All Forum Posts by: John Gillick

A good acquaintance wants to borrow money for a flip.

He is very experienced.  He does not need my money in that he has other options.  But if I want to invest money providing better terms than those options, he's happy to take the better terms.

I don't want to ask for the terms of his best alternative, and even if I did, I'd likely still post this to verify.*

If anyone was willing to quote me a ballpark for the below situation, I'd greatly appreciate it.

After Repair Value: $165,000 

Purchase Price - $90,000 

Renovation Budget - $35,000

Loan: $125,000 (75% LTARV)

Zip: 17103

*If anyone feels compelled to ask, "if you don't trust him, why lend him money?"  My answer is, right or wrong, I put lying about "other offers" as just fair game negotiations that don't really reflect on a person's honesty.  

$7,500 is a partial refund?  How much does this service cost?

And yeah, asking for assignment of a deal is a very strange settlement term.

Quote from @Dustin Borklund:

Quote from @Chris Seveney:

@Dustin Borklund

If those Florida properties have no mortgage on them we have people who could probably lend against them for 2-3 years Interest only but it won’t be cheap 12%+

 We have one proposal already. I wanted to get a second proposal for comparison. The one proposal has a good rate in the 7s but lender/origination fees are over $5k so it might as well be 12%. If your solution is simpler it might make sense. 

What a fascinating problem.
I'd like to know more if you'd like to see if I can beat your current offer.

I don't even know how to DM people anymore.  What, you have to connect first?  IDK.

Quote from @Jose Guillu:

Thanks, Jacob. I have many 0% credit cards and haven't paid interest on anything for the past decade or so. I'm talking about large, unsecured lines of credit. If you're to search on FB for investor financing or hard money lenders, those ads should start appearing for you. Let me know if you do. Thanks

 It's probably an ad for a credit card stacking consulting company.  They're going to charge you 10% to help you apply and get 15 different 0% intro cards with a credit limit averaging $10k each.  That's how they advertise $150k credit lines at 0%.  The only value they add is for someone who does not know much about the 0% credit card game, teaching them the best order to apply in, e.g., starting with business cards that typically don't show on your personal credit report before doing the personal cards that are going to increase your credit risk until the CC companies finally stop offering you 0% deals.

Quote from @Joe S.:

Quote from @Caroline Gerardo:

Gurus with photos of them standing next to someone else's Ferrari.  They charge huge $ for information that is free at the library. I have no affiliation with them, the concept is 'kinda' 'dumb. Land takes a LONG time to sell. There is no fast flipping for newbies without skills.

Look up the Harris brothers in Texas: Trey and John in Colony Ridge. Experienced developers shortcutting details/ expect bad consequences. 

Why is it that many posers like to stand next to a Ferrari when people that have real wealth many times try to hide the fact? 

Because they're selling.  It's no different than the advice to sales people that they need to drive a nicer car.  (Depending on what they're selling, probably not six figure nice, but newer and well cared for).  I don't do sales because my talent is not in social interactions, but the advice seems to be gospel among those that do sales successfully. 

Quote from @Kate Brown:

Excellent advice and wholeheartedly agree!  I was definitely a little too trusting but recorded calls where I was lied to because I did have an uneasy feeling. 

 Careful with this.  Massachusetts is a two-party consent state for audio recordings.

"Folks in CA & San Diego, Socal, have no idea what they are missing"

Did I miss some context?  Why this specific call out?

Quote from @Simon W.:

I understand what the OP's target was, but I keep hearing "I want an aggressive accountant". This is interpret into save me money and I am willing to take the risk to not get caught.

There is no such thing as aggressive. 

There are three types: 

1. do bare-minimum

2. analyze the financial to maximize the savings

3. then there are the ones that will do your taxes like they do for mafia's taxes. lol

It's ok to have differing opinions and interpretations of a word "aggressive" as applied to a context "accountant," but what part of "Keep it legal, keep it aggressive" makes you think "save me money and I am willing to take the risk to not get caught"?  (Presuming "get caught" means "get caught" breaking the law).
If it's just "get caught aggressively going after legal tax breaks," then ok, yeah, happy to get caught.


We may have a difference of opinion on whether there is a 2.1 or not.  If you think there is a bright line legal/illegal line for every relevant tax rule out there then we will agree to disagree.  It is my opinion and experience that there are many rules that create large areas of varying shades of gray depending on how they are applied to specific situations.

Quote from @Mike Dymski:

Quote from @Simon W.:

LOL. Aggressive?

One of my client did just that and got himself an aggressive CPA from BP. He is being audited by the IRS. Took me 10 minutes to see why he was flagged.

Sorry but no such thing as aggressive. 

It just means let's code things incorrectly and hope you don't get caught.

That's not what he is targeting...he just wants an accountant that knows the the nuances of the rules to best structure his business and prepare tax filings. Unfortunately, it's pretty common for taxpayers (or the next accountant) to find mistakes by their tax preparers.

 Thank you.  Knowing that someone was able to read my question and understand what I was looking for is appreciated.

(Though I anticipated many defensive comments from people who cannot accept the reality that there are nuance layers of tax law).