recommend thorough screening criteria! Credit, criminal, employment & residency history. Set the # of late pays you will accept in a rental history. (Ex: no more than 3 late pays in a 12-month period).

Lisa-yes, I would love that lender's info! I will email you. Thank you. I have been to NWREIA meetings in the past, but not recently. 

Devan: I have heard of the strategy you mentioned, but I have no idea how to do it or even where to start. How does is the paper work done?

Hi everyone. I have two successful flips under my belt, and I'm very interested in branching out into wholesaling and lease optioning in my local area (Portland, OR and suburbs). I established an LLC for my biz about 1 1/2 years ago, and have worked hard to create a good business credit profile with Dun & Bradstreet, so that my REI biz is completely separate from my personal credit (which is in the very good range for credit scores). I'm ready for my next deal, but I only have a small amount of $$ (under $5K), so not enough for a down payment for a private $ loan. Prices in my area are going higher and higher, so to get into a deal, I need at least $40-$50K. I don't have any retirement accounts or rich friends/relatives to borrow from. Any ideas?! As far as I am aware, there are no mortgage lenders or private money people who will lend with less than 20% down, or 15% down but you have to have a large chunk of $$ in reserves. Thanks in advance if you have any suggestions!

I have been watching the Systems Saturdays videos and find them very helpful. I'm debating on purchasing the recording of the recent live event and wondering if anyone has any constructive feedback from attending the event?

Hi everyone. I just went with NCH to form my Nevada LLC with S-corp taxation and signed up for their silver package for $1,200, which includes a bunch of stuff, including coaching to make sure you are compliant with all of the tax rules. (Also, of that amount, $500 goes to the state of Nevada for the cost of forming the LLC).

I asked for a little bit of info on building biz credit and got it during the same phone call, and was not pitched any additional products, which I appreciated.

Based on what little they told me, it seems like you can definitely do it on your own. Once you have your biz entity formed, register with the IRS for an EIN #. Then register with Dunn & Bradstreet, the #1 business credit agency.

Start by building tier 1 credit (open a biz line of credit with retailers--they said specifically Uline and Granger will both give biz lines of credit right away on new biz entities), then tier 2 (such as Home Depot, Lowes--they typically like to wait until the biz has been established for a while, or else you have to personally guarantee) and then tier 3 (the highest level--I assume this means loans from lending institutions).

And **make sure the vendors you get credit with REPORT your positive histories to D&B***. That is KEY.

Your biz credit score is called a Paidex score, and is scored differently than personal credit. You want to build up your Paidex score to 75-80; that is considered very good/excellent.

He also said: Make the min payments or a little over that; DO NOT pay off balances in order to start building the credit history. They need to see payment history over months/years, just like with personal credit.

He also noted that D&B can be finicky to work with. I have not checked out their web site yet or sought additional info, but this is a very good start, I think.

Hi everyone. I am in Portland, Oregon,but I grew up in Hampton, so when I saw this, I just wanted to jump in and say hi! I have not lived in that area for 15+ years and have no idea about how the market is there, but I still have friends and family I visit there every year or two. What I know about VA in general is that it has high taxes and they nickel and dime you for everything.

Hi everyone. A few years ago while living in Los Angeles, I attended something called the National Grants Conference. Its an organization that helps you determine what grants you qualify for based on your goals (real estate or starting a business), helps you apply (there is a mountain of confusing paperwork) and continues you to help you "go back to the well," as they say--meaning, you can continue to get grants over and over. The trick is knowing what you personally or your project qualifies for and applying for those specific grants.

At the time (this was about 4 or 5 years ago), it cost $1,000 for all the resource materials and for help on your first project. After that, you can get their help as many times as you want for $250 per project, I think.

I was not able to afford it, but it is still something I am interested in.

It seemed legitimate; they have had many public schools, businesses and even other government entities use the services.

They do free seminars around the country where they explain how it works. I think the web site is NGC dot com; you can put in your zip code and they will email you when there is a conference coming to your city or close by.

I'm a magazine writer and editor working from home. A few years ago, when I got the real estate bug, I went to appraisal school and started apprenticing in that, but found that I hated it and didn't want to stay with it (although I'm glad I did it, because now I know how they are done!).

Thanks everyone for your comments. My next question is: How do I get started in wholesaling?

My area (all of Portland, really) is canvassed already with other REI's "bandit" signs ("I buy houses, Avoid foreclosure," etc), so I'm not sure where to start or what to do.

PS--I have located the local REI club and plan on attending their next monthly meeting; unfortunately, its not until June.