All Forum Posts by: Eric F.

"also brings up a leak in her bathroom, that I am aware of it had leaked during a major rainstorm before she moved in, so any time there is major rain, I text her to make sure it isn't leaking, it has only happened 3 times in 3 years so Its on my to do list, but it has not happened in over a year. So, I’m offended, she's accusing me of not doing my job as a landlord and I’m taking it personally."

If you have a roof that has leaked 3 times and you have not fixed it then I would agree with her you are not doing your job. No offense, but you call it a "big project looming over your head." It is not a project, it is a responsibility, and you have to get it fixed. You can let a leak at your house be on your to-do list, when it is a rental you need to fix it.

"Since she is month to month you can serve her notice to leave if you want or reminder her she is able to leave at her will. Send her letter (via email and mail) just to document the issues. Include pictures of the dog poop etc. The leak you should have taken care of along time ago! Pull out your cell phone next time she starts acting like a child and start recording it. Then ask her if we can go in and look a the thermostat and see the temperature."

This could be seen as a retaliatory eviction. I do not know the New Hampshire laws, but be careful if you think about doing this.

Also, is this a duplex or across the street from your house? Why are you outside where she can see you shoveling snow? Or is that something you do for tenants up there? We get 1" of snow a year so I don't know how that works. 

Michael why did he not allow you those deductions, specifically the home office? First of all, if he is doing a tax return he is not attesting to the information, it is more of a compilation engagement, so I do not see why he would challenge your home office use unless it was something like trying to write off 50% of your house. 

@Dawn Brenengen / @Daniel Murphy Do either of those firms do componentized depreciation? When I was practicing as a CPA we started doing that for commercial clients and the tax savings were incredible. I think starting next year I am going to use a CPA instead of myself. 

NOTE: Do not ask me tax questions, I was an auditor! (When I worked at the CPA firm I had to tell everyone I knew this like 200 times)

I would not call the Millionaire Real Estate Investor focused on specifically rehabbing and then renting but I would say it is the best book I have read to give you the big picture of why real estate is a great investment strategy. I have given it to a couple of people who are interested in real estate for long term investing.

You will not learn any cool strategies or specific action steps, but you will understand why real estate works. 

If you are totally new to real estate investing, which your profile leads me to believe, I would go with this one first. You don't need to dig into crazy marketing strategies and rehabbing plans yet. Just get an idea of why real estate works. Worry about the details later. 

I don't know about Texas but in North Carolina about 75% of the time you can find the LLC's owner name and home address by doing the following:

1. Go to your secretary of state website (state not national)
2. Look up the corporation name
3. At least 75% of the time the LLC owner will register with themselves as the registered agent and their home address as the mailing address.

If this doesn't work you're probably looking at more trouble than it is worth. Just mail the PO Box at that point.

When I was younger and fresh out of college I liked Charlotte more than Raleigh, but I would much rather raise a family in Raleigh. I have lived in Raleigh basically my whole life (I'm the rare person born in Raleigh) and even if I look at things objectively I am not sure there is a place I'd rather live. The economy is so diverse our risk of a major localized recessions is much lower than Charlotte (too concentrated in banking). The government will always be here, we have major universities, tech, banking, pharmaceuticals, and more. While any one of those could crash at any time (well not the government/universities hah)  it is hard to imagine a scenario where they all do at once.

I am biased as a born and raised Raleigh citizen, but there is a reason everyone moves here and never leaves (I-95 must be a one way road for moving trucks...who knew?) I know a ton of families where 1 person moved down here, other people came to visit, and then they moved here too! 

One other thing I have noticed, but it might be a sample size. My friends who moved to Charlotte after college lived in the city proper for a few years, but when they got married or bought a house they moved to suburbs like Hunterville, Pineville, and others I forget the names of. The vast majority of my Raleigh friends, myself included, are still in Raleigh proper. 

I am not sure if that is a reflection of the Charlotte school quality, the real estate market, or what, but I like that I actually live in Raleigh proper.

