All Forum Posts by: Jerry W.

@Henry Clark, I am going to buy a few Conex containers to rent out before moving into self storage buildings.  I have seen about 3 categories, wind and water tight, cargo worthy, and one trip.  The prices range from about $3K, $3,500, and about $5,500.  I would appreciate your advice on how nice of a container I need to rent.  My feeling is get one or 2 very nice one trip ones to use for advertising, then half a dozen of the cargo worthy that are not as pretty but will work just as well for a small discount on rent price.  By the way thank you for your posts, they are very informative and inspiring.

Ouch, thanks for the heads up @Jay Hinrichs.  I will keep mine now.

@Caroline Gerardo, I would not move to Wyoming.  It was 29 degrees below zero yesterday morning and was 22 degrees below zero this morning.  It will be 10 days before we get above freezing for even a few hours.  While this is not normal, it is not really unusual.  We are also a hard red state.  We have had a pretty hard influx of people moving in the last 3 years since Covid.  Land prices have increased massively, but will probably seem cheap to you.  You can still buy a massive, nice log cabin in the mountains for a million dollars with 20 to 40 acres to play on.  You can get a pretty decent house for $200K in many areas.

I am a conservative Republican, and some folks here are so conservative I blush when I hear them.  Our politics will probably change in time as more people move in.  One percent of California here would cause us to be outnumbered.  We have the highest percentage of guns per capita of any state.  Very few homes have less than 5 or 6 guns and a few thousand rounds of ammunition.  We rely heavily on oil, coal, gas, tourists and ranching.  

We have 2 seasons, winter and road construction.

That being said it is a beautiful state with lots of wide open spaces.  I have hunted afoot and horseback for days and only seen one or two other hunters.  The sky at night in the mountains are so clear you see thousands of stars.  You can still hear coyotes and even wolves howl at night.  The average distance between towns is usually 30 minutes to an hour.  Many towns have only one stoplight.

Anyway, that's a short version of WY.

@Darryl Brennan, welcome to BP and welcome to Wyoming.  I am about 2, 1/2 hours away in Thermopolis WY.  I unfortunately do not know any good accountants in Casper, finding professional services can be hard.  You can keep using any existing accountants you have, WY does not have a state income tax so there is no special WY law your current accountant needs to know.  There is a real estate agent I am dealing with in Casper right now has bragged about how good his accountants are.  If you DM me I will send you his name.

Good luck on your move to WY, you are hitting in our cold season.  Let me know if you have any questions as to WY law.

@Zach Fulton, welcome to BP.  I really like the post of @Mike S., it contains a lot of common sense. I prefer to use an LLC, but I do have 3 properties in my personal name for reasons too long to tell here. LLCs do help protect from liability, but are not magic. Operating them wrong or doing certain actions yourself can limit there protection. One thing to consider is the additional cost and time involved. With 2 properties already it is time to think about going the LLC route. I find I pay about 1% more in loan rates for an LLC and still have to personally guaranty the loans anyway. I also have a couple of S Corps in addition to my LLC and the few I own myself. In hindsight I wished I had just gone with straight LLCs, but I was a different person 35 years ago when I started investing. LLs can get a free stepped up basis for your heirs if you do it right, but it is likely I will not be able to pass on the stepped up basis to my heirs from my Sub S corporations.

Either way good luck, you are thinking the right things.

