All Forum Posts by: Brian Barfoot

Jason Houde , I'd recommend avoiding BOA actually. They are very user friendly for setting up anything but if you want to disentangle they are very hard to work with. Their fees are generally higher than most competitors. I'm in the process of dissolving my relationship with them completely. As for the original question, I do have a separate account for the LLC and never mix finds. All rent goes straight in, all payments come straight out. It makes the accountant much happier.

Thank you both. 

I wondered if this was the best solution. In essence I would be taking his fiancee as a business partner using my friend's money under this scenario. I'm fine with that as I've known them both well for decades. Obviously, he'll want to talk to legal and finance people but I was trying to get a sense of how easy it would be. 

Is this (channeling through the joint account) considered shady. It's a little dishonest to imply that the money is coming from one person when it's really coming from another but if the banks don't have an issue with it I don't see why we should.

Yeah, the thought came to me as well. I'm hoping it's not a habit people develop.

Happy New Year everyone!

I am starting to get the ball rolling with my buy-and-hold investing (three SFRs operating, two more in process) and I have a friend from Canada who wants to join in. I have a lot of questions and we are willing to take things slowly so that everyone is protected as well as benefiting. He would eventually like to move across the border into upstate New York and he has a joint USbanking account with his US citizen fiancée already.

To start: Are there tax penalties that he would have to pay to invest across the border? Are there other headaches he would encounter? Are there headaches we will encounter creating an international partnership? I found it pleasantly easy to set up a partnership with someone in the same area but I know the imaginary line between the countries makes things different. Could he use the joint banking account to bypass any of this without breaking any laws?

As I said, I want to do things the right way and I feel like it could work well for both of us in the long run.

Hi John, welcome aboard. We should talk more (and maybe this will be the best format) about what types of properties you want to get into. Are you thinking single family, duplex, bigger? Do you want properties that are in the less-than-great neighborhoods but will have a lot of good cashflow potential like west of the highway or would you rather stick to something that will get less money but also have a lot fewer headaches? My partner and I are starting to scale up (we have two more offers in right now that are awaiting seller response) and while I'm nothing like an expert in this I'm learning a lot and I'd love to have another friend to learn along with.

Hi Chris, Welcome.

I'm in East Syracuse and I'm fairly new as well although I'm working on scaling up in the next year or so. There are a lot of great t opportunities in this area for sure. Get yourself a good real estate agent who is comfortable with the investing mindset and keep your eyes open. I'd be happy to connect and share ideas if you're interested.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. Today's property was kind of a dud. The neighborhood was rough and many of the adjacent houses were vacant so I'm going to keep hunting.

I like the idea of a smartmove or turbotenant kind of site and that's probably the route I'll go. I figure the more digital I can make the application process, the better.

I'm relatively new to landlording and I don't know much about how to screen tenants the right way. I have two houses rented at the moment. One is a recent purchase and we inherited the tenants who are wonderful. The other is my first house that's been a rental for a couple of years. I picked the tenants because a) they asked me first and b) they seemed like nice people. In other words: the worst possible screening method ever. As it turned out, I was lucky again and they have been great about paying rent on time and taking care of the place but I know I'm asking for trouble if I don't do a better job. So my questions are:

What sources do you use for checking out a tenant? Is just pulling a credit history from Equifax and calling references enough? Where do you find criminal history records and how much do you have to pay for them (if at all?) Do you do social media checks?

I'm hoping to make deal #3 in the next week or two so I should get better at this soon.

The houses are in my (small) city but on the other side of town than the other two properties that I currently rent out. It would be a 25 minute drive for me to get there. One that's on the market right now has a zestimate of 140 and is listed for 65. I know, grains of salt and all, but it seems like an instant equity kind of situation. I hear you about getting burned out and I'd like this to be a long-term side business though so it will be a part of my thought process. I'll give the house a windshield assessment and then if I like what I see I'll move on from there. Thanks for the thoughts!

10% of rent you mean? What does that include?