All Forum Posts by: Sandra Hale

Hi,

I have some notes and the borrower is typically late paying.  Therefore they pay the monthly note (principle and interest) plus a late fee of 5%.  Do I need to include this late fee as income/interest on my taxes?

I would recommend checking out Lee Phillips programs. He is an attorney that specializes in asset protection. He has a program designed to answer all questions about an LLC, S-corp, C-corp, trusts etc. He also has a former IRS auditor on his staff. Your business foundation is important as it relates to asset protection and taxes. Lee has several videos on YouTube that you can watch for free. His web site is Legalees.com. I have one of his programs and it helped me a lot when setting up my LLC, and undoing what I originally set up wrong. There are many different schools of thought on this and you will have to make the best decision for yourself.

I grew up in Memphis and now live in Hendersonville tn, suburb of Nashville.  Nashville is a super hot market as mentioned above.  I agree that Germantown, Collierville and Lakeland are good areas in Memphis.  Generally speaking real estate is cheaper in Memphis than Nashville.  Memphis is a good rental market, check out the demographics and information provided by "Memphis Invest" and Chris Clothier.  They only invest in a few markets where the market demographics meets their criteria: Memphis, Houston and Dallas.  I have family in Eads.  It is nice, more a spacious rural type area.  Also have family in Oakland, which is more blue collar neighborhoods.  If I were to move back, I would look at Collierville, Lakeland and Eads area.

Here is link in case you need it.  You can just come to one of the meetings as a guest and then sign up.  I suggest the main Monday nite meeting held once a month or Deals, Deals, Deals subgroup that meets every other Tuesday.

Learn about the concept of compounding and leveraging. If you have HELOC, you can use $ to pay for down payments on additional properties. You will need some reserves to cover notes/rents if the renters default. Join the Nashville REIN and attend Deals, Deals, Deals meetings and Landlord focus group. It is only 149 per year, a super bargain and great group. There are experienced investors who have done this and are happy to help you and share experiences with you.

I would join your local real estate investors group. There are many people willing to Joint Venture on a project that may be willing to partner with you and provide the cash for a percentage of the profit. It may be 50% or higher.  But some money is better than no money and you can start building up some cash reserves to you will have a down payment.  Check out Devan McClish podcast to see how he got started with finding money.  He offered such great returns on the deals, that investors were willing to lend him money.

Agree with Rocky. In my experience, only private lenders will allow this. We do some of these in Tennessee.  Some real estate agents say they are illegal, but not in Tennessee. Always best to check with your local state laws.

Thank you Elizabeth and everyone for your thorough, honest answers. It is difficult to assess the "hidden fees" and really know who you are dealing with on this company.  I always ask upfront, but it is not always clear. I originally contacted this company through "Funding For Flipping", which I had a free consultation with. Then I get a followup email from some completely different company and individual. At this point, I do not have a high level of trust with the multi-layers.

It appears, the company goes by several names etc.   WCAP financial funding; www.seedcapital.com or www.businessloan.org . To initiate the process, you must give a credit card and sign up for credit report at www.creditnav.com. before they will talk to you about your loan.  I did not do this, so I cannot speak from first hand experience. As I mentioned to them on my intro call,  I was very skeptical about signing up for a credit report and giving them a credit card for a 29.95 monthly fee.  Even though you can cancel in 7 days supposedly, I don't know how long their vetting process takes so you may be stuck with one or two fees. I am totally OK with a $29.95 fee. I understand people's time is valuable... but they need to disclose the fees upfront and not bury it in their multi-level processes. Your answer gave me a lot more insight to the way they work.

They have a lot of positive testimonials and seem to have worked very well for some, but I do not think it is a good fit for me. I also asked for phone numbers of referrals, which they were unable to give me.

 Hi Brian,

Thanks for the info. I plan on using my ira for private investments with builders and rehabbers, and to acquire rental property, so I am kind of a hybrid. :)