All Forum Posts by: Soh Tanaka

There is a discussion called, "Are you Pro or Against 401k?" Maybe reading through that would give you an answer. 

One thing that my insurance agent told me is this. The umbrella insurance's benefit really kick in when something happens when you are driving your car to go to a grocery store and hit someone, for example. Once the person who got hit finds out that you owe a lot of properties (even if they are in LLC), he can try to take all of your assets, and a regular insurance itself may not be enough to cover the cost.

I used to think that the main reason why we should have an umbrella insurance is when someone slips and fall in your property and when the regular insurance doesn't cover the whole cost, umbrella can take care of the rest. This is still the case, but likelihood of something happen while you are driving is higher than something happens at your rental properties. 

@Harrison Liu This is not a perfect science, but you realized you "lost" $21,600 ($150 lost rent X 12 months X 12 years = $21,600) over the years. You mentioned you would've had 4-5 vacancies, so that is $21,600 / 4.5 = $4,800. Financially speaking, if you think the vacancy would've costed you more than $4,800 each time, then you are ahead by charging less. Without knowing your rent, all I can do is guessing, but $4,800 sounds like a lot of money for a turnover. 

This is not what you are asking, but...

Something you may want to check it out is to make sure that your rents have been competitive. It's possible that your occupancy rate has been high because you have been charging not enough rent, thus losing out on some profit. It may be good to have some (3-5% maybe) vacancy.  

I think things can get complicated rather quickly. I recommend to read this book called "Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide." It's a bit expensive, but you'll learn a lot about tax/landlord.

I never tried this person, but he's been sending an email to me for a very long time. Needless to say, do your homework before you do anything.

http://bestchicagowholesaledeals.com/

Best wishes!

Try CAPS or Property Boss. I think Rose is a pretty big one also, but I never used them. 

I worked with Tom Olson and his group in the past. He has a very good team. He is not a scam or fake.  

One way to look at it is it's too risky not to invest because if you keep the money in the bank, you are pretty much guaranteed to lose due to inflation. There are a lot of posts about turnkey properties on BP, so you can do some research, call them up and make a decision. 

Try Ridge Lending. They did a good job for my cash-out refi in the past.