All Forum Posts by: Jim S

@ken Parker What areas are you looking at in the DC area? Not much available except Hyattsville.

i use my home address also. I thought twice about it but had little other options. PO Box seems like a pain to check and why pay a law firm? Home address seems like the lesser of all the evils.

Originally posted by Andrew Jones:

I just saw this sign while I was shopping in a nice retail area in Burbank, CA last month and couldn't help but take a picture and post it here. Can this be correct 5 years free! I am assuming they must be requiring a 25 year lease agreement or something. Is this common?

The trend in the Maryland/ Virginia area is to only offer 10 year leases on retail zoned commercial. We looked at a few properties that were only willing to offer 5 years. The rents would then adjust to market rate....good luck with that one.

Mr Google found it
http://www.athomere.com/pdf/ApartmentLease.pdf

We got ours off the internet from the local Realtors Association. It will include any important local considerations from your area. Best of all it's free. We add a cover sheet which we have the tenants initial that has important dates and rules outlined. Plus it has emergency contact numbers for us.

In terms of credit cards in the LLC's name, you will still have to personally qualify for the card and it is directly reported and impacts your credit score.
Unless you can pledge assets, you will be on the hook for any loans made to the LLC too. Put yourself in the banks position..... why would anyone loan any $$ to a new LLC without any assets or track record?
If so, I am really a Nigerian prince who insists on giving you $25 million dollars. No strings attached. Trust me :)

Our $99 bundle of internet, phone and tv quickly gets jacked up to $129 due to taxes and use fees, call waiting, caller id and a minor upgrade of the tv channels (if I hadn't upgraded my entire tv lineup would have consisted of local programming, public access and spanish channels).

Everytime RCN starts to jack our rates up my wife calls and tells them we are switching unless they match a competitors price (Comcast) of $99/ month guaranteed for two years of a bundle. They always do it. None of them want to lose a customer.

Make sure that there is a HVAC return located in the basement. About 50% of the time we end up adding one in our flips. It makes a big difference in the wet, stanky smell that most basements can have. **And yes, stanky is a professional real estate term**

Plus the FHA records the lowest appraisal value against your property for 60 or 90 days. Don't remember the exact time. FHA is getting tough to work with when it comes to hitting sales contract vs FHA appraisal values.