All Forum Posts by: Nathan Grabau

You could assume you are able to refi at a lower rate. Maybe you put more money down so it will cashflow. You are paying down the loan. And you benefit from a very safe long term investment that is not going to take much effort. When people put management costs into their single family or small multifamily underwriting, and then put a number in for their time, very few strong markets, like Austin, cash flow anymore. 

Some states require registrations of out of state LLC's to operate in them. For example, even though Iowa law did not require it, my lender in Iowa required that I register my Colorado based LLC that holds property in Iowa, with the Iowa SOS. Just some food for thought that anonymity really does not exist, in anyway that is meaningful. Just some other examples:

If you self manage, reverse phone number search... historic property tax bills... an asset search... LLC skip tracing.

I would spend more time working through the "why do I need anonymity?" question before you spend a ton of money and get hit with cap gains tax and all these other things. Most likely, that why, leads to an answer of being concerned with someone who is sophisticated enough to find you even through the LLC.

Have you check thumbtack to see if there is someone who can do the job you need? 

I have not used textmagic, but I do use twilio and am very happy with the software. 

You could certainly sell your properties from you to your LLC and transfer through a special warranty deed. This is going to make it look like a sale. It is important that the sale takes place at full price. It is even possible that you could take out new debt(that you would likely have to personally guarantee) from a local bank against these properties. Only down side is the transfer is going to be more expensive.

That all being said, I do not know of anyone who would be savvy enough to know what the quit claim deed was for, but would not be savvy enough to figure out that you owned the LLC.

I would recommend purchasing a 4 plex with a 3.5% down FHA loan. You likely do not spin off a ton of cash, but it continues the trend of you living below your means, and allows you to continue to hold cash while continuing to save money. While this is not guaranteed, I think you will have the opportunity to refi out of the FHA loan and PMI at some point in the next 12 months, when the Fed realizes it has over tightened and has to cut rates.

Even if this does not happen though, it is extremely unlikely that rents fall in a meaningful way making this a very safe bet for you guys to reduce or eliminate your housing expense, allowing you to save money. 

Have you looked at the black substance on the fridge? I would get your eyes on it to confirm it is a smug/ sharpie and not mold. Assuming it is just some kind of stain, I would not fix it. I personally probably would not fix the gutter issue or the broken shelf in the fridge, assuming water is not dripping above an entrance and the shelf is not that bad. 

I would delay, say you can be out in a few days to look at them, see if the list gets longer and reevaluate. You can always stop giving cookies if you are concerned about the give the mouse a cookie situation. 

 Insurance claim leads came through Zillow. I know that some insurance placement companies use Corporate Housing by Owner too. 

For me this depends on the interest rate that you are paying for your student loans. Since you have the cash to pay them down that quickly, you have a pretty good monthly buffer so if anything did go wrong you are in a very good cash position. 

I recently audited my properties performance from last year, which was not really that great of a year for RE, and my properties returned around 25%. So the question becomes, do you want to pay off debt with a 5% interest rate and lose access to making 20%+ in Real Estate. 

This actually is a decision that is completely okay to go either way on. I got myself a little over leveraged for my liking, so I am in a de leveraging mode. But my wife is currently in school, not really working, and we are paying a lot of money each month for her school, so our cashflow situation is a little different. With your situation, I would feel pretty comfortable continuing to leverage more. 

@Jonathan Taylor makes a great point here. On 50k, 4.125% vs even 9% is only 200 a month. If the loan balance was larger, I would be more worried about the rate change, but the rate going up on that 50k should not be a factor.