All Forum Posts by: Jeff V.

@Jackie F.

I agree with most of what @Michael Garofalo said in his post. Personal Guarantee is the way to start building business credit for your LLC, your loans in the LLC will be on the commercial side of the bank and the products will never be as favorable as personal financing.

However, You can find a 30 yr fixed commercial product, thought it probably wouldn't be through a bank. I have ran across a few loan products that are 30 yr commercial for LLC's.... never say never.

Your relationship with the bank and your track record go far in this business.  Portfolio banks have less strict terms and those terms can be stretched every now and then.  IF/When that happens depends on your relationship and track record.

Also you will want to get yourself a DUNS number this is what all of your business credit will be attached to.  Unless you apply for one and build the credit there you will always have to provide a personal guarantee.  DUNS reports to PAYDEX as well which helps to build your ability to get vendor credit.  DUNS and PAYDEX are the business credit services for Commercial Business Credit.  

Personal credit runs through TransUnion, Experion and Equifax...  all of which have nothing to do with business credit.

In DUNS there is a section to upload your business financial statement periodically...  you basically provide much of the information in your business credit report as well as banks will report commercial lines/loans there as well.

If your intentions for this post was to get your business credit built quickly...  DUNS has a Credit Builder product where they will do much of this data entry for you and advise you on what you need to do to RAPIDLY build your business credit as quick as possible.  You could pay for this service to grease the wheels and get the ball rolling.

Hope this helps.

Jeff V

Own your own corporation by Garrett Sutton

It's a richdad book.

Great breakdown of each type of entity with benefits and drawbacks of each.

Jeff V

Exercise your option and purchase the house.

You don't own it yet so you will not be able to refinance.

Jeff

I have been researching systems for a Website, CRM, Phone Numbers, Direct Mail, Automation ect to start doing some traditional and online marketing for Off Market deals and was curious how much others spend typically on systems alone for running their business.

Anyone mind sharing what their monthly averages are for the systems that they use?

Systems that I have been looking at are: LeadPropeller, Investor Carrot, REIPro, Phone.com, LiveComm, Podio, Zapier, Automate.IO, InvestorFuse.

Features between all of these systems seem to overlap in places and lack in others, but nothing has everything and the monthly costs of the base systems combos such as LeadPropeller, REIPro, Phone.com, Automate.IO seem pricy.

I have thought about going the budget route and using square space to create a basic site on my own but feel like it would ultimately lack in the back end and SEO capabilities.

If anyone has suggestions for a baseline setup that works well and doesn't break the bank, that would be great as well.

Jeff V

Sean,

Interesting that the seller is stuck on terms.  Normally it's the opposite. 

You may try to further negotiate the terms or take the existing terms then refinance them out of the deal once you have title if it's still a good deal with financing. 

Jeff V

@Carlin Randolph

I'm told you can even buy with a HELOC ...

I remember Robert Leonard saying that he uses that method to access the equity for additional funds to renovate a property.

Jeff V

@Frankie Woods

While I've never had my lines frozen per se, but they do come up for renewal every year and are inaccessible during that time.  This creates a risk of sorts where if you are in the middle of a rehab or have a deal under contract, those funds may not be available.

Best practice is to have those emergency funds in something liquid that can float you for some time until the HELOC's are available again. Then there is the, what if your situation changes and now your limit is lower all of a sudden and you are mid purchase or mid renovation. This adds another element of risk.

It's better to have an emergency fund of cash or liquid investments than to rely solely on the HELOC for your emergency/reserve funds.

Just my 2 cents.

Jeff V

@Tamara Troutt

I can see how that could get old real fast.

Why not change up your approach a bit and do some inbound marketing.  Get sellers to call you...  they may have a better attitude from the get go if they are calling you to resolve a problem...  you are the answer they are looking for.

If you have issues with that, then you could have an answering service take the initial call and fill out a questionaire and then only deal with the motivated sellers.  This should cut down on some of the irate callers.

These methods may not be a "be all end all" approach to irate callers, but it just may cut down on some of the abuse taken up front.

Just some ideas.

Jeff V

What are you guys/gals using to convert these leads?  Are they being sent to a landing page, phone number, website, autoresponder ect? 

I'm looking into REIPro as well, but from what I can tell it's all about pulling lists, sending postcards, sending offers, tracking campaigns, collecting information from sellers about properties ect but I don't see anywhere that landing pages or a website is included in the package.

So what is everyone using for that portion of the marketing...  landing pages and website ect?  Not looking to re-create the wheel here, looking for the best tool for the money.

Jeff V

@Account Closed

I saw a good YouTube video discussing this very thing.

Check out Partnership Issues - How to make a deal between unequal partners? at about the 4:10 mark he discusses sweat equity.

Great information for joint venturing.  The entire video is good for a variety of scenarios, so I would watch the whole thing for ideas.

Jeff V