All Forum Posts by: John West

Thanks everyone. This all makes me thankful for developing a relationship with a small portfolio lender.

I have several loans with them. There is no way my last income property would have been approved had that relationship not been started almost two years earlier.

@Mike M. Thank you - you have confirmed my thoughts. They are not cross collateralized, but I am securing the loans and hence responsible to pay back the loans should the LLC fail to pay. We all realized this going in. I cant imagine any bank would lend to a brand new LLC and give a non-recourse loan.

I have an LLC that is 1.5 years old. We just purchased our 4th investment property (long term rental - multifamily) and things are going great. However, I was just rejected for a used car loan because of my debt to income ratio.... I have excellent credit - never missed a payment, but it looks like I have a ton of debt. The LLC has two other partners - both of the other two have decent income so together we qualify for mortgages no problem. All of that said, I’m curious if anyone can tell me how my credit reports this debt (I haven’t seen my credit report for a long time). If I have an LLC with 3 partners and we buy a $99,000 house, do we each get 33,000 on our credit? Or does the full 99,000 hit each of our credits? I assume it’s the latter because I could be liable to pay the entire thing if everyone else defects. Can anyone confirm this?

Hi @LeAnna DavisIt's exciting to see you thinking about real estate investing so early! I went to PCC as well, so I know the struggle. LOL - just kidding. I enjoyed my time there, got a good education, and made some life-long friends.

I read through half the posts on here and just got exhausted. I'll briefly give my 2 cents.

Wholesaling is great for a lot of people. I thought at one point I might get involved, but didn't because of two reasons: 1. I didn't want to be door knocking, mailing cards/letters, and talking on the phone 24/7.

2. Let's say that it's 100% legal  - it seemed to me I would still have a lot of people who I would make unhappy (ie - people who think it is illegal, every real estate agent who ever lived, people that I have called/mailed dozens of times....). As a Christian first, and RE investor second, I don't want to do that. 

Please, please don't think I'm discouraging you or anyone else - its just my own conviction. :-)

I started listening to RE podcasts and reading books a little more than two years ago. I started an LLC and bought my first investment property a few months later. Since then, I have wholetaled a house ($50k profit), and own 10 units in 4 buildings (cash flow around $3k/month - split between partners). I have a low paying job, so have partnered with people who have better income than me. All the cashflow goes right back into buying the next property. It's beans and rice, rice and beans for right now, but the future is looking bright!

I am currently using zillow to list a couple available units. Usually my property manager takes care of all this, but I have decided to self manage this particular building. Not having experience before, I decided to try zillow out. I'm happy so far. Listing my units was easy and tenant applications are working seamlessly. 

This is some great information. I can tell that@Katie Magoun knows her markets. I would agree 100% with her input. Let me just expand to make up the gap between Portland and MDI area - I live on the coast right between them. 

While midcoast area certainly isn't as competitive as Portland, there are still often bidding wars on single family homes. 

Your window of time for making money in STR is going to be reduced depending on where you invest. There are lots of great peninsulas with good waterfront opportunities - Boothbay Harbor, Damariscotta Area, Camden etc. However, instead of the market being strong through mid October (Columbus Day), in these smaller markets the season slows and lots of storefronts have their final sales and close after Labor Day.

I won’t be able to make a November event, but I’m excited to see a mid-coast meet up. I will definitely come to future events. 

So it's been 1 1/2 years and thanks to BP my journey is getting off to a great start! I've done one wholetale (flip without any renovations) and made 50k! (separate post about that coming soon). I now own 3 buildings with a total of 9 units and am under contract on my next flip.

I have a property manager for 2 of the apartment buildings, and I just finished renovations on my 3rd building. I'm managing this one myself and finding tenants will be a first for me. I could use some advice.

I've started to create the listing in cozy and i plan to also list it on facebook, craigslist, and possibly zillow. I know my screening criteria, but how much should I be telling the tenants up front? I don't want to tell them everything, have them meet all requirements, but then ask me why they didn't get the apartment if there was someone more qualified. What do you tell tenants in the initial ad? Do you tell them 3x rent is required for income? Do you tell them not to bother applying if they've been evicted? Any advice for posting an ad for a vacant unit would be much appreciated. 

Right in my home state - Maine

If you can squeeze in the smaller space, the 4 unit is what I would do. Don’t let starting out with 3 vs 1 tenant scare you. I’m guessing the scary part is how to give late notices, respond to complaints, collect money etc... Well once you’ve learned the task, you know how to do it whether it’s one tenant or three. You’ll just have to do it a few more times and you’ll learn it all faster this way! The current tenant base shouldn’t be a large part of the equation. Anyone that has been there a “long” time likely doesn’t have a lease. Give them a 30 day notice, spruce it up, and hand pick the next tenant. The good tenant could leave tomorrow. I would just recommend you have a little cash reserve. You can fix most problems with a little time, but if don’t have enough cash to float you by for a little while things get a little stressful and quality of life goes downhill real fast.