All Forum Posts by: Jerry W.

@Michelle P. Brown, I obviously don't use other registered agents so @Nathan Gesner suggestion is pretty good.  Merry Christmas BTW

@Satyajeet Dodia, I agree if possible you should have your properties owned by an LLC. I do NOT think having an operating LLC located in a different state than the ones owned is overkill. For most people getting an LLC is relatively cheap. Less than $500. The important part is operating it properly. A lot of folks don't take the time to educate themselves on how to do that. There are benefits to having a second LLC over the first. I have never gone that far myself. The cost of renewing an LLC or changing the title is absurdly cheap unless you have one of those law firms that advertise a lot and have a huge advertising department and claim to have a secret sauce that guarantees protection. It costs less than $200 to file an LLC in WY. It costs around than $100 to change title on a property in WY, less if you do it yourself. I don't think I have a single insurance policy less than$800 that I can think of. The annual cost of doing my LLC in WY is usually $200, less than my checking account fees. I still never put less than $500K liability insurance on any house, and more on apartments.

Lawsuits do happen. Not a lot, but they are much more likely to happen than getting hit by lightning. An LLC is just one more shield of many you should have. The main one is running your business well.

In my experience better than 80% of lawsuits are settled out of court.  The main reason is people get massively stressed and fear a multi-million dollar settlement and so agree to settle for a few hundred Thousand dollars.  I have seen it multiple times.  One was the steps were a few inches off of code in height, and the railing broke when the guy fell.  The guy was over 300 pounds and had been drinking.  The lawsuit was for over 2 million.  The settl4ement was private, but I bet it was at least $400k knowing the attorney's involved, maybe more.  Just make sure the cost of your protection doesn't rob your profit.  Make it reasonable.

Hopefully this helps.

@Paul Sanders, just a few thoughts. First good old politicking, find all of the other owners who can vote and see if they will agree to vote with you to allow STR or even to amend the bylays. Legally you can claim estoppel and latches as a defense as they let it go on for so many years and you relied on it when buying. Third pack the board with your allies and vote it in.

@Robert Loebl, a lot depends on how you buy.  If you finance the entire purchase price it is dam hard to find a deal that even breaks even.  If you put 25% down like the banks want you can at least break even or make a little on good deals.  How do you buy?  Right now you won't get financing at less than 7% maybe a lot higher.  That means the 1% rule will lose money, especially if you are paying 9% or higher.  I cannot buy a property right now and cash flow, or even break even without a huge down payment.

I have done this in the past.  There are numerous ways to do it.  One rate for just renting the stall or enclosure, another price if you supply feed, yet another price if you want them in an inside stall like a large barn, etc.  There is always a substantial liability to keep in mind you should get specific insurance, and tons of disclaimers and permission slips.  Will you be responsible for trimming feet, doing shots, wormer, exercise, what if the horse gets sick, what if a horse brings in something like vesticular stomatitus, and all the horses get it?  What if a horse gets wire cut, or bitten by another horse, what if the veterinarian bill will be $10K what are you supposed to do?  What if the person never comes back for the horse?  What if the horse hurts someone or another horse?  Lots to think about and prepare for.

Just make sure the general partners are a corporate entity, not you personally.  Otherwise there is no reason to add the partnership.

@Daisy Hawkins, if you are going to sell the property make very sure it is a good tax move.  By changing the ownership you might be changing your tax from a long term capital gains tax, to a short term capital gains tax which is a really bad thing.  Short erm capital gain taxes are for properties owned less than 1 year.  Double check that.

@Rene Hosman, how did I not know about the add free service?  That is embarrassing.

@Michael Quarles, good to hear from you again.  I also miss a lot of the folks who originally posted on here and did interviews.  I didn't find bigger pockets until around 2008 I think.  I found an article from Brandon Turner while I was trying to educate myself on how to be a better landlord because I had messed up badly in renting to one tenant. I followed that article to bigger pockets and the Pod casts.  This was an amazing completely free site then.  Josh had a really serious health issue with one daughter and had to step back, and then sold the company.   Then we lost Brandon.   I spent every waking hour of about 2 months reading every article under the Learning section and was simply amazed at what I didn't know.  I then grew my knowledge along with Brandon Turner who we got to see progress personally.  Pretty much all of the old staff left and everyone cranks out a book to sell once or twice a month.  The site simply grew up.  The new owners got serious about monetizing the platform and it has progressed accordingly. Now you will hear 15 minutes of advertising for every hour of content. The articles are less in depth, and are short and fluffy. It was magnificent and free, now it is good and you have a lot of stuff being sold.  The site grew into a business.  It still has a massive amount of free information, but it has lost the small tight knit group of folks.  I still like to give back when I can, and to be honest I usually enjoy it, but it was an important source of education for me that I am still grateful for.  I try to pay it back once in awhile.  Good seeing you again.

@Dan N., one thing I really want to stress that most folks mess up is a registered agent.  You MUST have a local registered agent.  One if you do not register your company as a foreign company you usually cannot file an answer in court if you are sued.  If you register but do not have a registered agent they can often serve you by publication, or perhaps by serving the Secretary of state or any of several ways that might result in you not knowing that you have been sued.  They they get a big fat default judgement against you.  This is really bad.  I have actually seen this before and courts usually stick to the rule unless you get dam lucky.  If you are just a plain person they usually must serve you in person.  Not so if you are a company.