Buy and Hold Basics

[Andrew Martel]

Hello All!

My questions for the day is about buy and hold basics. I'm a bullets kind of guy so here it goes:

• What is considered a "good" cash flow for a single family rental home... $50? $100 $200? In my simple mind, I tend to want to look at how long it would take me to build a 6 month reserve of "float" money based off of my net cash flow from the home. What do you all recommend you look to net?
• Taxes. The area that I live in has outrageous taxes for non-primary homes. We're talking 6% of the assessed property value... I've crunched a few numbers and it seems that just because of taxes, I am forced to search for deep discounts on homes. Is there anything taxes-wise that I can look into in order to reduce this cost, or another method that would allow me to net more at the end of the month? I had considered buy a forclosure then using a wrap to avoid taxes. Thoughts?
• Umbrella insurance or LLC. My concerns lie with both protecting my assets and reducing the impact of taxes. What are your suggestions?

That is all I have at the moment. Thank you for being awesome!

-Drew

[Ali Boone]

• The cash flow depends on the market (and if you are financing). Assuming you mean with financing, Houston or Dallas for example will get you $100-200/month, depending on the property. Los Angeles on the other hand is likely to get you -$200/month. So what you get should fit with what that market in general is seeing.

• Depends again on the market. In Atlanta for example, you can easily contest the taxes and get them lowered pretty significantly. You can do it in a lot of markets (can probably try in any market) but it won't always work. Just depends but worth a shot. Depends a lot on the purchase price from before you bought it versus what you buy it for.
• (read the comments especially, they are very helpful) http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/08/17/rental-properties-llc/ (