All Forum Posts by: Thom S.

I'd be interested in listening to that episode of the podcast as well! I have an opportunity  purchase a condo with seller financing, but I don't know the ins and outs. Other than the podcast, does anyone know of any resources that might help?

@Amy A. Good point! In a very real sense, I'm the front person for a whole lot of others. This is actually not a bad thing to keep in mind.

This has been an interesting and valuable discussion for me. Thanks @Kyle Cortez for your insight as well. In the end, I'm the main point of contact for the tenants, regardless of my title, and they're going to call me whatever they want. As long as they pay the rent, follow the rules and take care of my house, I'm okay with that.

@Doneshia Marinnie Would you be willing to share the language you use in your pet addendum? It sounds like you know your way around this issue!

@Joe Splitrock, that's great advice, thank you. The DBA option is a graceful way to extricate myself from the situation I created, and moving forward I will definitely go with the consensus here and give a direct, honest answer to a direct question. No evasions necessary.

And thanks for the encouragement, @Nancy DeSocio! I'm sure I'll have more learning opportunities as I venture further down this path. My lesson for today is to dig a little deeper into advice I pull from RE books. I can see where the advice came from, but I hadn't really considered all the ramifications. 

Wow--great feedback, everyone, thank you! This is certainly a learning experience. One thing I deeply appreciate about Bigger Pockets is that people come from a variety of viewpoints. The point about ethics and integrity certainly resonates with me, which is partly what has been bothering me. And underneath it, I imagine I am worried about being firm with my tenants, which would be a good thing to deal with now before it becomes a problem.

This is all great food for thought--thanks so much to all of you for your input!

I'm a newbie investor, with one SFH that I'm currently in the process of renting out. I've seen on BP and in a couple of books that some experts present themselves to tenants as the property manager, not the landlord. That makes sense to me, so as I've been showing my property that's what I did. Several of them have asked me outright if I was the landlord, and I evaded the question, but the impression I gave was that I'm not the landlord/owner.

So here's my question: when it comes time to pay me, aren't they going to have to put my name on the check? I clearly didn't think this through, and now I'm worried that I'll have to cop to the misdirection. Can anyone help here? I'm already in the thick of things, so I don't feel like I'll have time to create an LLC or some other business entity out of thin air. I'm kind of embarrassed to even ask the question, but I'm hopeful that someone out there can steer me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

This is an excellent thread, and very timely for me because I'm getting ready to look for tenants for my first property. I noticed that Zillow offers a service for prospective tenants to apply directly through that site. I'm wondering if that helps, or it it's better to control the entire process.

Thanks for posting this, Denise! I also live in California and have had Boise on my mind after visiting family there. I'm a complete newbie, so I don't yet know much about investing, but I'd be delighted to help you research the Boise market if you'd be interested in a helping hand.

Thomas

Thanks @Dmitriy Fomichenko and @Paul Timmins for your great advice. I appreciate the welcome, and look forward to getting started!

Hello,

My name is Thom and I currently live and work in the Palm Springs area doing marketing at a large resort. I also have strong ties to Orange County/Long Beach. I'm a complete newbie when it comes to real estate investing. I've bought one piece of property in my life, a condo that I lost to foreclosure during the economic crash.

I came to BiggerPockets after a Google search. I had been listening to a couple of podcasts on RE investing, but they left me with more questions than answers. Now I'm working my way through the BP podcasts, which are great--and i figured it was time to get active on the site as well. I think my story is not unusual, in that I'm on this path after reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I'd like to begin buying properties to generate cash flow, and I'm currently in the learning stage. I'm thinking of getting my real estate license as part of my learning, but I also want to get started soon so I don't lost my momentum.

I'm glad for the chance to interact with folks on BP and I'm eager to find a way to contribute as well.

Thanks for reading!

Thom