All Forum Posts by: Nicholas DeLouisa Jr

Bump...

Hello all,

My wife and I (and a potential partner) are starting the process of creating our business.  Along the way we are coming up against some questions that are not easily answered using Google.  In fact, I have searched on this site and cannot find information pertaining to the exact scenario we have in mind.  So we would like to ask a couple of questions, hoping someone might be able to clear up a few things for us.

We see that it is beneficial to become a licensed real estate agent.  In NY, all that is required to become licensed is the course and the exam.  Now, to my understanding of the law, if you intend to represent in a real estate deal someone other than yourself AND you intend to collect a fee, you must have a broker's license or be working under someone who does.

The implication (that admittedly I may be reading into the law, but doesn't actually exist) is that you can represent real estate that you own without a broker's license, so long as you have a salesperson's license, and you adhere to certain rules, such as public notification that you are acting as your own agent.

Do we have this correct so far?  Because our next question is based on understanding the above.

So, we are planning to rehab and flip (in the beginning; we also want to do some buy and hold in the future), and in the course of learning how to do this, we came across the idea of incorporating to protect our personal assets (such as they are) and to shelter some of our money.  It seems like the way to go for flippers is the S-Corp.  And here we have our second question.  If we decide to become an S-Corp, and our understanding of the law we mentioned above is correct, can we still represent our company's real estate deals with a salesperson's license (without the broker's license)?  If the S-Corp will, or does, own the property, can the owner of the business represent the business in its own real estate dealings?

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated!  Thanks!

-Nick and Jackie

@Matthew Hansen,

Thanks.

@Gerald Harris,

Thanks for posting that info.  I have a question about the residency requirement.  What happens if you need to rehab before you move in?  For example, you buy a distressed four-plex and it is going to take two months to rehab before you can move in and rent out the other three apartments.  Does that two months come off the 12 month requirement?  I guess what I'm asking is, does the 12 month requirement start from the day you close, or the day you actually move in?

Thanks.

 I think it was John Whittle who suggested plugging something else in with the lights on. try bringing a lamp out there. Plug it in and turn it on. Then turn on these other lights while watching the lamp you plugged in. There should be no noticeable change in brilliance of that lamp's bulb(s). 

Otherwise, by all means ride it out and see what happens. 

Good luck, Steve Might! Hope it works out for you 8-)

 Well it is an easy thing to overlook of someone is in a rush. I'm not saying that's what you have but s*** happens. 

Out of curiosity, does this happen with anything else? Leave the halogens off and plug something into a different outlet and test the remaining outlets (i think this was actually mentioned already). See if the voltage drops. 

If you are having fluctuating voltages when things are turned on, there is some kind of series circuit intrusion. The circuit needs to be traced out, boxes opened, tests made. It's hard to do this on a forum. If you had unlimited time we could do it over email, but you don't have that kind of time. If the electrician said bad bulbs, the easiest way to check that is to change the bulbs, or plug something else into those outlets and then test the voltages. Other than going through it all with you box by box over email, it's hard to point here or there and say this is what it is. There are tests to be made. I (or other electricians) can direct you, but like I said it will take time. 

The worst case scenario is that you have to rewire those outlets. If you just ran all new wire to all of the outlets in the garage from the subpanel in there, you wouldn't have any problems. And if you did even after that, then the issue would definitely be in the main panel.  But there are troubleshooting techniques that can be tried before that. If you want to do it over email, let me know (or someone else you trust either on here or elsewhere) and we can try it. 

I understand what you're saying. Sorry I can't use the quote thing properly right now, I'm on my phone. 

At the risk of hijacking this thread, which I suspect is already a bit too late, I know what you're explaining. I was trying to illustrate an example for the OP. 

As for the neutral, the neutral carries the unbalanced load specifically in a three phase system. Not a single phase system. In a single phase system that wire is referred to as the grounded conductor. It doesn't matter that there may be a three phase transformer on the pole. The xformer is tapped for single phase 120/240. In a 120v circuit after the main breaker, the grounded conductor doesn't carry the unbalanced load because there is no balancing load. It carries the entire load back to the panel. That's why it isn't called a "neutral" because nothing is being neutralized. And of course, there's no need of a grounded conductor in a 240v circuit. (Note: all of this assumes normal operation.)

 In residential AC circuits, things are wired in what's called parallel. In this wiring method, the voltage remains the same from place to place. Every outlet and light fixture will get 120 volts (for single pole circuits), and turning off a light or unplugging a device won't effect any other light or outlet (unless specifically designed to do so). In series circuits, the voltage is split among the different items along the circuit, and whenever you turn off one item, or unplug a device, power will be lost to everything on that circuit. That's why we use parallel circuits. 