Thanks. I will see if I can find someone just to try it at least once.

Short answer: Instantly.

Long answer: Technically I think it should be free as a matter of public record, but I would pay it. I am moving to a new county soon and I cannot figure out how to get their list on the internet. I am going to try in person soon. If someone could give it to me right now I'd give them $450, I know that for a fact.

Also I have no idea what your market is like but I imagine it is super competitive but one deal could make you 10x what it does in the rest of the country.

I have always been happy with dirt cheap signs quality, cost and speed wise. However, in my market they do not work at all in my experience. I quit putting them out. I have put out at least 800 signs (different colors, different designs, local number, vanity number, you name it!) and never once have I done a deal off a bandit sign. I would estimate I have received maybe 5 quality leads from my signs (seriously). If you take all the time and effort I put into the signs (never mind the cost of them) I could probably have found more leads starting at the first name in the white pages and going down the list!

However, 90 minutes down the road in another market several investor friends of mine use bandit signs and they just kill it with them (although it has gotten tougher in the last 9 months). I don't understand it. Some of these guys only use bandit signs and they do multiple deals a month. It blows my mind we can be so close and have such different results, but I have a large enough sample size to be confident they do not work in my market. I am sure someone around here does deals off bandit signs but I don't know them (or they don't tell me).

@Adrien C.

How did you find the person to address your letters? I have thought about trying that myself. Usually I do postcards as I find them a better value (BY FAR), but I keep a secondary list of high value leads I would like to send a letter like you describe. 

What stops me is handwriting the envelopes. I can't and won't do it myself, this I know. Do they hand write the return address also? The closest I have come to what you describe is sending letters with a printed return label and handwriting the address. I only did about 30 of them and I don't think I would have made it to 100 if someone was standing over my shoulder threatening me! 

Mike,

My advice is to outsource it. Click2Mail, Yellowletters.com, and other sites do it cheap enough it is not worth doing it yourself. Go ahead and outsource it now it now, because you are going to do it later (or not meet your mailing goals).

When I first started my plan was to do everything myself. Print, postage, stuff, and mail it. What really happened is I just never actually sent the mail I planned on sending, and if I ever mailed it was certainly not with any consistency. 

I know quite a few people who were like me. They wanted to do it all themselves to save money. We all set plans, we will do 2,000 a month, every month for 6 months, or whatever, but I do not know anyone who actually followed through 100%. This is a 7 person sample size. I don't think anyone I know with a monthly plan sent mail more than 3 times in 6 months. I think 4 of us (myself included) only managed 1 mailing before outsourcing or even worse just not sending any more mail. I am sure there is someone, somewhere who made a goal like this and followed through but I have yet to meet him or her. Whoever you are, when it comes to having discipline I stand up and salute you!

Anyway, we all outsource it now. Is it a little more expensive? I guess so, although if you factor time I'm not sure it is, especially for postcards. I just looked today actually because I was talking about this with someone earlier (I wanted to send like 75 pieces of mail so I was going to do a small mailer myself since the target # was so small). A single postcard stamp is 34 cents. If you send 100 postcards (4.25x6...usually I send larger ones) at Click2mail the total cost per postcard is 50 cents each. That is printed, stamped, and mailed. If I did it at my house I have to get yellow cardstock, print it, cut the postcards out of the cardstock (usually 4 cuts on my nice paper slicer if I remember right), buy the stamps, put them on, and then go to the post office. Say the paper and ink is 6 cents. We know the stamp is 34 cents. For 10 cents savings per mailer (it costs less the more you do, this is based on only 100 postcards) do I really want to make 4,000 cuts (4 cuts per page for 1,000 mailers), peel and stick 1,000 stamps, and then drive to the post office to save literally one hundred dollars?  HECK NO! If someone knocked on your door and asked you to do all work that for 100 dollars would you? I doubt it...so why would you do it to save 100 dollars?

Plus they don't even look as good when I do it myself!

Anyway, whatever extra it costs is worth it because it actually gets done now!