All Forum Posts by: Bonnie Low

Jonathan, I'd be interested in that list of HELOC lenders you mentioned.

 Thanks for following up on this thread and sharing your actual experience. Sometimes you have to try something out for yourself because it's hard to sort through all the responses and know what is fact and what is opinion. As a lender myself, I was curious about their upfront fees. It's not unheard of, but I couldn't understand why anyone would want to do that given there are so many other options out there. I still have a hard time understanding how this business model works for them, but perhaps that upfront fee covers for lack of deal flow (?)  Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the follow up and I hope you've found a reliable lender you can work with. If not, I'd be happy to take a look at any future deals you're considering. 

Often it's not so much someone with real estate experience that seasoned investors are looking for so much as it someone who can take other tasks off our plates. For example, do you have any specific skills around social media? Many investors are growing their brand and their online presence and this can be the bane of our existence if it's not something we excel at. Likewise, marketing in general. If bookkeeping is your thing, that's something else you might offer help with. Or building out systems like CRMs. Or maybe you're great at talking to people and could make cold calls for someone working off a leads list. Just tap into what talents you do have and offer that in exchange for shadowing and learning about the business. 

 You're welcome!

Attendance had gotten pretty low for a while so I don't know if it's been revived or not. Have you checked meetup.com?

Hi, Justin. Yes, I have general expenses that are not attributable to a single property, like legal and accounting and home offices like you mentioned. However, my business structure is maybe a little different than yours. My Holding Company holds all my LLCs. I have an LLC for each state I do business in and each property is held inside the LLC for the appropriate state. So those general expenses get categorized to the holding company as the parent organization. To be honest, my CPA may apportion them to each LLC but I don't think he does. Now that you asked, I need to double check that. As for sharing information, I use the reports available inside Baselane to send my CPA whatever he needs. If he needed something beyond the standard business forms and Schedule E, I could give him limited access to my Baselane portal, just like my bookkeeper had limited access. You have the ability to grant permissions based on the user's security level, which you determine. My CPA had no problem using it. While QBO is probably more common, I've learned that they have had to become accustomed to a lot of different programs because their clients use so many different platforms. Again, this is just my personal experience.

20% is about average for a short term rental as far as management fees go. Some go as high as 25-30%. It does really eat into your revenue, but if you're convinced you can't manage it yourself from a distance, you will need either a PM or a co-host. Have you searched for co-hosts in your area? Your instinct to speak directly to the PM and not through your realtor is spot on. Never let the Realtor be a barrier. Is your Realtor an experienced STR host (more than likely, no). Do they know what questions to ask? What expectations do they have and do they align with yours? It's a huge investment for you - you definitely should have direct access to the PM. If the property was already listed on the MLS, I'd push back on the price relative to the comps. But if you're trying to get an exclusive deal, the reality is that you probably have less bargaining power because if they want $296.10/sq ft they know they can put it on the MLS and see if they get any bites. Income is difficult to predict not knowing the market. You can use a tool like AirDNA to get estimates of property performance in your specific market and with your typical size and configuration of home. You can do the same to estimate rents for a midterm rental by going to the Furnished Finder stats page for your city. If it's currently an STR they should be able to provide you with the p/l statement from prior years so you can see gross rents, operating expenses, average daily rates and occupancy levels. ACTUAL data is always best.

I switched from QBO to Baselane a year or so ago. We were paying a bookkeeper $450/month, plus the $90 QB subscription to do our books but I felt like we were still having to tell her how to categorize everything so it just didn't feel like we were getting our money's worth. My portfolio is not that large and it irked me to pay a bookkeeper so much and still have to do a lot of the work. To me, QB felt like overkill and I found it difficult to use since I don't have an accounting or bookkeeping background. Baselane is much easier to use and has so many other features I like, too. For me, the reports available in Baselane are ideal, but I'm also not trying to run a different business through it like it sounds like you may be doing. I do know that I was able to archive my QB data and still have access to it for up to a year after I canceled my subscription. I think they maybe charge you a reactivation fee if you decide you need to access that information, but I didn't need to so I can't recall for sure. Hope this helps.

Hi, Kevin. I did use Quickbooks, but it was really cumbersome and expense (we paid a bookkeeper to manage it.) I switched to Baselane, which is a banking AND bookkeeping platform and it has been so much easier for me to manage myself. It's free to sign up for an account and the savings account has a very competitive interest rate. I find that it's almost a one stop shop in that I can use it for my business checking and savings accounts, bookkeeping, for rent collection, I can issue virtual credit card, I can create all the financial reports I need to run my real estate business and prepare for tax filing and through their partners I can vet my tenants, develop state-specific leases and more. It's really become my most go-to platform because I can do so many things through it. It's worth checking out.

 I had the exact same thoughts. Maybe he's talking about a private money lender??