All Forum Posts by: Shane Pearlman

Hey PBers.

I'm a little scarred from tenants using my nice SFRs to build grow houses. It has only happened once, and through amazing luck, they turned out to be the nicest drug dealers ever and helped pay to remediate the special venting they had constructed through my roof without permission. Thankfully it was contained to the garage so the interior of the home itself was not destroyed (although we did have to gut the drywall from the garage). You can try to screen for that stuff, but the tenants worked for the CDC and had excellent history and financials. It was an A- neighborhood. Go figure!

I have a couple in a duplex and my spidey sense is tingling. I need some way in which to go into the property without giving them a day or two proper notice to clean out any operations. Any suggestions on how to check in the basement (no windows) of a rental without violating California landlord-tenant law?

I look forward to meeting everyone tomorrow night! I'll be there before 7:30 to get us a table out on the back deck and will put up a folder paper with "Bigger Pockets" on the table.

@Marylynn B. I just went through this exact debate with my partners. I leave in 20m to sign the closing papers on a single family property which has turned a really solid profit. Do we apply the funds to an existing loan or increase our leverage and buy up? After a lot of debate, we decided that I'd like to control more profitable assets with 4-5% loans while the opportunity remains. The 1031 aspect gives us so much more reach, although that time limit freaks me out (tick tock, tick tock).

It sound like you know how to hunt down properties. It is a matter of how much you trust your spreadsheets, how much buffer you give yourself, and knowing what the risks are in the properties. I mostly see people on BP talk about getting in trouble when they skip the steps or compromise their rules for "a deal". The other key in shifting to MF is to figure out what you want out of the experience for your lifestyle. 

I personally need additional time more than I need a small / mid size increase in revenue at this point in my career. That is a big change from where I was at 7 years ago when I started investing in properties. When I look at deals then, they have to have both property management and the maintenance / capex built in correctly. I'm also cautious about the tenants we inherit.

I look forward to hearing about what deal you decide to chase.

Hi @Leila Jones You are asking a great question. I need someone who:

* Understands my personal investment philosophy and has experience with buy & hold investors.

* Gets the requirements and types of deals I want and runs the numbers themselves quickly before showing me deals.

* Actually brings me real leads. I can look and triage the MLS just fine without help.

* Is on board with the reality that sometimes deals are with my own money and easy to put together, and something its a lot of juggling.

* Back me up and make me look good in front of my partners / syndicators.

* Acts like a partner, not a sales person.

* Accountable. Is really good at setting expectations and then delivering or through communication resetting them.

* Curious and & knowledgable. They know what is changing in the niche and the area, the impacts of laws and local ordinances.

@Wade Guy what an epic question. 

First thought: many of my mentors are NOT my friends. They are people I intentionally sought out for guidance and leadership. Every few years my wife and I update a list of the things we want to have, do and become. I take that list and ask myself who out there has all these things and is achieving them in a moral, legal and ethical manner within the niche that I am growing. It seems to take me years to find the right mention and I am actively looking for someone in multifamily. 

As for friends: we don't so much as look for friends based upon finances, as much as based upon a common vision of the world. In our case, it is pretty likely that some degree of success, or at least blazing ambition will be present. 

When I look back at the friendships I find most meaningful, it comes down to shared activity and perspective. I look for people who are going through similar adventures, be it kids or sports or business. Something I can relate to, and someone with whom sharing my journey is meaningful. I love to talk about business, surfing + running, my kids and real estate with my friends. That alone has been a natural self selector. 

I live in silicon valley and work in tech. I can tell you that the difference in perspective and the level of conversation here, versus most other tech hubs when I travel is tangible. The attitude, and relationships that drive opportunities are so significant that entire companies move to participate. It is true on an individual level too. Its why I am so enamored with the BP forum.

@Tony Sepassi - just in case you haven't heard it, they had a pretty good interview with @michaelblank on his multifamily investing in the DC area: http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2014/04/17/bp-066-entrepreneurship-michael-blank/

If you can't make this date or just can't get enough, there is a meetup in santa cruz this friday at 7:30pm: http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/143396-santa-cruz-meetup---august-29th-2014

There is a pretty good paper which runs through the outcomes of Loma Prieta (1989) quake: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/loma_prieta/comerio.html

Basically, single family people got a lot of help. Multi-family people were assed out and many were foreclosed on. Hoping the gov agencies improved policies, but I wouldn't count on it.

Makes me wonder about earthquake insurance. Every time I review the numbers and read the terms, its makes almost no sense. But a good earthquake in the bay area could easily bankrupt us.

Hi @Karen Margrave 

That is a great question! The word "website" is about as broad a placeholder as the word "real estate". It basically covers anything and everything that displays content for a user to interact with via a screen (and sometimes beyond that). When you are looking for solution to drive new business, establish credibility with prospects, share case studies and examples, and encourage the right people to contact you, there are a couple of approaches (in order of labor involved): 

The Landscape

1) Software as a service (example: wordpress.com, wix.com, squarespace.com ...)

These are companies that have pre-build and hosted solutions to make your life easy. They are all quite good and affordable. What they are not is extremely flexible.

2) Self hosted open-source solutions (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal...) 

These are free software platforms that communities have created to make managing websites user friendly. You can host your own version cheaply on a server like dreamhost, wp-engine or digital ocean. The advantage of doing it yourself as opposed to a saas (see #1) is that you can customize they to do a number of unique things the saas providers may not offer

3) Custom builds

Up until 10 years ago, all websites were custom. Today, I wouldn't advise it in your situation. Too costly, and overkill.

Choosing:

I would suggest the following approach: make a list of all the things your website needs to be able to do. For example:

* Custom domain (http://www.parlayinvestments.com)

* Gallery

* Contact us form

...

Then explore the SaaS solutions to see if they do everything you need. If that works, then go with the one you like best. If you find yourself limited, then go with self hosted. I wouldn't waste my time trying to figure out how to do it yourself, just hire a freelancer (elance, microslancer...)

WordPress

You asked some specific WordPress questions. WordPress is a free open source platform to allow people to make blogs & websites (wordpress.org). That is separate from the freemium service offered at wordpress.com. A WordPress site is composed of three elements: WordPress (core) + Theme (visual) + Plugins (additional functionality). The SaaS service organize the workflow of choosing for you. If you do self hosted, typically you will go to either the free repo (http://wordpress.org/themes/)  or to a commercial marketplace (http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress or https://creativemarket.com/themes/wordpress) and pick a visual layout you like. Then you will decide what functionality you need and choose the appropriate plugins. For example, if you needed an event calendar (http://wordpress.org/plugins/the-events-calendar/) or a newsletter (http://wordpress.org/plugins/wysija-newsletters/). WordPress is great for running a blog @Douglas Dowell mentioned as well as a full scale website.

We have used WordPress to power some of the world's largest sites and communities for companies like Microsoft to Bon App