But in this situation, you are describing something that sounds like a series circuit. When you have one or both of the halogens on, the voltage in other parts of the circuit is dropping. That is characteristic of a series circuit, which indicates a wiring issue, not a bulb issue. In parallel circuits, it doesn't matter what you plug into an outlet or how much current it draws, if wired correctly it will never effect the voltage of anything else on the circuit (of course there are exceptions, but those aren't present here). 

As someone else said (and I'm on my phone so I can't check right now to give them credit), this sounds like a return wire issue (what is commonly, but mistakenly, referred to as the neutral). What can happen is, if a circuit "neutral" is loose under its lug in the panel (main or sub), it can come into contact with another loose "neutral" and they could create a new path for the current. So instead of current coming out of the breaker, going through the circuit, and then going back to the transformer on the utility pole, the current will go from one breaker, through the circuit, then backwards through another circuit (the one whose loose "neutral" was touching the first loose "neutral"), and into a second breaker, then finally back to the utility pole. This would create a 240 volt circuit. If this is the case in your situation, it would certainly explain why the bulbs were burning so brightly. They could be getting twice their normal voltage.

But for the above to be the case, the outlets on the walls would have to be on a different circuit breaker than the outlets in the ceiling. Turn on the halogens, then find the breaker that controls that circuit and turn it off. (You may want to mark this breaker in some way for future use.) Now test for voltage in the wall outlets. Now turn the halogen breaker back on and try the other breakers to see if any of the others will also turn off that circuit. If you find two breakers that control that circuit, you have confirmed the loose "neutral" theory. 

However, even if that test doesn't pan out, that doesn't mean you have ruled out a loose "neutral" issue. Working in a panel can be a bit dangerous for people who don't know exactly what they're doing, but if you so chose, you could go into the subpanel and lift the "neutral" for the halogen circuit off the neutral bus bar. Then check the voltage in the wall outlets. While you are in there, make sure that all of the lugs in the "neutral" bus are tight, and are clamped down on copper and not on the insulation of any wires. Sometimes an electrician might put the wire too far under the lug and when they tighten it, the screw clamps down on insulation instead of copper. If this happens to two "neutral" wires in the same space, you can get that series circuit I mentioned above. So make sure you can see copper on both sides of every lug. By the way, you can mitigate you exposure to danger in this subpanel by turning off the power to the sub in the main panel.

I'd like to hear some results of those tests, and the hair dryer test that was mentioned before. Maybe we can figure this thing out.

But whatever you do, please be careful. Electricity is unforgiving. The consequences of mistakes happen at the speed of light. It's not like screwing up a plumbing job and getting leaks. 

Also, I apologize for the haphazard way this post is organized. I'm on my phone and it's hard to edit. 

Good luck. 

 Well, I wish I would have read your "play nice" comment before I posted the above.  I'm sure it will have some kind of repercussion :-)

Anyway, I was just speaking to my brother-in-law today and he was saying the exact same thing about finding off-market properties.  I thought his view was a bit narrow, but he said his goal was to try to avoid agents and the mls and other listing places altogether.  But in light of what you said, sounds like he has a good point to make that attempt.  I don't truly understand any of this yet 8-)  I know I have a lot of learning to do.  Thanks for helping out!

 Let's take your ridiculous post point by point.  You seem to feel that when I ask a question and someone chooses to answer that question, I am being arrogant to think that the answer is directed to me personally.  That strikes me as a bit insane.  If you want to speak to thousands of readers inside other people's posts, don't use the word "you" eight times, which specifically addresses the original poster's question/comment.  You might be better served writing a book or posting blogs or even vlogging your stupendous intellectual insights on youtube.

"You're lucky I commented on your topic."  Who's arrogant?

As for the 15000+ other posts, they are not specifically written to/for me.  Neither are they specifically written to/for you.  When people post a question they are searching for an answer.  Sometimes more than one person can have the same question.  So when someone reads a post or a thread in which he/she has yet to participate, it is not rational for them to think that anything in said post/thread was directed specifically at him/her, but that doesn't mean that this reader cannot learn from what is being discussed.

No matter what you may think, say, or do Bill, I'm not on my own.  You are not the only person on the entire planet that knows how to invest in real estate.  If you disappeared tomorrow, the real estate industry and all of these nice people would be just fine without you.

I didn't post anything that is not in good practice.  I asked a question - a question which, by the way, gave you the opportunity to preempt a possibly incorrect course of action - and you lost your cool.

You seem extremely angry, Bill.  All I did was ask a question and you flipped on me.  Then I asked you not to post in my threads if all you had to say were disparaging things, and you came back with vitriol, threats, and name calling.

This is a giant huge forum, called Bigger Pockets.  It's not called the Bill Gulley Not-So-Happy Hour.