All Forum Posts by: David Woz

I’m going to be purchasing a property from a trust.    I’m the manager of the trust and there are several beneficiaries in the trust.   

The trust owns the property outright.    I will be putting down roughly 75% of my personal funds and the trust will privately finance the remaining 25%.   

My question is are there any companies out there we can pay to service the loan?  I want it to be totally neutral 3rd party to collect the money, pass it on to the trust, make sure the loan is paid back as appropriate, issue monthly and  year end tax documents etc    

That way everyone in the trust is on the same page and give everyone full transparency.  

Any companies/banks  out there that do this?

@Nathan Gesner @Michael Plante it appears cozy is merging with apartments.com and is not taking any new accounts under cozy.co.  

Have either of you had any experience with the new version on apartments.com and do you still recommend?

We made a tough family decision to move my mom into a senior living environment from her family home.   I decided to rent the house instead of sell it and in preparation, gave the house a much needed makeover.

Part of that makeover was repairing some plantation shutters the house has.   I found a company on Yelp with great reviews and hired them to repair and replace several shutters in the house.

Before I engaged a local property manager (I have several out of state rentals and always use a property manager) the owner of the shutter company called me and and said he was interested in renting the place in my area and his employee had told him about it.  

I asked them to fill out an application using "Zillow's application and background" service.  Really disappointing.  Didn't mandate they upload any financial documents or statements, just listed a dollar amount as "self reported".. The only thing useful from their report was a credit report.

Both husband and wife own the business.   Her credit is great.  Mid 700's.   4K on a credit card and no collections.  His is in the low 600's with a few collections accounts for a few hundred dollars and one 60K collections account for what appear to be student loans.   (Strikes me as odd as he is 63 years old).   But, he has no debt... not even a car payment.   

I'm not concerned about verifying they actually have a business as I know they do.   I know that they were very difficult to get them scheduled because they were so busy and they did great work.  They claim 7 full time employees plus them for 9 total employees.    When I met with them, they mentioned they deal with a lot of cash and actually Prefered to pay with cash... even offered me 4K right there as a deposit to "reserve" it... But I didn't take it.  

I'm concerned about the collections and have no idea how to verify their income, especially if it is as cash heavy as they claim.

Would anyone deny based on the large 60K in collections on student loans?   Anyone rented to a small business owner like this?

Any advice on next steps would be appreciated.  

As someone with 25 years as a cop...

1) Do not carry a gun if you can't do it legally.   Places like NYC will prosecute YOU if you use that gun, even if justified in using it.

2). Do not carry a gun if you are not fully trained and plan on continuing that training.   It isn't something you take a weekend course and then think you are done.   It is ongoing and regular training as it is a perishable skill.

Also, if you are carrying, people don't "respect" you because of that.   If you are doing it properly, they won't know you have a firearm.   I can't speak to NYC laws, but in CA, open cary is not legal, so there ins't that element of them avoiding conflict because you are armed.   "Brandishing" or flashing your firearm, even if legally concealed is a crime in most states... So, put it out of your mind that having a firearm will make people avoid conflict with you.  In most circumstances, it creates problems. 

That being said, carrying a firearm isn't for most people because of local laws, but more commonly because their lack of dedication to training.

I would suggest pepper spray or a taser.

Pepper spray for civilians is available at the same levels that the police cary.

Tasers for civilians use the same technology.   The exception is the Tasers for civilians activate for 30 seconds and are designed to deploy, drop the taser and run away.   At 800-1000, it is expensive.

From someone who is a cop and an investor, I would re-think these properties.  If they are that bad, they aren't worth it.

But, if you can do it legally, and are willing to put in the time to train and keep your skills sharp, most cops, including myself,  welcome an armed civilian legally carrying and making good decisions.  

Just my .02 cents.

Sounds like a horrible loan.  Assuming your credit isn’t at 300, you should be able to refi into something much better.  

If they are related the same ownership/umbrella as Specialized in DFW, you can expect:

Pros:-  Really great online portal.   All the info you need is there... Of course this is only as good as the staff doing the data input.   It produces useful reports for various properties.

Cons:   They over promise and under perform on virtually everything.  How much your place should be renting for specifically...  Their maintenance is horrible and expensive and when you call them on things, they blame it on "contractors.      For example, I got a notice a dishwasher needed replacing with a price to do so.   This was a long time tenant and I texted her for details.   It turns out they NEVER sent anyone out to check on it.... When I called them and asked for specifics as to what was wrong, the LIED about it and made something up when they never even inspected the dishwasher.

Needless to say I moved my properties, but the Specialized brand is forever ruined for me and I would stay away.  

As long as you are listed as a trustee and all other trustees agree, I don’t see why it would be an issue.   

It does and will happen.  Be sure to have sufficient reserves to plan for that.... 

My experience had been that improvements like that don’t necessarily get you more per month, but you will experience less vacancy.... assuming it is priced appropriately.  

Vacancy is very expensive.