All Forum Posts by: JR T.

A REIT is a great investment vehicle, run by professionals, that will be completely hands off. I suggest only considering publicly traded REITs and that you consult with a financial advisor to help you understand the risks and benefits of the investment strategy used by REITs you're considering. Don't do anything online by yourself - that's a good way to lose your money fast.

This is nonsense. You do not need a lawyer. All you need to do is go down to District Court and file a Nonpayment of Rent. It costs a whole $30 including having her served by the sheriff. A hearing will be set within a few weeks. The only issue at bar is whether or not she has paid her rent. She can drone on for two hours about mold and repairs you should have made - it's irrelevant. Her remedy for that is to open a Rent Escrow where she deposits all unpaid rent into the district court for a judge to decide if the repairs are so bad you shouldn't be entitled to some of it- tenants almost never do this. 

Otherwise after she airs her complaints the judge will tell her about the escrow process and render a judgment on your behalf for the unpaid rent. If she does not pay in 5 days you can file a Warrant of Restitution which will allow you to evict her with the help of a moving crew and the sheriff.

Very easy process - Maryland is not at all friendly to tenants who have unpaid rent. I've sent 22 year old woman from my office with no experience and she won every case. Do not sweat beating her in this venue, lawyer or no.

I have a number of rentals in Hagerstown. The number one requirement to being moderately successful there is ignoring your vacancy and being very strict with screening requirements. You must get access to the Corelogic eviction database and screen out all prior evictees in that market. Maryland evictions do not appear on case search, Corelogic sends reps into the courts to enter the records manually, searches are around $8 per applicant. 

Hagerstown is a lot of work. The city is against you. They will fine you when weeds pop out of the sidewalk and fine you when your tenant needs police assistance. Property taxes or license fees increase annually. For a lot of headaches my rentals there return 4-6%. I've stopped buying there and now focus primarily on Frederick. It's just too much work for the return.

If you're planning on landlording with any debt on your portfolio, forget Hagerstown. You will be cash flow negative on every deal with financing attached to it - this is almost a guarantee. 

As the guy on the financial side of the transaction I'd say that's just his part of the cost to get to the 50%. Your part of the cost is tying up your money and not receiving an interest rate in the deal. If you agreed to cover his workers as an off-the-top expense I'd ask for a 3-5% interest rate.

You can finance a loan in the name of an LLC with the property as security and yourself as the guarantor.

If your have a mortgage the mortgage serves to protect the underlying asset, which is the bank's until you pay off the loan. 

You can purchase in a dba.

If you put any sort of financing on the property it's going to be linked to your real name, appear on your credit report etc. If you want a vehicle for privacy check out living trusts. No liability protection so keep your insurance up to date. They're a commonplace estate planning tool whose formation documents aren't typically registered anywhere but your desk drawer. Nobody can go to a website and discover who is behind your trusts, you'd have to cooperate and tell whoever was looking;.

Where the numbers work. Avoid bad neighborhoods. In Houston you'll know a bad neighborhood when you see one.

No, not possible. Generally, HML is only available for investment property you do not live in to avoid the financial regulations aimed at keeping unsophisticated borrowers from putting too much debt on their property.

You get your loan payoff, including all materials costs off the top then you split any profit 50/50. His payment for his time is his half of any profit

Equity is not an indicator of the type of rent a property will bring in and you've failed to share any reasoning for why you think you will be 'a little" cash flow positive. 

I'd say based on you furnishing no information for us to evaluate the deal you've likely misevaluated it and should sell the house until you have more time to learn about RE investing prior to making a big commitment.

@Aliya Johnson He assigned a deal to me where the lady he got to sign lacked contractual capacity as she was the daughter of the deceased former owner. All he had to do was pick her up and take her to open her mother's estate at Register of Wills and would have pulled a $25k fee from the deal. 

Ultimately my lawyer identified an existing tax lien on the property. I acquired the certificate and foreclosed on it. Took ten months instead of 30 days.