All Forum Posts by: Dave Spooner

@James Haywood - it shouldn't be significant from a legal standpoint as long as you count as a representative of the LLC (which it sounds like you do). The biggest concern for most landlords is in sharing their personal info which you may want to avoid.

As a note, there are other platforms that allow you to send from multiple email addresses. Might be worth looking into!

@Chester Straley Just messaged you! Talk soon.

@Maliq Hill An RE License will go a long way to provide you the education and credentials you need to get started, but I don't think it's an absolute requirement. However, in nearly all cases, to be successful as a property manager, you must take at least one of two routes:

• Buy your own properties and start managing them to get management experience and understand the owner's perspective
• Work for another established property management company that is well respected in the area (like Vanessa mentioned)

One or both of those are critical steps. If you go the route of owning your own, there is a lot of software out there that can help you get started and learn the ropes. Some of it is free (Innago included).

Sounds like you have a house hack in mind. I'd pursue that first. 

Best of luck!

@Chester Straley It depends a great deal on what you're looking for. Are you a property manager managing for other owners? Are you managing Section 8? Do you use Quickbooks, or do you want the software to provide all accounting features included? Do you want customer support you can speak with or are you okay with just FAQ articles and email replies?

Each software tends to have it's own strengths and weaknesses. I'd be happy to point you in one direction vs. another with some more info.

No problem Julissa! Happy to provide any insight I can. 

@Julissa Perez I know it's not precisely what you're looking for, but I do want to reassure you that I think your instincts are right. I say this as someone that works in software and believes a great deal in the automation it can provide. However, when it comes to taxes, it's best to have a professional in your corner.

A good CPA will not only guide you on your tax return this year, but will also guide your investment strategy moving forward.

All that being said, a good resource is always your local REIT or apartment association. This is probably too big a place to start, but here's the Connecticut state association's site: https://www.ctaahq.org/

Do a Google search of your city + "apartment association" and you should find a resource you can at the very least reach out to for some guidance on recommended CPAs.

Good luck!

Hi Sandy! Congrats on joining! As I am sure you have figured out over the last couple weeks there are a lot of resources on BiggerPockets that can help you out. I have read a few books by Brandon Turner, that are really good. I would recommend Rental Property Investing and Managing Rental Properties to start out with. There is also a fix and flip guide that has some useful information. Otherwise you can find a lot of articles on managing rentals as well as fix and flip on the BiggerPockets blog, podcast, and webinars. 

Podcast: https://www.biggerpockets.com/podcast

Webinar: https://www.biggerpockets.com/replay

Books: https://www.biggerpockets.com/store

Blog: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog

Guides: https://www.biggerpockets.com/guides

Hey Casey! I would recommend getting a domain from GoDaddy or Google Domains, it should cost around $11-12/year. For hosting I would recommend BlueHost or HostGator, which can cost around $10/mo. Wordpress would be my recommendation on where to build out your website. There are quite a few themes out there that you can use, the most popular I have seen is "Houzez" on themeforest, which costs around $60. If you need help setting up your website there are web developers out there to get it created. UpWork is always a great place to start. 

@Jouvan Johnson - congrats! Sounds like you're taking the right first steps.

As you're just getting started, I would strongly suggest focusing the vast majority of your effort on finding and analyzing the right deal. There's a pretty common saying in real estate: "You make your money when you buy, not when you sell." That could be paraphrased to say that your biggest risk of making a mistake and losing money is when you purchase your property - and your first one matters a lot.

That being said, it's still great to focus on preparing yourself in other ways. For a basic application, I'd recommend at the very least three years of employment and rental history, two emergency contacts to have on file, two-to-three personal references, and disclosure of any pets or unique circumstances. Here's an article that goes a bit more in-depth: https://innago.com/rental-appl.... I'd also highly recommend screening the tenants credit, criminal, and eviction history.

Regarding business credit: it may be overkill. Firstly, check if you even need it. You can reach out to a lender to see how their rates change based on your credit score.

Secondly, and more importantly, if you're house hacking, it won't matter. The great advantage of house hacking is that you purchase the property as an owner-occupant. That means you can put less money down and even potentially get a better interest rate. If you try to buy the property through your business, it will totally nullify this advantage as the bank will no longer consider the owner (the non-corporeal LLC) the occupant.

Once you buy the property, you can transfer it into an LLC, but that won't affect the initial rate you get or your ability to qualify. Hope this info helps!

Reading through this, I was going to suggest the exact same thing as pretty much everyone else: using concrete pavers and accounting for drainage. What you did looks great!