@Shawn D Augusti, welcome to BP. As to the opinions voiced here that any attorney can easily pierce any LLC it is blatantly not true. LLC s are not perfect, and how you operate them is important, but the authorizing statutes list protection and courts are obligated to follow those statutes. You can do things to step out of their protection. In my state I have seen many cases where judges ruled against piercing the corporate veil of an LLC even in very high dollar cases. In fact in my state LLCs are held to a lower standard of keeping up minutes and other detail oriented attacks that do not work harm on the plaintiff, than they do against corporations. Even my recent CLE classes show that LLCs are still working most of the time. They are cheap and do provide extra protection. There are drawbacks. In my experience it is harder to get a loan using an LLC and when you do the rate is usually about 1% higher interest rate. Next there is extra work to running an LLC. You should have at least annual meetings, but probably a meeting for every major decision, like buying real estate. You have annual filing costs that cost depends upon the individual state. Not all states provide the same level of protection, and some treat single member LLCs different from multimember LLCs. I have seen many lawsuits against members or owners of LLCs dismissed in summary judgement as there was no showing of a good reason to pierce the veil, and I have seen judges strike down discovery requests wanting information on who owners are and what they own as being "fishing expeditions" that noting to do with liability. In my opinion one of the biggest dangers in having members named is the pressure of a being named makes them more likely to settle than if the suit is only against the LLC. Lawsuits can really stress people out.

@Molly W., welcome to BP. First I would NOT transfer property from yourself to an LLC using a quitclaim deed. Use a warranty deed to preserve title insurance. Next it is possible for a bank to call a note due for transferring it to an LLC. It is pretty rare, and the few times I have heard of it transferring the property back to their own name resolved it. Finally I have never heard of the veil being pierced because the mortgage was in the name of a member of the LLC not the LLC only. Maybe that has happened, but in the last 3 or 4 classes I have done on this topic not a single one even mentioned it as being a factor. In my experience it is common for members of an LLC to put the money into the LLC to start it, that includes putting in property. The most common reason to pierce the veil is fraud, one of the next most common is undercapitalization. LLC do provide protection if operated in a reasonable correct way. The protections can vary from state to state. My view may be skewed because my state gives very powerful protection to LLCs and their members.

@Andrew White, my first thought is that you don't need an umbrella policy if you only own one policy. It will be cheaper to just increase the insurance on your one property. Umbrella policies are designed to add coverage for multiple properties at a cheaper rate than increasing insurance on every single property. Next I would hold off on doing a change to an LLC until at least 3 years after you have moved out just in case you decide to sell it and want to claim the $250 capital gains exemption from it being your primary home for 2 out of the last 5 years. After that you might consider if you want it in a corporate entity to reduce liability. Congratulations, and best of luck in your investing.

@Jake Kraft, adverse possession in Wyoming is 10 years.  It requires open, notorious, hostile use under color of title for a continuous 10 year period.  I would check with Tony Wendtland in Sheridan, he has handled several of these and is local.  Next the best way would be for you to buy it from the owners.  Finally hostile use can tack on from prior owners.  It does not require that you have all of the adverse use yourself, adverse use by prior owners count.  Wyoming is big on making you prove that the owners were just nice folks who didn't really object to you using their property, they may just be nice neighbors.  It normally requires a use that deprives the other owner of their use.  Being land locked is not by itself enough.

@Pero Konjevich, first I would make sure that you have a working carbon monoxide detector in the house, and upgrade it the kind that also checks for other gasses.  Just doing that might detect if something is there, but most likely it will just provide protection for you.  I would also at least have a plumber run over and do a check.  Even if he finds nothing have him document that in the bill to also cover yourself.  Sometimes they actually find something.  If your tenant really smells something it deserves to be checked out.  If your tenant is just being a jerk and you check it out it takes away a lot his ammo to break the lease.  Some people are also very sensitive to certain odors or chemicals.  What other people don't notice can be pretty bad for my wife.  So, make a good faith effort to check it out either way.  If it isn't resolved then unless there is a big reason not to, release him from the lease.  I would do it in writing to protect yourself.  Give a period of time like 30 days or 60 days to cancel the lease, then if not done it will remain in effect.  Just my thoughts.  Best of luck either way.

Oh I almost forgot.  I did have on case where the city wastewater plant (sewer plant) would do something that made the neighborhood smell for a few hours then go away.  That smell would linger for about 12 more hours inside the house after the smell went away outside.  Just a thought.