All Forum Posts by: Matthew Rogers

Like everyone else has stated it may happen but there is no point in dwelling on it and playing a victim card. Taking that route won't do anything but hold you back from achieving your dreams. Keep your head held high and work harder than the next guy.

Just to go one step further; i'd suggest you check with your current insurance provider to see if they offer an umbrella policy that you can bundle. Since you're a current customer and have other insurance products with them they will most likely give you a discount. 

I've also heard of situations where the insurance company requires you to have your other policies with them before they will even offer an umbrella policy. 

Also, you'll want to compare the cost of the umbrella policy against raising your personal/medical liability on your auto insurance. It may be in your best interest to keep lower maximums on your auto and increase your umbrella because it's more cost effective. 

Lastly, shop and compare at lease three companies or speak with a broker. Best of luck.

@Steve Rozenberg If you could give us a description of what your situation is/was that would help with context.

@Anthony To I'm from Arizona and worked for a few years at Wells Fargo as a loan officer. Most small credit unions and large regional banks should be able to underwrite a loan for 50k without any issues. Like most other's indicated you'll want/need to put down 20% on a SFH and 25% on a Multi-family.

Some lenders or loan officers will flat out lie to you and say they can't do a loan under 100k or 50k or whatever number they decide to tell you. This is for a couple reasons, the first being they simply make a lot less commission on a home that's 50k compared to a home that's 250k or 500k and they both require the same effort. The second reason is because what happens sometimes is they will get half way through the loan and closing cost will come back higher than anticipated and now the loan is dead. But you as the buyer have already paid for an appraisal and credit report that are non refundable. Not the ideal situation to put yourself in if your a loan officer. 

In Arizona and most states in the US their is a maximum closing cost percentage of the loan amount. So let's say your buying a home for 50k and the maximum closing cost percentage is 7% of the loan amount. That would equal $3,500. So if all of your closing cost combined are greater than $3,500 the lender can NOT legally underwrite the loan. After you pay $650 for an appraisal, $1,000 for property taxes, $1,000 for origination, $650 for title and so on it's very easy to get close or pass that magic number. I don't recall what the maximum is off the top of my head so 7% is just an example. But I hope that sheds some light on to why and how the bank actually looks at the loan. One other thing is often times the lender will make you pay points for a lower rate because the loan is so small and this is one more thing that can contribute to closing cost being inflated.

Most of AZ loans around $50k will go through but as you look back east because of property taxes it is more challenging to make them happen. Good luck and let me know if you need any help with running the numbers.

@Jacob Real if you're looking to get licensed; as Bob referenced above you'll want to sign up through the Arizona School of Real Estate and business. Here

Your all in cost will be just shy of $600 for all classes, fingerprint card & state test. You can complete in about two weeks at ten hours per day.

@Aria Jackson Since you have property management experience it sounds like you're planning to manage everything yourself. In that situation if you're goal is to build a large multi-family portfolio you may want to expand your market to the east valley. Mesa, in my opinion would be the place to look if you're okay with managing yourself. You'll find higher cap rates at lower prices than Scottsdale and better tenants than Phoenix! So you can have you cake and eat it too..

@Michael M. When I send mailers for my business I use a normal 8.5x11 sheet of paper folded into a Z. In addition to this, I always place a business card in the middle of the folded paper. So now when they pull out the page my card falls to the ground. My thinking is they will throw away the flyer 99 out of a 100 times but may keep the card as it's smaller and still has all my contact information. I buy 5-10k business cards at a time and the cost is less than 1 cent each. 

If you want to get serious about it, call enough wholesalers until you get one to say yes!

If they don't have an online site you can simple go down to the building and zoning department with the address and request all permits/work authorized. It's a great thing you're thinking this way because it could save you're butt down the road!

I'd recommend finding a property first and then speaking with a CPA. Until you know the property and financing structure it's a question that can't be answered. If you're doing traditional financing through a lender you will NOT be able to hold the deed in a LLC so it there would be no benefit. It would just complicate things and offer no risk protection which is an LLC's primary function.