All Forum Posts by: Chike O.

Hello,

I formed an LLC about 4.5 years ago which I have used for buying and flipping property. I never thought about building business credit until about this week when I came across someone selling services to do just that instagram, and decided to look at what I could do on my own. Anyway, I started researching things you can do to build your business credit history, and one thing I saw mentioned, including on BP, is that lenders (mainly banks I believe) dont like when your LLC is in one of the categories considered "high risk", one being real estate investment. Also, it was recommended to not have words such as "property", "investments", "real estate..." etc in your LLC name, as it can be/is a red flag to lenders and can make it a challenge to get lending.

Of course my LLC name is ____ Investments, haha. Before starting some of the tips for building business credit ie: duns number, some net30 accounts, 411 listing, etc, I wanted to change my LLC name now, before starting the process.

I debated on just doing a new LLC, but I didnt want to lose my 4.5 years of seasoning that my current LLC has. I then looked into just changing my current LLC name, which I see that you can do, as well as keep the same EIN. I thought perfect, my business will still be considered almost 5 years old, until I saw that some banks consider an entity name change as basically "starting over", which means I might as well keep it simple and do a new LLC if this is the case.

Any thoughts? Am I overthinking things and should I just keep my current LLC name and not risk losing out it 4.5 year formation history?

Thank you,

Thanks folks for the responses.

What im still not clear on is that if i wanted to finish it, could i finish it with the current height or will i be asked to tear it down by an inspector b/c the height doesn't meet habitable space requirements? One GC that I didnt end up using said that he wasnt sure if i could finish it b/c an inspector might say something but we could "try". That obviously wasnt assuring. 

Ive been in prospective homes that had really short basements but they were finished with either drywall or old wood paneling and it was just used as is since it was still functional for a little family area. 

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for the response. Thank you J, also.

That picture isnt one of my basement. Its an example of what I plan/planned on doing to mine, on top of adding the shower to the half bath already there. 

Hi J,

The house is actually in Baltimore City. 

The basement is pretty open, and in my opinion usable. It is basically an open space outside of the the mechanical/laundry room. 

The home already had an existing half bath in the basement, so I was just going to add a shower to it. My thought process was that buyers may not prefer to use it, but atleast there was an option if things got too crowed in the one upstairs. 

 My idea was to just add a shower and clean up the rest of the basement basically exactly like the picture. The basement has brink walls like the picture and track lighting already installed. 

Hello folks,

I am currently in the process of finishing my first rehab. The house is a 2 story 3/1.5 single family with a basement. Due to a lack of space on the 2nd floor, there was not adequate space to add a 2nd bathroom so that I could have a master suite. Nor is there space on main floor to add a shower to the half bath. Well actually there is, but due to delays with finding a contractor that was reliable and "affordable", alot of time was lost so reconfiguring is just not feasible, especially since I am pretty far along in the rehab all things considered. 

So, my idea was to add a shower to the half bath in the unfinished basement, but not finish the basement. My idea was to flat black the ceiling and paint the walls and floor to clean it up and make it look decent. 

My agent is telling that I will not be able to get what I planned on due to recent comps, (there are only a couple recent comps) due to no finished basement, lack of a 2nd full bath, etc.

My reasoning for not finishing the basement is due to time/money as I have hard money and have had the property for 6 months, and then due to the fact that the basement height is 6'8 in one are to 7', which I know for habitable space should be 7' at least. 

Could I still just finish the basement so that buyers see a "finished" basement, even if the height is not tall enough and the sqft cant not be counted as part of the house? 

Does my idea of adding a full bath to a unfinished basement make sense or will that add zero value since its in the basement? I felt like 1 full bath in a house is not enough. 

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you