All Forum Posts by: John Clark

Flipping is vastly different from renting. You need to make up your mind which you are going to do. For example, a flip at 120k allows the use of FHA loans allowing for repairs and you can therefore buy in nicer neighborhoods and deal with a better clientele. Rentals, not so much.

South side and West side are better investments than the North side when it comes to renting. Remember, transportation costs are the same thing as housing costs. Get on the Red line (South), Green or Blue lines (West, NOT Northwest) or Orange line. As you travel, check neighborhoods. See one you like? Get off and walk around. Like the neighborhood? Write it down and get back in the L.

Then, with your list of areas you like, do targeted searches.

Want to flip Wait until covid-19 is cured and consumer confidence is back.

"Side note, anyone have experience with shielding asset debt from personal debt through a business entity?"

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Any bank worth its salt will have all entities in which you have a five percent or greater ownership interest guaranty the new loan and pledge their assets to the guaranty. So for Joe Piker (that's you and me and everyone else), it really makes no difference. Once you get some real weight on the asset side and some experience, you'll be able to persuade the bank to limit itself to only certain assets.

Keeping paying down the truck. Keep adding cash reserves, wait the six months and see if the banks will look at 100 percent  of rents for income and not just 75%

Chicago itself is very tenant friendly. There are serious moves to lift the ban on rent control in Illinois. When that happens both Chicago and its surrounding environs will pass rent control laws in a heartbeat.

As for taxes, not only are property taxes high in Illinois to begin with, but they will only increase as all levels of government pay the piper for ignoring pension obligations for decades.

"I don't expect the area to grow much or the house to appreciate, but it could be a good cash cow. Do you have any advice for me? Do's and don't's? Thanks!"
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Advice? Dos and don'ts? Here: Stay away from Illinois and find a much more landlord friendly state to invest in.

Illinois is beyond broke (quarter TRILLION in unfunded pension liabilities) and is tenant friendly to the point of being a simpering fool. The South suburbs of Chicago that you would be looking at are all grossly mismanaged, heavily indebted, and Chicago and its metropolitan area (including South suburbs) are basically circling the drain. If you seriously consider Illinois as an out of state investor you need your head examined.

Are there deals in and around Chicago, especially in the South suburbs? Absolutely. For an out of state investor, particularly a rookie? No way.

Try landlord friendly states.

Probably a way to find out about illegal units. I bet "Why should the LL profit from an illegal situation" is probably the thinking.

Of course, by that line of reasoning, it would seem that the LL could use self help to evict the tenant, since the tenant has no right to be there either.

It will be interesting to see how the consequences play out.

Not sure you are in the right forum. You are not going to rent out apartments/bedrooms within your home?

First, I question why you are buying in Lincoln Park or Lake View. They are chic and have ambiance, and you are way overpaying for that and to be with others of your young ilk. Go to the CTA website (transitchicago.com) and follow the train lines. You can find good neighborhoods and excellent transportation downtown on the South and Southwest sides for a LOT less money than you'd pay where you're looking now. You would not be "urban pioneers" either, if that's what you're afraid of.

" and not having the government protect property rights by banning evictions instead of backstopping rents and helping tenants pay."

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The left wants blanket rent cancellations, which is as asinine as the right wanting evictions in a pandemic. Means tested rent support is the way to go, but since the bubble heads on both sides won't allow it (goes to far // doesn't go far enough), we have what we have: State's using their plenary powers to protect health, safety, and welfare, and you'll have to go to court in the end to take money judgments against turnips.

Lawsuits against the governments is a waste of time. The states are within their rights to postpone evictions, like it or not.

From your thread posts you think that you'll clear $80k. Long term capital gains tax is 15 percent, which in your case is $12k. That gives you about $68k in cash at the end of the day. You are not going to find a lower tax rate than 15 percent, and you risk opportunity costs if you tie up money in opportunity zones and what not.

Why not just pay the taxes and have about $65k in dry powder to use for a duplex after you've lived in your area and searched for places for a year?

Like others have said, the tax system is favorable for selling long term assets. Nobody likes taxes. Shooting yourself in the foot because you want to avoid them is foolhardy, though. Your opportunities are in flux. That means liquidity is everything.

" My point is this; Governments taxing it's populace to build roads is way more inefficient then the folks keeping their own money and building their own damn roads.

Sorry if this truth is inconvenient to your theory."

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Gary, like I said, you're in denial. Let me use your own example: A substantial proportion of roads in America in the 18th and 19th centuries were privately constructed and operated toll roads. There are very few today (there's a highway in Texas, and the Pennsylvania and Maine turnpikes started out as private, dunno if they still are). Why? Governments could do a better job.

And I notice you've run right away from my example of Central Park in New York City.

So sing and dance all you want, but the fact that governments waste money has nothing to do with the governments' right to look after health, safety, and welfare. Your singing and dancing doesn't alter the fact that your wealth (and mine) was built on a foundation laid by the government.

"If you want to shout nasty names at everyone on this thread who disagree's with you, then might I suggest one thing that took me a while to learn in my personal life... "
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I'm not shouting nasty names, Anthony, I'm telling you to stop trying to wrap yourself in the flag by comparing your opposition to how states have fought the Covid-19 outbreak to what our founding fathers did. Let me tell you something I learned in my personal life -- during my time as a Marine Corps infantryman (0311, thank you, Honorable Discharge as a Sergeant (and I enlisted when I was 20)) no less: People who wrap themselves in the flag deserve to have the flagpole rammed up their butts. There no "anti-America" rhetoric coming from me.

There has been no deprivation of due process. States are preserving health, safety, and welfare. You'll be able to enforce your contracts after the event. Go back and re-take your eighth grade civics class if you don't believe me.

Do I like not being able to evict? No. Do I think that government intervention in the market is going to cause distortions? Yes. But your hystrionics and attempts at wrapping yourself in the flag are both idiotic in the extreme, and ignore both American law and American history.

Now, what was your MOS, final rank, and type of discharge?