All Forum Posts by: Sandy Uhlmann

@Vince Mayer: 

Thanks Vince.  I appreciate the input.

I seem to remember a guide that investors could give to their realtor to help them understand the needs and mindset of investors.  I have tried to search the forums and cannot seem to come up with it.  Can anyone help me find it?

Many thanks!

I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a combination CPA/attorney that specializes in real estate and asset protection?   I am so tired of having the CPA say "ask your attorney"  or the attorney telling me to "check with your accountant"  I would like a one stop shop that will leave me confident that I am covering my assets/choosing the correct entities and taking advantage of all of the tax advantages of real estate investing. 

Is it necessary that they practice in my home state?

That would be great.  It seems like where I live, there is little strategic coordination between the attorneys and CPAs at least from a RE perspective.  I think I might have to use an out of the area firm.  

Thanks for the advice

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations finding  an individual or a firm that specializes in both real estate law and accounting.  It seems that it would be so much easier to structure entities correctly and to do tax planning if everyone is on the same page.  I have seen firms like this but I am a little frightened about the pricetag.

Thanks,

I really could have used this service on the rental I just rehabbed.  I hired a gentleman off of Craigslist to put do a deck in an older house.  Seemed nice enough, had good work ethics and his brother from another city who does decks all the time (or so he said) was helping him.  Deck seemed solid, looked OK.  During the deck remodel, he kept bragging about how good he was with tile.  You would have thought that this guy was the God of tile installation the way he went on and on.  I was planning to tile myself but I thought that with all the experience that he said he had, why not let him do it.  He completed tiling my kitchen.  He bragged about how neat he was and how there was no thinset squeezing in between the tiles.   When he was working on my second bathroom I happened to be there and noticed him using 1/4 inch grout float on my 20" tiles.  I was horrified!  I questioned him on it and he insisted that he had done numerous tile jobs and this was the correct way to do it.  Additionally, he said that there was no way he could cut the tile out around my floor vents.  The man had tiny strips of one inch tile so he could tile around the vent without making a cut out in the tile.  It looked horrible-that vent was 2 feet from the bathroom door!  I was paying him by the hour so I told him that I would grout it.  As soon as he left, I popped up the 1" tiles and made a cutout for the vent properly and replaced a number of the tiles so to preserve the design.  I was horrified to discover how easy it was to pop the tiles up.  The coverage on the back of the tile was minimal.  (hence why he was so neat)  I only wish I discovered this when he was starting my kitchen.  Now I have 3 rooms of tile with minimal thinset coverage that is sure to crack at some point in time.  Where is that Dorkin list??  I could have left this review on it and saved others from this headache.  Better yet-they could have saved me!  And by the way, that deck:  I thought it was odd that he used horizontal slats instead of spindles.  I had to put spindles in myself after the fact when I found out that the horizontal slats would not pass code.  Arrr!!!!

I have an older house that I recently rehabbed.  We put replaced the old wood decking with new.  I am trying to decide if I should stain the deck or if I should paint the deck?  I am leaning towards painting it thinking that it might last longer between touch ups.  Most of the deck is covered with the exception of the steps and the landing.  

I just want to do whatever is less maintenance.  Also, if anyone has any particular products that work well or application advice, I would appreciate the input.

Many thanks!

I am rehabbing an older (1927) home.  It has an old coal room that has crumbling paint and some of the walls have loose rocks/mortar.   It is not cracked and it does not leak.   I scraped off the crumbling paint and loose material.  I was going to try Structolite as suggested by the authors of The Section 8 Bible.  I was wondering if anyone else had experience with this product and could lend advice or if another product would be better.

I have an older (1920's) home I am rehabbing and plan to rent.  The porch has the old battleship grey paint its floor and it is chipping.  Does anyone know of a really good paint or paint/epoxy that is easy to apply and will be durable?  This is an upper scale rental so I want it to look nice.

I went last Summer but it was very good. There were four different lectures going on at the same time in different rooms. You could pick and choose what topic interested you the most. All of the speakers were excellent and there was a variety of real estate topics discussed. There was very little selling from the podium. All of the speakers were extremely approachable afterwards which I appreciated. Topics ranged from landlording, rehabs/fix and flips, wholesaling, investing in notes, using your IRA to invest in real estate and so much more. It really was a great overview of all aspects of real estate. There was tons of vendors there which was actually a plus. I never knew that there was so many companies willing to lend you money for rehabs or to purchase property ect... There were buying clubs represented as well as insurance companies that cater to landlords or to fix and flippers.

It really was a wealth of information there.  It was also a great way to network and to have a mini mastermind sessions about whatever area of real estate that interests you.  I enjoyed it and learned a lot and even my husband, who has absolutely no interest in real estate at all prior to this event, really enjoyed it.  It is worth checking out.