All Forum Posts by: Jason Hill

Victor.  Love the interest but your question is analogous to "I'm interested in fish.  Where can I learn about all the fish in the ocean?"  Here in the forums you can close your eyes, throw a dart, and almost certainly learn about some kind of legal issue.

What I would do if I were you and concerned with the legal implications of landlording is to identify what you want to do. Do you want to rent single family homes (SFH) do you want to do Airbnb? Then identify each major stage of the process and start researching the legalities of each....

Acquiring the property

• The property itself (liens, title, probate)
• The money to get the property (Hard money, mortgages, seller financing)

Finding a Renter

• Fair housing
• etc
• etc

You get the picture.  Learn the basics of how you become a landlord and if anything stands out as worrisome, dig in.

@Evan Polaski All good points. After speaking to some contractors and realtors I'm leaning more towards selling. I've got a few other BRRRR's I'm working on currently and my reserves are quite a bit lower than I like. I appreciate your considered response.

You can read all the blogs and listen to all the podcasts but, until the rubber meets the road you'll never have all those theories tested.  That's where I am now and I have no clue what to do.  I think I'm stuck in analysis paralysis.  Keep in mind, this is a rental I own currently and I don't know whether to fix it up or sell it.

Details:

Mortgage: $81,000 left, $550/mo (PITI @ 4.5%)

Rent: Currently $800 (slightly below market because renters are amazing) $1000 after rehab (will move renters into another unit)

Rehab costs: $21000 (immediate HVAC replace/deferred maintenance/new roof in 2-5 years)

ARV: $125k

I've also played around with the idea of a self-managed Airbnb.  Airdna (don't know how reliable their data) says it's a $1800/mo gross unit.

@Frank Rolfe - This is a great idea that I'm definitely going to pursue.

@Jason Wray - The pubic record stats it's a house but, I understand what you're saying.  They're going to take the appraisal's assessment of whether it's a "real" house or not.  All good points.

I will be brief. I have a mobile home built 1973 (before the big HUD changes) that has what can only be described as a house built around it. It has a brick "skirting", a 2x4 exterior wall (that wraps around the metal siding), and a rafter roof slapped on top. However, my realtor says because it's still on a metal frame and has the doors/windows/ceilings of a mobile home it will be classified as such and traditional financing won't touch it. I know that a mobile home that has not been placed on a foundation will not be considered but I thought that was because it's still technically movable. This is very much NOT movable. You would destroy the home trying to move it.

As an aside this home is on 3 acres of land that will be included in the purchase.  The county classifies it as a traditional home, not a mobile home.

You want to also consider the factors going into moving to GA or TN since Chattanooga is right on the border.  TN has no income tax but GA has lower property costs because of that.  GA is also one of the most landlord friendly states.

How far out are you looking to live?  In the city, suburbs, or rural?

@Joe Splitrock  This is exactly what I was looking for.  As much activity and promotion of wholesaling on this site, and others, makes you think it's a completely valid method of doing business.  I have been on this site for years and never seen someone say "You know what you're doing is probably illegal" to the wholesaling concept.

To make things simple as far as what I'm on about think realtor.com meets craigslist, but for investors and wholesalers. I'm thinking of creating a site wherein wholesalers can list their properties with all the stats like ARV, Repair costs, etc, etc. Would be buyers would peruse the site like realtor.com or zillow by putting in their criteria. If they like a property the could contact the wholesaler directly.

My main concern is that, to my knowledge, no one has done this.  The first thought is that this may run afoul of the SEC.  Would this be securitizing the wholesaled property by advertising it to the general public?  If not, is there any other legal ramifications that I'm not thinking about?

Many legal issues are avoided because we would simply be the marketplace, not a broker or agent.

@Joshua Tessier

I'm sure you and I are not the only ones in this position and I can commiserate with the "might as well" mindset.

Agreed, the cashflow from the properties is not enough to support us, that much is certain.  I would have to go get some other jobs.  My point was that these alternate income sources would allow more free time to work on RE.  However, to @Jon Kelly's point, I'll probably end up working so hard on the side gigs that they become 40hrs or more a week and pay less. Now that I've had some time to think after my job loss I can see that I was just wanting to use this as an excuse to jump into what I want to do and out of my soul crushing 9-5.

  Thanks everyone!

@Jon Kelly That last post is exactly why I posted.  Really wasn’t considering time spent “making it” vs the return of a standard 40hr week and a bit on the side.  Really good point.  

I was looking at it as more time to focus on RE.  However, if I’m working on all these side gigs that could take up 40hrs just to end up with less investable capital.....

I think I’ll stick with the original plan to get back to a 9-5 and keep building as I go.

@theresa Harris 

The interesting thing about this deal is that I bought both for $70k.  Never really put a specific amount towards one house or another.  Another so for tax/numbers purposes I can move my capex around.  Good insight though.