All Forum Posts by: Sandy Blanton

It looks like NY transfer tax rate is .4%, here in Florida it's .7%.

Good Luck.

It sounds like your contracts aren't "tight enough" to prevent anyone from failing to perform. It's rare for me to see a seller with an attorney, period. What's causing attorneys to spring up after you have a contract with a seller?

I'm half asleep and thinking out loud, but would hiring a Realtor to handle your contracts be more effective? They're used to dealing with sellers/contracts face to face often.

Good luck.

If you've lost money from making bad loans, be sure to write off your losses. The IRS can refund a good portion of your loss. Check with a tax expert. I've had several friends here in my town that lost $40K to $150K each from funding 2nd mortgages on property that was foreclosed by the first mortgage lender/borrower never paid.

Don't ever tap a retirement account for anything other than retirement. It's flushing tax free money into a black hole. You'll lose up to half of it in taxes and penalties. Short sell the current house, get that toxic mortgage out of your life. Rent for two years until you can qualify for a new mortgage post short sale. You won't be able to use the rental income in your qualifying ratios, so renting it and buying another isn't an option unless you have the income to do so without using any rental income. Conforming mortgage guidelines now require a new landlord to show 2 years of rental income on their tax returns before you can claim the rental income in your new mortgage ratios.

If you have lots of unsecured debt, consider bankruptcy and get rid of the toxic mortgage and all unsecured debt.

Best of luck.

Michael Gao I've used Equity Trust for a decade for my SDIRA and I'm setting up a 401K for my company with them. They've been excellent for the most part. Check them out at TrustETC.com.

Steven Hamilton II Steven you are a master guru in the tax arena. You should right a book on R/E investing, SD Investing and Tax Issues.

I love having lots of cash in a retirement account, safe from creditors and bankruptcy. But after learning about UBIT, i'm unsure what to do. Ideally at this time I'd like to flip. We're earning 200% annually cash on cash return on our flips (outside the retirement account). From what I'm hearing it's not worth doing them inside an SD account? It seems the safe/best? activity for SD funds is doing hard money deals for others. But, we can't make more than 20% apr on these deals.

Steven Hamilton II please share your infinite wisdom on this. Thanks folks:)

There are some really good smarta*s responses here. I'm sitting here sleepless on XMas Eve and my dog thinks I'm drinking as I was laughing out loud...literally and loudly.

Also, good serious responses. :)

Recommendations? I finally got an IPAD,there seems to be a lot of vendors that make this presentation software. I will hire out the process if anyone has any recommendations that would be great. Thx.

Marcus Isaac Most brokers will hire any new agent with a license, period. There are almost zero minimum requirements, period. The average full time agent is selling about 5 units per year. The cost for a broker to hire anyone is tiny. I do recommend an office that offers training. Keller Williams is good with this. I was with ERA in my first decade and I took all of their training programs. I listened to every recording I could get of "stars" in the business. Mike Ferry is perhaps the nation's most famous Realtor trainers. Google him.

I always equate success in the real estate sales industry to that of those in show business: 98% of the money is made by the top 2%. Only 10% of new agents are still in the industry after two years. It's not impossible, but training and investing in yourself/your practice is paramount.

If you can get hired on by a STAR agent in your area,that is the best way to find out how the big timers do it. Such an agent has a team of buyer/showing agents and admin staff on their payroll. If you enjoy showing houses, and probably 80% of agents prefer workign with buyers vs. sellers, getting a buyer agent slot with a STAR can be a golden ticket to survival. Good luck:)

Jon Holdman Jon I see what you're saying with Self Directed investing. As a real estate broker, I don't have the issue of passive activity losses with my rentals (which I would with rentals in my IRA). In addition I have a PM business and it costs me very little to have my team manage my rentals. I know there are conflicting opinions of whether one is allowed to manage their IRA rentals, I take the cautionary step and don't so so. This is a big negative for me as I have to pay another PM Broker to manage them. One thing about UBIT though, after depreciation/pro rata share of other expenses there's often no UBIT payable.

What I do love about having the retirement accounts is they are safe from creditors and financial crashes. I lost a multi million dollar fortune in the "bubble" bust a few years ago. The investments I had in my SDIRA were a big portion of all that was sheltered from the crash. Thus I wouldn't ever cash the account out just for the asset protection benefit.