All Forum Posts by: Brandon Scott

I've been using Rearden Property Mgmt in Cleveland for a couple years now and they have top notch service.  Been very reliable all around.

@Jared Fracker it sounds like you need a hard money loan, but I'm not totally clear from your scenario how you would collateralize it.  Is the current home you own owned free and clear so that the hard money lender can place a first lien on it?  If not, do you have something else you can provide as collateral to close this deal?

If you resolve the collateral question, typical terms for hard money loans these days are somewhere in the 11-14% apr range, a few points origination fee, often with interest-only payments with a balloon payment covering the principle due at the end.

Could you elaborate on the logic of this a bit?  It seems weird to say that the amount left over after your mortgage payment is the amount left to "service your debt".  Isn't the mortgage payment that was just subtracted the amount that services the debt?  It seems like double counting to phrase it that way.

One thing to keep in mind if your living situation is flexible is that if you have the option of living in one of the units of a MFR, it will qualify as owner-occupied which can have some benefits. Depending on your current situation it can oftentimes put you way ahead vs paying rent on your own apartment.

I'm always confused by how this idea seems to have been perpetuated that there is somehow some kind of loophole where you can give away money, but then by writing things off on your taxes you can end up coming out ahead.  I always see people talk about the idea of "donating money just for the tax write-off", and this post seems to be inspired by the same idea.  You're losing money at around a 3:1 ratio with what you save in taxes every time, so tax write-offs are *never* a reason to give money away to something.

Now if you have other reasons for taking the equity out, by all means, but tax write-offs is not one of them.

I've been looking at real estate in the silicon valley area, and I was just wondering what everyone's thoughts were on buying a more expensive multi-family here vs lots of cheaper ones elsewhere.  To make it a little more concrete, say you can get a 4 unit here for $1mil and rent it for $15,000/month, or you could go buy ten similar houses elsewhere for $100k each and also rent them for $15,000/month. 

Assuming all the total numbers work out the same just to isolate the "number of houses" variable, what are the pros/cons of going with a single large investment vs multiple small ones?  Which would you choose?

Thank you @Alberto De jesus and @Paul Santos !  I'll definitely check those out.

So as you can see, I'm a noob here, currently in the "learn as much as possible" stage.  For anyone who's read this book, if you'd recommend it, what additional supplemental books would you recommend that have also helped you without being too repetitive with this one?  

If it helps, I'm mainly interested in getting into multi-families and/or mobile home park investing, and am trying to get a handle on all the important details.