All Forum Posts by: Zach Liu

If you want to buy rental properties, look for banks which does portfolio loan or small business loan, they are usually cheaper than private money. Prepare some documents (balance sheet, business plan, track record) and shop around. 

Sorry I am not in your market so I don't have any contacts. But find banks on google and call them should be enough. Even you just walk into a bank and ask about what you are looking for, sometimes they will refer the right people too. 

The thing is search, search, search, and talk, talk, talk. Just as you go out and looking for profits, so do all the lenders. You just need to let them know you are the person who can make them money, and they will be happy to take their 5-6%, and the rest goes to your pocket.

@Brian Huber

It means use expected income to evaluate a property, which is common too.

1, calculate the net operating income

2, find the cap rate (this can be subjective though, especially for residential properties)

3, expected property value = noi / cap rate

1, go to tax assessor's office to ask for some public record.

2, find an agent to ask for help.

3, use income evaluation which is an alternative when you cannot find comps to estimate a value.

@Anna Ryder

Welcome to BP!

I am not sure about the mecca part though, but it is a vital market I would say.

Post your questions here and usually they get answered pretty quick.

Sounds a good plan, a little complicated though.

I am wondering what the benefit of this structure comparing to just forming a master LLC and use it to own other properties in children LLCs.

@Brittany Villamil

I don't have long history of investing, but I have read many books about RE investment.

In my opinion, economic environment changes and market goes up and down, but principles of real estate investment and investment overall don't change much. Some classic books written in decades ago may make more sense from this perspectives, and they are around because they have been proven.

Another thing I find is if you read books written in different times, you can second hand experience of complete real estate cycles. Some are written when the market is high and things are writers are very optimistic, others are written when every one is pessimistic, and there are also those written in between. Seeing all these will definitely help get through the whole real estate investment career if you plan to do it long term.

With that said. There are things that should keep updated for sure, such as regulations, technology, trend in development so you can grasp where the industry is going.

At the end, I think The Millionaire Real Estate is a must read.

Instead of trying hard to look for investor-friendly agents. How about becoming an agent-friendly investor first, and let good agents coming to you.

I write my thoughts down in my first blog post here:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/6537/blog_posts...

Instead of trying hard to look for investor-friendly agents. How about becoming an agent-friendly investor first, and let good agents coming to you.

I write my thoughts down in my first blog post here:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/6537/blog_posts...

The charge seems a little high to me. But this can be local so talk to a few more to figure things out. Usually PMs charge a certain amount for lease-up (70% - 90%), renew (25% - 35%), and monthly 7% - 10%, to give you a reasonable range.

Low cost is important, but finding a good professional is more important!!! you can loose money to get a lousy PM working for free. But still, the charge you provide seems too high.

No. 1 thing is always learn how to evaluate a property, so you will know how much money you may get. For example, if you have 30k budget, property A provides 1k a year, property B nets you 3k a year, and property C cost you 1.5k a year. You want to buy property B. But if you don't know how much a property makes, you may end up buying C with A and B available on the market. The concept is that simple, but it does take time to make sense of all the numbers.