All Forum Posts by: Ryland Taniguchi

 In Washington state, it can be considered a criminal offense to record a conversation without someone's permission. 

I am the opposite of a victimization type of person. Anything I have put my mind to in my life I have accomplished. 

The defining moment of my life was around 15 years old. I was running a marathon that I didn't fully prepare for. Half way through I started to puke. Some inner voice told me to "puke in the bush" and RUN FASTER. I kept dry puking and RAN FASTER. I ended up placing 10th in the race. 

As soon as I crossed the finish line, my body collapsed and they had to put me in an ambulance and stick ivy needles in me. LOL That it was stupid is besides the point. I learned that my WILL could take me wherever I wanted to go in life. I never forgot the lesson.

No matter how much I get blungeon by obstacles, no matter how great the odds or how difficult the path, I learned that I have the WILL to succeed. It is how I have WILLED myself through 8 foreclosures and 3 bankruptcies to success in real estate. I cannot be stopped.

So, I would warn the local government not to get in my way. I will own them. And I will own the media as well.

My wife taught elementary in a rough area in Tacoma and in a privileged area in Wallingford. 

In Tacoma, the elementary kids had to duck under desks as they experienced a drive by shootings. Kids are joining gangs in the 2nd grade. An elementary kid stabbed another kid. My heart broke when I heard stories of a kid who would put his "free" school lunch in a zip lock to take home to feed his mom. Life is survival in some ELEMENTARY schools.

In Wallingford, the kid's eat expensive organic snacks and wear name brand clothes. The parents raise $450,000 a year to get a teacher's assistant in every classroom. If a child gets behind, a private tutor is hired immediately. Unlike the Tacoma school, you don't need to offer free pizza to get parents to be involved in the PTA.

There is a majority disparity in America. A class struggle. Very rich and very poor. I think it's time we Really help the less fortunate in our country. What has the government down to ACTUALLY help the poor in America? Has Obamacare, Section 8, Minimum Wage Laws, Rent Control and Food Stamps changed the disparity between Tacoma and Wallingford? Absolutely Not! And the government social programs have actually widened the gap between Tacoma and Wallingford.

We need to change the way we attempt to help the Inner City and At Risk youth through Social Capitalism or Social Entrepreneuership.

Being a real estate investor for sixteen years has been a constant battle with roller coaster ups and downs. Through overcoming daily challenges as a real estate entrepreneur, I have now learned to build and run a hedge fund.

The average American hate the hedge funds.

Why not create a People's Hedge Fund? A 501(3)c that operated exactly the same as a hedge fund where the profits help a Social Cause. Running a hedge fund is learning how to hedge your bets so that you get high returns regardless if the market goes up, down or sideways. We put 70% of our portfolio flipping notes that we underwrite at 50% LTV non-recourse for IRAs. We underwrite and sell a tranche of paper through a FINRA broker/dealer to credit unions. We have been getting around 48% IRR with this strategy and can get 96% through leveraging a warehouse line.

We put 30% of our portfolio to land development deals where we structure seller JVs and cash the seller out at permits. The fund keeps it's money in a project no more than 12-months and we target deals where we put in let's say $80,000 soft costs and structure a pay-off of $240,000 in 12-months when permits are completed. So what I do is partner with another investor, have them take over the risk of completing and taking a loan out on the project, and they get 70% equity. The cash from the new partner is used to give me $240,000 (200% IRR on my soft costs) and the downpayment money to cash out the seller. So we try to get a 200% IRR with as much safety as possible in a very risky asset class. Try to minimize or avoid holding costs.

So, in a nutshell, we are talking 80% to 120% combined IRR while also reducing risk through hedging. According to the rule of 72, these type of returns mean you double your money every year.

I want to improve the Inner City through such a People's Hedge Fund. Find ways to create the initial nest egg and then use the profit from the nest egg to help the Social Cause without losing the nest egg. And replace the government as the way to help the Social Cause.

My vision is to provide education and opportunity. Not handouts. I think it is noble to give Christmas toys, food, clothing, shelter, etc. But that's not what I am trying to do. I want to target age 3 to 7 and want to increase their Financial IQ. 

How to do this? Free After School and Early Education programs that focus on Financial IQ... Funded by the People's Hedge Fund. By the way, I have a name for this People's Hedge Fund and it is called Start With America. 

I do want to help the adults and at risk youth in the Inner City as well through Financial IQ Entertainment. Start With America will be the first non-profit media and tv production company that creates a show called Start With America that creates entertainment from this People's Hedge Fund. I envision the non-profit producing movies, owning sports teams and being named on sports stadiums. 

This is my passion and purpose in life. It is what drives me to get better and better at this real estate game. Money does not motivate one like a vision for the future can.

When I was in high school, I was one of the kids that was bullied everyday. One time I was pushed down the stairs. Kids would tie my shoes while I fell asleep in the bus. Would have spit wads hit my head. When being bullied, I would feel this overwhelming feeling of shame.

