All Forum Posts by: Robert Hall

@Will Fraser @Jonathan Pflueger

I don't think "Thank You" quite says how much I appreciate all the helpful information you both have given me! I'm going to attempt to manage it myself, since it's only one property and I figure I can always hire a management company later if I feel it's necessary. Seems to me that I need to concern myself more with extracting as much value as possible out of the first few properties and not comfort.

@Will Fraser Would an FHA loan be a better option short term than conventional? It does seem like the rates may be lower, but I have excellent credit and didn't like the look of lifetime PMI that's now on the FHA loans. Plus I've found FHA is less-than-competitive in my area, given how hot the market is for most houses (I was previously looking at single family homes).

Stessa seems useful, especially given that it's free - I've seen lots of mention of platforms like Cozy and Buildium for signing leases, collecting rent, managing requests, tracking expenses, etc. Do you have any recommendations on that front?

I'm currently looking into an owner occupied multi-family deal for my first purchase, which is very daunting to say the least.

I'm doing my best to do all my due diligence - value cashflow based on local rentals,figuring out how much negative cash on cash return I'm looking at (-$300 to -$500 seems to be so far; much cheaper than my current rent and of course some of it becomes equity), etc. and most of my searching found me adequate answers to all my questions, except one:

How do I write off depreciation, how do I handle expense write-offs, etc. as just "the guy" that owns the house? Do I have to set up some sort of DBA or sole proprietorship, and is it still possible to get a 3-5% down conventional, owner occupant loan? Can I still write these off just owning the houses only in my name?

That being said, I intend to hop to another multi-unit property in a year, rinse and repeat. I'm already 30 and not getting any younger, so I'm much later to the game than most. But after building a "decent" portfolio, should I look into transferring these to an LLC or S-corp or similar? Is there any benefit, and if so - how would it work?

I know this is a bit long, but I felt the context is necessary. Thanks for reading all this!