All Forum Posts by: Lynn Y.

Success of rental property investment is all about knowing the area well, so you can best predict what is a good deal, the future market trend in that particular area, and what type of potential tenant you will get down the road.  Even for surrounding areas we lived for years, sometime takes a lot of time to investigate/drive by / read the news to get a real feel about the area.

It is also about maintain a healthy margin.  Out of area you will for sure facing higher operation cost by hiring someone to manage and rely on him to find contractors to maintain/repair.

In some states (e.g., FL), if you don't reside in the state, you pay a higher property tax!

I agree with the couple posts above that probably a lower risk for someone new is to look around your surrounding areas for your first investment.  NYC was/is/always be the price for real estate. You will have the first hand experience with all the up/downs as landlord/investor.

Best of luck. 

It seems some company will do umbrella for properties under LLC only all polices are writen in commercial form; some dose not require commercial form but will need your personal auto.

Hi, All, Again thanks for all the support. I kept my LLCs, and found an umbrella to cover properties under LLC of different structures. That seems work out for me and I felt much better protected. Also good advice, to be diligent as a landlord.

Thanks, Jonathan, I will keep this in mind and contact you when I need names for help. 

Thanks.

Thank you both very much, Marcia and Les. I tried multiple times with different insurance agents, but I could not get an umbrella policy for rental properties arranged under one LLC. And insurance policy for each property carries a max half millon liability.

I will feel much better if I could get an umbrella policy.  Will try to look around again.

Many thanks again.  This is very helpful.   

My question is about how to best organize many rental properties to provide best shield towards potential law suite.

From this forum, I read about multiple properties (mortgage free) under one LLC; or one LLC for each properties, which leads to multiple banking accounts/contracts/filing to manage.

Another thought from this forum is having a separate entity to "hold note" of the properties under 1st LLC, so that the 1st LLC only appear to have very little equity when a law suite arise.

Does this separate entity have to be a trust? Can I form a LLC (me as single member) to hold notes of property of another LLC (me as single member). Does that better protect me from potential law suite.

Is it a valid scenario that I have one master LLC holding notes again all other llcs (each has one or two rentals), but I make the management a little easier by using one master LLC bank account to do the common expense. If I lost in court and exceeded insurance coverage, does this scenario better protect me that I only lose maximum (say 5% of the property value) of the 1st LLC (as rest are holding by a master LLC?)

I hope I asked my question clearly.  All rentals except two are in connecticut.  I guess state can be different.

Thank you for any comments you can share.