I have not felt this feeling in twenty years until 2016. Labor and Industries (LNI) here in Seattle uses bullying tactics. According to my attorney, they have been targeting real estate investors here in Seattle. I get the feeling that the government here believes that real estate investor are like a tumor that needs to be removed.

Ironically, the government department that is supposed protect employees from being bullied is the same department that bullied on a systematic basis. Couple of examples.

An LNI inspector went to a homeowners house (someone that I work with), knocked on the door and pushed his way into the house without asking for permission. Since when can the government barge into your home without any permission or warrant?

While speaking to an LNI inspector, I was shocked he made a comment that it was "suspicious" that we hired mostly African-American employees and subcontractors. Are you kidding me?

I had an LNI inspector say to me, "Either you are the most naive person or a big fat liar." While talking to this inspector, I felt like the bullied kid who was pushed down the stairs and had their shoe laces tied. I feel the spitwads hitting my neck.

In Washington state, it has been a one party state since 1980. I don't agree not consider myself a Democrat, Republican or Libertarian. However, power tends to corrupt. And the Democrats holding power for nearly 40 years has corrupted the system. These abuses of power should never happen. 

I have followed cases with the same complaints (many in the Public Records Act cases where LNI refused stubbornly to give up records) but the problem is that LNI is defended by the Attorney Generals office. So the bullying and other abuses of power continue.

If you are a real estate investor in Seattle, there is a huge risk to your business lurking around the corner. And that is being bullied and harassed by LNI. As a matter of fact, it is the main reason why I think it is difficult to scale a construction operation in this state. Here in this state... The more you increase the size of your construction operations, the more it costs per square foot. It is reverse economies of scale and the main reason is being bullied and harassed by LNI. 

As a result, this is why I don't try to do more than 10 development deals and 10 BRRRR at a time here in Seattle. I also quit flips because the numbers don't pencil out with a competitive market for deals and skyrocketing construction costs. Instead, I scaled my business into non-recourse lending in the Midwest to investor's self-directed IRAs and self-directed solo 401(k).

Welcome to this online community. Best advice is to fail forward, fail fast and fail frequently.

I am opposed to the liberals. I am opposed to the conservatives. I am opposed to the libertarians. 

But of the liberals, the conservatives, and the libertarians, I would have to say that the liberals make us rich investors richer. If you look at my body of work, my purpose in life to provide financial education for the inner city so I just shake my head since I advocate for underprivileged minorities.

 They are back to GC and not employees

 Make sure you get the right people. Many architects are so busy that they are the bottleneck.

It's impossible to find enough crews. I don't think any experienced people give out their good crews right now in a market with shortage of good construction labor. The supervisors and crew leaders are now back to being GCs and I keep them very busy.

 Life insurance is not something you need if you're not making millions of dollars. You will need life insurance as a tax vehicle if you run into the problem of making too much money.

 Buy term and invest the difference is not a good strategy at all. This idea was invented by the companies like Primerica to sell their product. There are two problems with it. The term insurance does not get any of the tax and asset protection benefits that can be obtained by a properly structured whole life and/or IUL. The second problem is mutual funds is intended as the "invest the difference." Why get 7% returns, pay 4.5% in guarantee fees and take the risk of losing up to 40% of my money? What Wall St does is highway robbery and this the conventional wisdom and what the average person should invest in.

I would not discount life insurance as a real estate strategy. In investing, you need both a high rate of return and liquidity. I used my whole life and IUL policies in 2009 to buy real estate at the best time. I was getting 14% average IRR on these policies and they provide both asset protection and a tax shelter. There are advantages to defined benefit plans. The problem is finding any licensed life insurance agents that understand what the best policies are. You want minimum death benefit and as close to the MEC limits. In fact, life insurance was such a great tax shelter for the wealthy that the IRS created the MEC to limit the investment advantage of life insurance in the short run. As the other poster mentioned correctly, the infinite banking concept only works after about 6 to 10-years. It is a long term strategy. In the short term, it is not possible to use this infinite banking strategy because of MEC.

Life insurance is not for newbies or even middle level. It is a super advanced strategy that requires the right team to add to your mix. It can also be mixed with a self-directed solo 401(k). 

In my experience, the insurance ironically seem to see real estate as risky. The problem is that financial planners and real estate investors see themselves on opposite sides of the investing.

The deal analysis that I do for land development is all based on getting a 200% IRR structured in the deal in a 12-month timeline.

As far as negotiating JV deals, it is better to very specific. Like specific details that the seller upon a HML land development loan for soft costs will get $100,000 in exchange for simultaneously performing a quit claim of the property into the LLC that we are partners with the seller in. Have an attorney draft up the JV agreement. In these kind of contracts, you have to think of every worse case scenario.