All Forum Posts by: Nate T.

With the MoneyGram and similar options, does the 7-11 or whoever is  receiving the money, do they deposit the money into your bank account? Or do you have to stop by and collect it?

It helps when you're presenting your case to the judge. If you specifically told the tenant that you weren't accepting partial payments and you weren't accepting payments by deposit, but they did it anyway, then the judge is more likely to rule in your favor.

 How do you report rent payments on their credit? Did you have to set up an account with each of the bureaus? Was it complicated?

I am in Arizona. I have dealt with tenants trying to deposit unauthorized partial payments into the bank account. On the advice of my eviction attorney, when that happens, if I don't want to accept the payment, I immediately send them a check for the partial payment amount, along with a letter explaining that it was unauthorized and not accepted. Then I send a copy of the letter and a copy of the check to the eviction attorney, and they can proceed as usual. That has worked fine.

I buy and sell with owner financing quite a bit. When selling, I don't always use account servicing. But when buying I do always require it. Why? Imagine five years from now, if you want to pay off the loan, and the seller says you owe $10,000 more than you actually owe. If no one has been responsible for the accounting, then you're going to have to battle it out. Account servicers will take care of that issue. 

The main one I use is called Weststar. (I believe they're at Westloan.com). They are the cheapest one I found and they do as good a job as anyone else. I'm not sure what states they operate in, besides Arizona.

I have found that nice houses are really easy to sell with owner financing, unless they are way overpriced or the terms are unreasonable. 

What marketing have you done so far?

This probably isn't what you are thinking of, but I think the best target for subject to properties is VA loan holders. In a VA loan, there is an exclusion to the due on sale clause if the property is sold through a land contract (aka agreement for sale / contract for deed / etc.). So you can buy the property without violating the due on sale clause. Of course the account servicer, such as Bank of America, may not know or understand that rule, but at least you would be legally in the right and able to fight them if they tried to accelerate the note.

Great, congrats! What interest rate and loan terms did you get?

Another good option, if you do decide to convert to a self-directed IRA, is to be a hard money lender -- that is to lend out your money to real estate investors, secured by property, at 8 to 15 percent interest.

The conflicting opinions about flipping houses are both correct. You CAN flip houses in a SDIRA. But you CAN'T do activity that rises to the level of a "trade or business". Of course the IRS doesn't provide any useful rules to define what that means, like "up to 3 flips per year". But clearly if you're doing 50 flips a year you're no longer a passive retirement account, but if you do only 1 or 2 flips a year along with other more passive investments, you're probably ok.