All Forum Posts by: Jarod Bona

I ended up going with www.TitlesandDeeds.com. I published my first blog post about a week ago:

https://www.titlesanddeeds.com/2017/03/invest-real...) 

And I have officially affiliated with Beal Real Estate (http://www.bealre.com/).

I am an attorney with my own law firm. I am planning to start a real-estate legal blog targeted toward investors. I am considering a couple URLs and am interested in feedback that anyone might have:

1. www.RealEstateLawyersBlog.com

2. www.RealEstateLawyerNews.com

3. www.YourRealEstateAttorney.com

4. Anything that is better than the top three.

I am also interested more generally in the types of articles that may be useful for investors. The plan is to build the blog for a year, then start a second law firm that is focused entirely on real-estate transactions for investors, including developers. My present law firm does some real-estate litigation, but is mostly focused on antitrust and complex litigation (www.TheAntitrustAttorney.com).

I am not trained as a real-estate transactional attorney, but will hire attorneys. I am building the firm because of my background as a real-estate investor (and I have my CA real-estate license).

I'd love to hear any thoughts or ideas anyone might have.

Thanks,

Jarod

I am a big fan of the Harvard School. Getting to Yes (as Flavio recommended) is a great place to start. 

Good luck.

The best answer to where to start is something you are already doing: Spend plenty of time at Bigger Pockets learning as much as you can. Figure out the pros and cons of different styles of investing and start planning. The article below discusses two basic approaches, flips v. buy-and-hold, and recommends Bigger Pockets: 

http://www.successhealthlifestyle.com/blog-and-art...

If you are interested in property battles with the government and constitutional issues surrounding takings, I just published an article about a recent California case involving the Coastal Commission: 

California Court of Appeal Holds that Required Coastal Easement Dedication is an Unconstitutional Taking - See more at: http://www.businessjustice.com/california-court-of...

I don't think you are in bad shape. It is easy for costs to spiral out of control during a flip. Be vigilant about spending; other people will eagerly spend your money quickly. So stay on top of material and labor costs, even if you have to micromanage a bit more than you'd like.

If you put it on the market with a roof that didn't need replacing immediately, but was old, you may not have received the purchase price you will receive with a new roof. So you ought to receive at least some of your costs back.

And worst case, it appears that you have a decent back-up plan to rent it out. 

With regard to people that read Bigger Pockets or attend real-estate events, but don't own any properties, I suppose it makes sense that they are trying to educate themselves before making the jump. Actual real-estate investing is a significant responsibility and it is smart to spend time, virtually or actually, with real real-estate investors. It is also a vocation where practice doesn't always conform to theory, so I would expect that many would seek to learn by soaking up the experience of others. Finally, let's be honest about the fact that there are significant barriers to entry for that first real-estate investment, either money or a combination of creativity, time, and some luck. 

Many of these people will take the plunge, but as I would expect, probably most will not, after conducting their research. Real-estate investing is not for everyone.

Keith:

Welcome to BP, Keith. I am relatively new here myself. I am in San Diego, California, but spent three wonderful years in Cambridge. 

One piece of advice: It sounds like you are an avid reader and someone likely to be well-prepared: It will reach a point where you just have to jump in, knowing that you will make some mistakes. Start small and apply what you learn in the first deal to your subsequent deals. 

Good luck and have fun.

Jarod

@David C. is correct. Like any other profession, attorneys specialize into subject areas that may be more narrow than just real estate. My real-estate work, for example, is focused on litigation (in addition to antitrust, appeals, and general business litigation). Some real estate attorneys will claim to broadly focus on real-estate transactional work, which includes many types of matters. You may need to specifically ask what sorts of matters they have done recently, as many real-estate transactional attorneys list everything or almost everything on their website. Litigation is a little easier to do broadly than transactional, in my opinion.

One suggestion is to search for legal articles in the specific area that you are seeking because the attorney publishing an article in that area probably does know something about it (but not always).

If you have trouble finding the right person for your sub-specialty, please feel free to email me with a description of what you are seeking and I can ask around. ([email protected]).

Keep in mind that you will likely have access to the best financing for that property while you live there (as an owner-occupant). So if you opt to keep it and move out eventually, make sure you do whatever you want to do with regard to financing while you are still an owner occupant.