All Forum Posts by: Ariel Cohen

@Shane H. I think you are right... I wasn't sure how the Buildium relationships work. 

What I just realized that my Property = 123 Street LLC and the Property books are the LLC books. The Owner's are Partner 1 LLC and Partner 2 LLC.

Thanks for helping think this through 😀

@Brian Adams right now my real estate empire is a single 5 unit building that I am scheduled to close on next week. I hope to grow this portfolio significantly from this one building, but right now that it the only one in my portfolio. 

I researched a few other platforms that I liked better but the cost for it when spread across 4 units made it too expensive. Hopefully the math will change soon and I can move into a move robust system. 

From all the software platforms at the lower price point, I felt that Buildium had the most to offer. 

Unfortunately I use Yardi and MRI at work so I am used to features that don't exist in any of my options. 

@Shane H. I am a member of 123 Street Partner 2 LLC which is the managing member of 123 Street LLC.

Part of the obligations as the managing member is to provide the property management for the company's property 123 Street.  

The reason why I am trying to set up the Partner level is because I am trying to give Owner access to the owner of 123 Street Partner 1 LLC so he will have access to the owner portal. Maybe I am approaching it the wrong way.

I recently started using Buildium and I am trying to figure out how to properly set up the Owner structure in Buildium.

The Property is 123 Street which is Owned by 123 Street LLC. 123 Street LLC has two partners, 123 Street Partner 1 LLC and 123 Street Partner 2 LLC.

I am trying to figure out how to reflect the two partners correctly in the Owner setup which will book the accounting correctly as well as give the Partner's "owner" access to the property online.

I called Buildium support to try to get some feedback on how to set it up, but I don't think the person I spoke to understood the structure.

Does anyone have and experience with Buidlium using direct and indirect holding companies?

I am researching PM software for a 5 unit resi deal that I am working on. We will self manage the property, renovate the units as the turn over and then self manage long term. Hoping to do a few of these and want to make sure that we have systems in place from deal # 1.

I work for a large property management company and have a lot of experience with Yardi and MRI. Those two products have a very strong accounting and financial reporting component, which it seems like most of the products that cater to the smaller PM's/Owners don't excel at.

The few PM solutions that I have been looking at are Rentec, TrueRent & Buildium. I like some of the other solutions but the pricing is too much to make it worth it at this stage.

I would also like job costing ability to track improvement projects, but I haven't seen anyone mention something like that in my research here on BP.

Can anyone who has been using any of these solutions (or any others that I should look at) chime in on the accounting/financial reporting side as well as the ability to job cost and track an improvement project?

@Dooreuhn Cee 

Did you make a decision on which platform you are going with? Do you have any feedback yet?

I am researching PM software for a 5 unit resi deal that I am working on. We will self manage the property, renovate the units as the turn over and then self manage long term. Hoping to do a few of these and want to make sure that we have systems in place from deal # 1.

I work for a large property management company and have a lot of experience with Yardi and MRI. Those two products have a very strong accounting and financial reporting component, which it seems like most of the products that cater to the smaller PM's/Owners done excel at.

I would also like job costing ability to track improvement projects, but I haven't seen anyone mention something like that in my research here on BP.

@Nathan Lenahan

 Any updates? When is this property scheduled to close?

Thanks for your feedback. Buying properties "Turn Key" in the situations you described seems way better than what most of the "Turn Key" properties that are offered today. In both of your cases the "TK" provider and your interest were more aligned than the typical TK pitch these days.

I do not own any TK properties. The first time that I reached out to some TK providers was in mid 2013. My biggest issue that I had with the TK model was, like others have mentioned that the TK provider is making substantially all their money up front when you buy the house and was not offering much if any discount to FMV or retail. I was actually told you can't compare the prices of the houses we have available to any numbers you will see of other market comps since most of the properties in the area were foreclosures.

Which made me most concerned about an exit strategy to which I was told that you would need to list the house with a local Realtor if you wanted to sell  and that they don't offer any help with the disposition of a property. 

I would hope that a TK company would manage the entire investment cycle for the client rather than simply the acquisition (where the TKP is partial to the sale) and the management (fees and leasing) and not provide any help with the end of the investment cycle.

It seems like the TKP is simply selling you a retail priced property and then will manage if for you.

Curious if there are any TK companies that manage properties that they did not sell to the investor.

Bottom line is I never got comfortable with the model.

Wow. Just took a look at the interior pics. House looks great!

Looks great. The interior didn't look that bad... The exterior on the other hand looks totally different.

In retrospect would you have put all the money into the retaining wall system or just cleaned it up?