All Forum Posts by: MATT WARDEN

I have heard of people doing this and then canceling the credit card when they think they've had the other person build up enough history! Do not do this. It will remove the history from your credit report.

You may have fully realized this, but I've seen it enough that I thought I should point it out just in case.

I think your plan is excellent. This forum talks a lot about doing because many people have a hard time getting over their fear of risk (lot of reasons for this). They end up doing nothing as a result. So, the message here is biased toward acting, but that does not mean that you can skip a good education and your due diligence on potential properties.

Working with a realtor who works with investors might be a great way to get started.

If you couldn't rent the each unit at $1200/month, it sounds like a loser:

Debt service: $1900/3 = $633/unit
Estimated expenses (using liberal estimate of 40%): $422/unit
Total Expense: $1055/unit

The fact that you are living in one unit makes no difference.

Suffice to say you certainly wouldn't be living there free. You'd be paying $1055/unit on average (more if you use the more conservative 50% estimate).

If you are just talking about leads and that's all you care to track, then there are a million free systems out there. Sugar is a good one: http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/products/crm-products.html

Although, from the sound of your request, it could very well be overkill for your needs.

Rephrased, this basically says: depression (fake) is a CHOICE.

All forms of depression are chemical, even if it is originally self-induced (if there even is such a thing). I should point out I studied Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology for four years.

And I'd say 9 out of 10 statistics are pulled out of nowhere. Not to mention that personality disorder has absolutely nothing to do with depression.

(Please pardon the brief digression, but I didn't feel like this misinformation was helpful to anyone, especially the OP.)

Anyway, back to real estate investing...

If you are suffering from depression and anxiety, this will be a tough business for you. I would say ABSOLUTELY stay away from landlording.

If you want to flex your artistic muscle, I would suggest rehabbing. I think you may even get a nice psychological satisfaction from the improvements you are making to the properties.

Buy his book.
(http://store.biggerpockets.com/books/landlord/1MinutetoRentalPropertyRiches.html)

In the meantime, what are some ways to get 20% equity in a property without putting 20% down? How about buying below bank appraisal value?

Buy his book. It is available on Amazon. I bought it. It's excellent. I have yet to find another no-BS book like Mike's.

You can also purchase it through this very site, as I understand.

Seems like the times will be tough for rehabbers. Definitely still possible to make cash, but I would think you'd have to buy at a decent discount and increase the value a good amount relative to your rehab costs in order to handle the inevitably longer carrying costs of the slower market.

What is the purpose of having a single owning company of all the LLCs? I think you are better off from a liability perspective keeping them separate companies with no connection.

Also, I think one LLC per property is excessive, unless you are talking about large multi-unit properties. Forming and maintaining an LLC is not free.

I would suggest 4-5 properties per LLC as a good balance. Find out if your state has different classifications based on the number of properties owned by an entity.

It's possible, but you probably do not want to do it. One of the reasons people have separate companies in the first place is to (a) protect assets, as lawsuits could only be targeted at the assets of the company named in the suit, and (b) privacy. The second one is probably more important, as it makes hard for tenants and lawyers to determine how big of a fish you are.

I was asking why you want to make it a parent company. From your description, there is no reason to connect these companies.