All Forum Posts by: Doug Pintarch

Ashley -

Our partners (Husband & Wife team also) bought and manage an STR in Rehoboth Beach DE, 3 hours away from us (With light traffic and making all the lights!) We go there after every renter leaves to clean it completely and change over for the next renter. Weekends are easy (Our change day is Sunday) and in season you have to rent the week from Sunday to Sunday. Out of the summer season we have a 2 night minimum, and the ones that end on the odd days like Thursday my partner handles, because his work schedule is extremely flexible and he can just take off a Thursday if he needs to. I realize you said your situation is different and it's just you and your husband...we have a cleaning crew ready if needed but we like seeing our investment every week ourselves! When we add a few more properties we'll have to use the cleaning crew, but we'll still rotate cleaning one unit ourselves just to get there every week and see what's up.

  I think if you interview a few Property Management companies you may find one that you both like and can trust with your cabin...and hopefully they'll be affordable and attentive enough to make you feel better about letting someone else handle your family cabin.  Perhaps you and your husband could make the trip and clean it for the changeover once a month?  Save you the cleaning fee that visit and you'd still get eyes-on!

Hope this helped   :)

-Doug

I Googled "LLC Operating agreements" and started clicking and reading. A forum post about them being necessary led me here and kept me here, this was last September and I joined officially this week.

@Brian Trickett I think you hear about the DE and NV LLC's because those are "Corporate Friendly Havens" that have low fees for Corps and LLC's. Whatever. I'm not interested in the cheapest dodge, or any dodge for that matter. We are PA residents and had our DE attorney form our LLC in DE...simply because that's where our rental property is! We did not register as a foreign entity here in PA because we have no property here and conduct no business here. If we obtain a rental property here in PA we would then be required to register and pay their fees also before we got the property. Above-board and legal or not at all. :)

Good luck from a fellow newb and non-expert!

Alex - We've recently done this in DE, we are PA residents and our property is in DE. @Brian Schmelzlen nailed it. I recommend, based on my limited experience and asking the same questions you are, that you spend the extra money and sit down with an attorney in your state. They can give you LLC Operating Agreement templates, review and suggest edits when you complete it, even write it for you. Ours even applied for the Federal EIN and state licensing requirements for us. WELL worth the minimal extra expense in the long run.

I burn toast, but I can find a guy that makes one hell of a grilled cheese!  (I'm just smart enough not to "Try my hand" at stuff that's way out of my league...like proper legal documents!)

Originally posted by @Keith Courtney:

@Rachel Kokosenski -

To maximize short term rental income, we put new flat screen televisions in every bedroom and in the main common areas of each home.  Normally cable TV is installed.  We also put PlayStation units or Xbox units in the kids' bedrooms and DVD players in the common areas.  We have found the more fun you can build into a home the better.

Good luck - Keith

Keith -

Same thoughts as you...maximize that income from the weekly people.

One STR here at the beach in DE - BIG flat screen in the living/dining/kitchen (open floor plan) and a "medium" sized flat screen in each of the 3 bedrooms. Full cable with every movie channel, Netflix and Amazon.  No game system, still debating that one. We figured on those rainy days when all the kids are in the unit everyone could branch out and watch whatever they wanted. First summer season is almost here so we'll see how it goes!  

Great question!

Originally posted by @Ryan D.:

So as others pointed out, speaking specifically about cash-on-equity, the return is poor. This does not necessarily mean the entire investment is a poor one, as there are multiple ways to make money in RE. Your real return here is relying on equity appreciation, just be aware of that, and equity appreciation is (almost) always speculative. 

That being said, there are a few things to note concerning your plan to pull out equity:

1. This is a residential property, not a commercial property (anything 4 or fewer units is considered residential), hence you can only get a residential, not commercial, loan against it. 
2. I am not aware of any lenders who will loan on a residential property that is titled under an LLC (they may exist, but I've never heard or come across them). You will almost certainly have to pull this out of the LLC and put it into someones name to get a loan on it. This is certainly not a show stopper.
3. Once you put the title in someones name, you can then get a loan/HELOC/etc against the property (recourse against the person in who's name the property is titled). After this is established, in most cases you can then deed the property BACK into the LLC. Easy peasy.

Ryan this post answered a question I was going to try and find an answer to before I showed my true newb status and asked it again.  Thank You.   :)

Here's one from a newb here (Me):   

When doing a complete condo renovation, and you replace working but ugly 12 year old mechanicals to be on the safe side; (Heat Pump, Washer, Dryer, Stove, Microwave, Dishwasher, and Hot Water Heater), and decide to keep the Refrigerator because it's "Perfect"...get a new fridge anyway because in 2 months it will die.

Ask me how I know. 

Originally posted by @Lesley Resnick:

You can borrow up to 50% of you vested balance up to 50K.  If you have 100k you can borrow up to 50k.  If you have 200k, you can borrow up to 50k.

Most plans will only allow a loan as long as you are employed.  They may reclassify it as as a disbursement upon separation and could force you out of the plan entirely.  

The other downside is you contribute the money tax free and replace it with after tax money, functionally losing the tax free effect of the money.  You will pay tax on the same money again when you retire.  

As a backstop, it is a good plan along with credit and cash.

Great post Lesley.  A better option if you need to tap your retirement savings is a Roth if you have it.  You can withdraw 100% of your contributions at any time with absolutely no penalty at all.  This is used by many people as their emergency reserve fund.  You just can't "Pay it back"...you have to re-contribute within the current year limits.

   Obviously this isn't an option if you don't have a Roth, Lesley nailed the 401 scenario!

WOW! I was really hoping this first post of mine would be accepting all your accolades for being the One Millionth member and getting the title to my free SFR in Central Park West from the sites founder....but it looks like I'm a day late.

...Probably a dollar short too.   Oh well.

:)