All Forum Posts by: Eli Molloy

When you say “duct guy” was he a duct cleaner or was he a HVAC guy? A good duct cleaner should be able to take care of it. 

@Shawn Ackerman Yes, it it.

Looking for opinions or reviews of the Epic Intensive seminar. It's free and nearby in St. Louis so I was considering it. But it's free, and that screams sales pitch. The website makes it look pretty educational and their podcast has some good stuff in it.

http://epicintensive.com

I've seen this done a two ways on large infrastructure projects, penalties and bonuses. You could charge liquidated damages for costs you incur for them being over the contract time (holding costs, lost rent). The other way I have seen is to offer a bonus if they are complete by a certain date. I like this option better because it is really just a penalty but it's presented as a bonus an causes less friction if it's  not received. 

I personally don't think that a contractor should have any effect on a budget during construction. If he gives you a bid, and nothing changes, that should be the price. I said "should" because I know that's not always how it works in the real world. 

I don't know about splitting the bill but here is a thread about leak detectors and alarms from last week. One or a few of these could help alert you next time this is an issue. 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/412542-water-leak-detection-devices?page=1#p2587838

They now make water service meters that will alert the municipality in real time if there is a constant low flow running through your meter. However your municipality has to be set up with the right software, etc. to make this feature work. The odds that this is a possible solution are pretty slim but it may be worth a call to whoever supplies your water. 

@Kenneth Noronha The biggest cross over from engineer are the project management skills.  Estimating, scheduling, and most importantly people skills.  General construction and mechanical knowledge comes in handy as well.

+1 for finishing school. You get more than a degree out of college.  Skills learned in engineering are actually pretty valuable in RE investing. But, you could always consider switching to a degree that is directly connected to RE. 

My best answer is to ask your accountant how they would like to see it set up. 

My non-accountant answer is that I would make sure to have separate accounts for each business entity. If long term and sort term are under separate LLCs then have separate accounts. If they are all in the same LLC, or you own them all under your name, then keep it simple and go with one account.

If you go with one account make sure to keep good, separate records. If you decide to sell, refi, etc. you will want to be able to show the numbers for each property. 

It sounds like you are looking at SFHs?  For the most part, I hear of seller financing being used in 2 situations when buying SFHs.  

1: When a buyer has reached the max number of traditional Freddie/Fannie loans they can get.  Traditional bank financing will usually give you better terms that seller financing. 

2: When the buyer doesn't have the money for the down payment. Traditional financing usually requires 20% down. If you can get a seller to carry more than 80% of the purchase price then you won't have to have as much cash for the purchase. 

Seller financing is appealing to sellers who do not immediately need the cash  from the sale and are interested in "mailbox money". Ex: investors looking to get out of the business and retire.