All Forum Posts by: Grace P.

What about outside of Chicago such as the Moline, IL area?  Would that be good place to buy a rental? 

Would transferring properties into an LLC trigger a DOS of a HELOC on an investment property?

What about all the fees associated with Out of state Series LLC's? Business license fees, registered agent fees, annual state filing fee in your home state and the state you have a rental in, maintenance fees, Federal tax return fees? It seems like a lot of fees and headache of having separate bank accounts and credit cards for each child LLC. Not to mention the attorney and CPA fees.

Thanks Scott Smith! I appreciate your time and valuable info. I will need to spend some time to really decipher your pillars. I tend to get confused because I see other advisors saying conflicting info on the series LLC route saying multiple LLCs are not necessary. I will read the article you have provided and I just ordered the tax strategies for the savvy real estate investor book. I have a CPA that has done our taxes for years but I think she just crunches the numbers. I feel bad to leave her but I really would love to have more guidance.

We have thought about that and are still considering that route.  Our concern would be that the hours we account for will be paid via payroll and that is subjected to payroll tax and then we pay taxes again when we file.  What if we kept track of hours but took it as contributions to avoid the double taxation?

Ok We have 4 rentals all in my husband's and my personal name. Most of them are owned outright We just have HELOC on two of them. We do have an umbrella policy. We are getting ready to renovate and sell one of the rentals. Would an LLC be of benefit for us?

J Scott, No we do not charge for any management time that was a typo.  We do not charge for the hours of bookkeeping, phone calls, etc.  We have also purchased the house without a realtor and selling with a flat fee broker so I handle most the transaction calls/paperwork. No double dipping is taking place I can assure you. 

Well everyone is getting paid for their labor.  We set it up as an S-corp so we have to do payroll.  We don't have the funds to pay for labor until the property sells so that's why we will get paid afterwards.  We all keep track of our hours. My husband gets $30/hr and the rest of us get $15/hr.  But My husband and I pretty much manage the whole thing and account for any work that isn't onsite (swinging a hammer)  it makes sense that we would get a larger percentage I just don't know how much more we should ask for.

I have thought about this as well but we only do about 1-2 properties per year at this point and we list them with a flat fee agent for $185 listing fee and offer 2.5% buyer's agent fee.  So for us it just doesn't seem worth it to get licensed right now.

We are working on two properties right now that have the same problem.  We ended up cutting down the trees and the homes look a ton better.  I would find someone to do it for a lot less or do it yourself.