All Forum Posts by: Richard C.

Your association with WorldVentures, probably the biggest scam outfit in the travel industry, does not bode well for your future in real estate. Even less does your association with a wholesaling guru who tells you that having a license is a waste (which is outrageous.)

You describe yourself as having little money, and perhaps two-three hours a day of uninterrupted time. For someone in such a position, becoming a licensed agent and doing some part-time real estate sales is by.FAR the safest route to success in real estate.

 No, it is not. People really need to get this through their heads. Landlords want access to the power of the state to enforce leases, protect property, facilitate evictions, etc.

What they pay for that is having the power of the state sometimes cut against them. Rent is late when your state's law says it is late, and not before.

 I notice you are in Texas, where all kinds of crap that would never fly most places seems to be the norm.

But in most states, there are state laws saying how holidays are to be treated. And those state laws control, not your lease.

Based on the length of the cycles, historically, the answer is that we are coming due for a correction.  When exactly it comes and how bad it will be, I don't think anyone can know.

In hot markets right now, I would be wary of a long-duration project.  I wouldn't worry about a quick one.

 No.  Sorry, but no.  Maybe that is how it works in Texas, but in the courts in my state, you will get a judgment of exactly $0.00 for carpet the is FOUR years old, never mind five.

Something that is without value cannot be damaged.  You have no damages to collect on if someone messes up valueless carpet.

If you sue, you will lose.

You can go after them for the cost of sealing the subfloor if necessary.

Carpet is disgusting, dogs or no dogs.  If you ever looks at a piece of carpet under a decent microscope, you would never install it again.

Do you have an LLC? Do you have minutes of the annual meetings? Do you have audited financial statements? Can you prove that you have never, not even once, co-mingled the funds of the LLC with your personal funds? Was your LLC capitalized at formation, or were the initial business operations conducted with your funds and then transferred to the LLC? Do you exert day-to-day managerial control over assets belonging to the LLC? Do you have publiched corporate by-laws? Do you have a personal guarantee on any debt owed (yes, that alone will cause courts to pierce the veil!!)

Go to creditboards dot com and you will find more information than you ever wanted to know.

The real answer boils down to this:  Those AU accounts probably aren't helping your score much right now, and removing probably won't have much impact one way or the other.  

Here is the best use of an AU account: American Express backdating.

American Express allows you to become an AU on a "cardmember's" account, becoming a "cardmember" yourself, with a "cardmember date" of whenever the primary account holder got the card.  When you later get your own AmEX, youcall them up and they will backdate your own account to that original "cardmember date" AND REPORT THAT AS THE AGE OF YOUR ACCOUNT TO THE BUREAUS!

This has huge impact.  My 20-year-old just got her first Amex in her own name, after having been an authorized user on my account since age 15 years, 6 months.  And her credit report shows an account more than four years old.  

Even better, every time she adds a new Amex product, the same thing will happen, and each new card will actually INCREASE her average age of accounts.

THAT is how you use AU accounts, and how a college student who has never made more than $5000 in any year has a 776 FICO.

You need an umbrella insurance policy. Putting your property in an LLC does little to protect you. Piercing the veil on a typical single-owner LLC is something that takes a plaintiff's attorney 3 months out of law school about an extra hour of effort.

Your best bet is to not try to game the system or hide anything from a lender.  Just flat out say what you are trying to do and why.  There is nothing improper about it, and the loan officer will be able to tell you whether that bank's overlays allow it or not.