All Forum Posts by: Tommy N.

@Jimmy Cantave

I've been using GV as my personal line since 2009, and overall I love it. The web+mobile accessibility, ability to call block, ringing multiple phones simultaneously, etc. However, as mentioned above, I would be a bit cautious about using it for business use (...perhaps if you're just starting out, it might be fine until you start having more demanding needs). It's actually stated in their policy that it's not intended for commercial use: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/program-policies...

For normal communications with people, it's totally fine. But I definitely wouldn't recommend it if you plan to use it for blanket marketing to a large number of people. Also as a free service, it could technically be discontinued at any time.

Several years ago I also got hit with a temporary account suspension and I can only guess that it was because I had sent a large number of web links to one friend in a pretty short amount of time (maybe dozens?) It's bad when you can't text from your personal account, but I imagine it would feel crippling if your business really depended upon it.

That said, I've very often sent several hundreds of texts per day to friends and family over the past 6 years and aside from that one incident (which only lasted a day or two), I've not really had other issues. I love that I can read and reply to texts from any computer I'm logged into (useful since I have a full-time job and can't always be pulling up my phone). I've found the voicemail-to-text transcription isn't very good (sometimes downright funny b/c it's so wrong) tho it's usually good enough to get an idea of what a person called about, until you're able to actually listen to the message. So something to consider if that's important for you. Note that you can also port your number out of GV to another provider down the road, tho it will cost $3: https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1316844?hl...

I'm just starting out in REI, and will likely use a GV number to start with since it's free, and I've otherwise been quite happy with its conveniences considering my personal usage patterns. I think if and when we reach a certain threshold where it doesn't scale for our business needs anymore, we will look into transferring the number out to another service.

Hope this helps.

@msiekerka and @UpenPatel thank you very much for the thorough explanation...this clears up a lot. We're just getting started and mostly looking at <=4 units for now, so it sounds like location will not really a big factor here, however I guess we will need to settle on 1 lender (and have the loan either in her name, my name, or jointly). Super helpful, thanks a bunch!

Hi all,

I live in California and am looking to invest with my sister in properties located near her in Colorado, and I had a couple questions about financing. (I'm a fairly newbie investor, still trying to learn/digest as much as I can about investing, so please bear with me if these are basic questions.)

When you invest in a distant property, is it better to find a lender who is geographically closer to you (so it's presumably a quicker turnaround for you to communicate with them), or is it recommended to use one that is closer to the actual property/city/state (since they may be better calibrated to the local property values/appraisals/laws/etc.)? Or is location completely a non-issue and you can choose whomever you like best?

Secondly, when you partner with someone, do you both need to secure the loan through the same lender or can you each use your own lender? (And if you can choose, is doing one better than the other?) Any info or insight would be much appreciated!