All Forum Posts by: Sergey A. Petrov

It sounds like you are trying to be an attorney and micro managing. The laws, the exceptions, the loopholes, whatever else you find may or may not work, may or may not be applicable in your situation, and may or may not expose you to more risk. The only way to mitigate that is through experience (and them trusting the attorney to do their job instead of questioning every decision they make and every line they write on whatever document they are working on)

Start looking at neighborhoods, sale prices, rents, amenities, drive all around (Miami is big), and you’ll know what feels right for you.

HOA fees are no different than taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance and all the other things. Make a budget, add a contingency and you are good to go!

It depends. Plenty of people will tell you it is all about cash flow. Plenty of people will also tell you it is a long term appreciation play with zero or even negative cash flow. Just depends on your personal situation and preferences. Miami is actually a good play for both, just need to know where to look. I am not in Miami but have friends and clients down there that are very active…

Passive investing in a nutshell essentially means you buy a property (either researching and finding a deal yourself or paying someone to do it for you) and then turning that property to someone else to manage. Other passive real estate investing is just that investing and/or buying proportional equity in something (or being on the lender side where you are lending your own money through a third party)

You don't have a business to lend to. You have a shell LLC that you spent a hundred bucks in registration fees to form. Why would anyone lend to an LLC that is a year old with no clients, assets, or revenue?

If you call an agent and tell them you’ve just called 15 others, I am not interested right there. If you call an agent and say I found a property to buy and need help, I’ll ask you how you found it, what you are looking for, what attracted you to that property, why you do not already have an agent, and whether or not you are interested in setting up an interview to see if you and I might be a good fit from a long term perspective. You’ll most likely say you found it on Zillow or some other online platform, not really sure why that one property is of interest, that you’ve been browsing the internet for months, nothing seems to make sense and that you just want to make an offer on that one property. And that you are also browsing the internet in about 15 more cities in the country. That is not a start to a great mutually beneficial relationship 

Being “in foreclosure” just means the mortgage company says “you are behind and we’ll sell it from under you. If you catch up, we are good”. Selling the property and making the mortgage company whole is an identical process, in foreclosure or not. Active foreclosure may add some additional selling expenses to the mortgage balance as they need to stop the foreclosure process, record and additional release, etc

Forget AirDNA and other algorithms. They are great for a quick look. You then need to do your own market research. For STR, pretend you are going to visit the area next month, go to AirBnB, VRBO and any other platforms that are active in the area and look for a place similar to the one you are looking at buying. Find several comps, check their calendars (occupancy ratio and nightly rates, run the numbers and you'll know what that property will generate. Work backwards from there capturing your expenses to get to the net

Why are they asking for a 2 week grace period? That is usually a sign of something else happening. They may be overextended on their money (whatever the reason may be - loss of a job, health, something else) so they are calling everyone and seeing who’ll let them not pay on time. I’d want my tenants to know that rent is paid first (no grace period) and they can try to negotiate their car payments, credit card bills, and whatever else AFTER rent is paid. Try calling your mortgage company and see if they’ll let you be 2 weeks late.