All Forum Posts by: Anthony Thompson

Ross, welcome to BP!

Just curious, are you finding it harder today to make the #s work, compared to 2 or 4 years ago?

Rents have risen which is good, but so have prices. I'm finding (what it seems to me is) a bigger proportion of cases where "market value" only makes sense for an owner occupant, not an investor (even for multis). Has hints of 10 years ago a bit, in my mind.

(There are always deals to be had if you dig enough to find them of course, I'm just talking about in general.)

Claire, great stuff, love it. And I totally recognized Cranston City Hall in your probate video ;)

@David Sisson Looks like they added GIS and plat maps to the ripropinfo.com site too

I'll be there Eladio - see you there :)

I used to go to rilandrecords.com several times a week for links to land evidence records and tax assessor websites for RI cities & towns (Providence, Pawtucket, more recently Warwick, Johnston etc.)

It went offline last week (Friday I think) but there is a replacement site with the same info as the old one: https://ripropinfo.com (RI property info).

This is one of a small handful of essential sites I have on my "bookmarks" bar for doing real estate in Rhode Island, along with the RI secretary of state corporations database and the RI contractors registration board license lookup, so I hope this is helpful.

Brandon, if it were me I would keep the rentals separate from the other entities because rental income/expense is treated differently for tax purposes (schedule E).

The other businesses are all "earned income" type of businesses so in theory for tax purposes could be combined, but I would keep construction as its own entity because it's really its own kind of business with its own kind of risks.

I would probably put the property management under the real estate brokerage, both for the sake of simplicity and also the fact that if you want to manage properties for others (which might technically include you due to entity structure) you need a real estate license in RI anyway. Also as others mentioned this is a fairly common setup and even a common insurance rider for brokerages.

Again if it were me I would probably forego a parent company for all of this simply to keep things simple. When you overcomplicate things it makes it a lot easier to miss a detail that could potentially open an entity up to being set aside.

While I understand the "multiple layer" argument, the extra complexity (not to mention extra cost, if you care about that sort of thing) means extra risk of doing something incorrectly (missing an annual meeting, writing a check from the wrong account, etc.), and if you maintain the main entities correctly anyway I think that (and a good insurance policy) is the real line of defense.

"The devil is in the details", and it seems like there are more than enough details in real estate already. I've been to many "asset protection" seminars over the years and I agree that owning/operating in a sole proprietorship or general partnership is insane, and some entity structuring is certainly necessary - to a point. But I also carry around 8-10 checkbooks at any one time and at this point I've come to appreciate the power of simplicity as well.

Wayne, I've found that while it's good to know about the things you mentioned, and have them in your toolbox, you have to be very cautious about presenting them to sellers. It's an old sales aphorism that "a confused mind says no".

The most important thing is to find out what motivates people, what do they want and need. There should be a lot of listening - you listening to them. For example, do they really need all cash now, or would they actually prefer payments over time (if they have equity)?

Many of the alternative ("creative") strategies have complexity and delays (e.g., short sales) that mean they probably shouldn't be the first thing you bring out of the toolbox - though again, it is good to know about them for the rarer cases where they might be appropriate.

I guess that's a verbose way of saying that over time I've come to appreciate that in many cases the "KISS principle" applies. Only go to the next level of complexity after you understand the situation and think it's really warranted - in many cases, it's not.

Liz, welcome to BP! For connecting with others in the area, I'd recommend attending a local real estate investor group. I know of one in RI called RI Real Estate Investors Group (http://rireig.com) and they usually meet the 3rd Thursday of every month in Warwick - check their website to confirm before going of course, to find the location, etc.

Marc, depending on the deal, on a number of occasions I've bought properties with private (hard) money loans, held them for 6-18 months and then refinanced with bank financing. This lets me move quickly for good deals, but still have a decent rate for the long-term hold. Also lenders seem to like refinancing an existing property with some history and stable management, a little more than a new purchase/building.

However, building up private/hard money lender relationships does take time and work, and some experience to find deals and put everything together. If you haven't attended a real estate investor group such as the RI Real Estate Investor Group (http://rireig.com) or Black Diamond REI (blackdiamondrealestateinvestors.com) I'd recomend it.

John, welcome to BP and hope to see you at the RIREIG meeting in April (www.rireig.com).

For posterity/future visitors to this thread, more details on the Ocean State Grad Grant Program are at http://loans.rhodeislandhousing.org/GradGrant/

If you qualify, it's hard to turn down free money; it's like an investment you don't need to put any money into - infinite ROI! :)