All Forum Posts by: Tim Hawkins

Hello, 

I'm not sure if I've bitten off more than I needed to, but the more answers I get the more questions arise... My situation is this: My wife and I own a single rental property (at this point). All of the associated loans and banking for the property are under our personnel names as of now. I readily admit I am under-educated on the minutia of LLC'ing and recently created an LLC with the state of MT at the end of December. My intent is to keep the financial/legal business side of the rental separate from our personnel. I alone am the registered agent for the LLC and my wife's name is not on any of the state LLC forms. My bank says I need to speak to my accountant, who then says I need to speak with legal for some of my questions. I have reached out to an attorney (no call back yet) for my real estate questions and estate planning moving forward.

But for the collective brain trust here, these are my questions:

1. With my name being the only one on the LLC paperwork but all the loan and banking being in both our names, should my wife be listed as a registered agent as well?

2. If so, regarding the IRS, would that then make the LLC more than a single member LLC, and would we still be able to be considered a disregarded entity?

3. Since there are no "employees" in the LLC, my understanding is that no EIN in needed, only a TIN, which would be my/our SS#'s. Is this correct?

4. I am looking at opening up a business account in the LLC's name, the bank says I need an EIN, but the IRS says I only need a TIN (my SS#) since there are no employees.

5. Lastly, if the loans are in our personal names but everything else is done/moved under the LLC name, do I need to look at refinancing the property under/into the LLC, or is it still beneficial to have the LLC with the loans under our personal names?

6. Have I unnecessarily over-complicated things for a single rental by LLC'ing?

I hope this all makes sense. Thank you to anyone willing to take the time and be brave enough to answer my rambling under-educated questions.

Tim

Hello. I'm kind of torn and unsure. I have been putting and extra $750 mo onto my primary residence mortgage for many years now. A little over a year ago I bought my first rental property using a business loan and a HELOC. I have been putting an extra $1500 mo onto the HELOC since inception to get my equity back ASAP. Both loans currently: Primary mortgage: $78,500 at 3.78% and HELOC: $76,000 at 5.75% fixed with an every 5 yr renewal. I'm looking at putting another $200 mo somewhere on top of it all. Should I pull all the primary mortgage extra payments and combine that with the HELOC extra a'la the Dave Ramsey plan? Or should I keep doing what I'm doing and just add the extra $200 onto one or the other loans? Or, some other option I haven't thought of??

Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it.

 Lol... thank you! Sarcasm noted... sometimes I need to be reminded to not touch the burner that I already know is hot. = )

I got the HELOC locked into a 5.75% rate for a "low low" one time fee of $575.

Hello all...

I'm a single rental property owner. I made the "most excellent decision" to purchase at the peak of the market last year - yay me! (note mild sarcasm) 

To make it all happen I did a fixed business loan and a variable HELOC, which at the time was 2.5%. It's now 7%. Regarding the HELOC portion only, my question for experts is this: My CU has a fixed 5.75% option that would cost me $500 to switch to. With the way rates are going and the assumed time it would take them to ever come back down to the much lower rates we've enjoyed in the previous years... would it be a good me me to switch to the 5.75% fixed? I do throw extra money at it every month to get it paid off sooner, and I obviously want the most going to principle that I can!

What say you all?

Greetings,

This is my first post, so Hello to all! 

After finally getting my wife over her fears about this stuff, we are in the market for our first rental property. We are both nurses and are looking for a smaller SFH to rent out as fully furnished all with utilities paid, to travel nurses/professionals on furnishedfinder.com. We have some friends who have had very good luck using that rental model. In Billings right now, a viable property is on and off the market in a couple of days with 3-5 (or more) offers. I have no real idea yet as to how much over asking on avg they are going for, but asking prices have easily exceeded $100+k from 1.5-2 yrs ago. We are preapproved for a business loan up to $350k but want to stay in the mid to upper $200k range. We also have up to $220-230k equity on our primary home to borrow against for a down. At this point, this is a retirement diversification move for us to try and have some extra passive income when we retire in 13-15 yrs.

I guess the big magic crystal ball question I have is, how can I best assure (in an unsure market and world) that my offers aren't too high and I'm not overpaying for my local market, and won't wind up upsidedown in value? 

Also, I'm not super well educated on the different loan options (HELOC, normal equity loan, fixed vs variable rates, etc.,) Each one seems to offer certain benefits that others don't, but then those benefits are subsequently offset by the "downside" of each particular one. Does that make sense? I guess what I'm saying is, as a new investor and with the advice I've gotten already, I'm still not 100% sure which is the "best" way to move forward in financing this venture.

Any advice, suggestions, or education would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you.

Tim