All Forum Posts by: Peter B.

Welcome Peter, 

What area do you primarily invest in?

Bonnie

hi Peter

welcome to BP ;)

fellow investor/Realtor in Pittsburgh ;)

good luck!

Hi Peter,

Best of luck to you, hope the investing goes well.

-Devin

Hi Pete, Welcome to Bigger Pockets. Pittsburgh is a great market to invest in. As a Realtor serving the Pittsburgh region, I am currently working with investors both local and remote. I have also lived in all four quadrants of the city and am familiar with most neighborhoods. If you would like to talk further about your specific interests, I am here for you. You can find my contact information in my profile. Look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks, 

Gary

Hey @Peter B. - welcome to BP!

This is definitely a great start - I have a few properties but still feel "new" to the real estate investing world as well. When I started out, I literally downloaded every single BP podcast and worked my way through the list. The Ultimate Beginner's guide is also a great free resource. You just gotta start reading as much as you can. If you see a term you don't know, just google it. Eventually your vocabulary will grow and it will be easier and easier to consume more information and increase the pace of your learning.

Another good book is Brandon's "7 years to 7 figure wealth" that you can download for free from his old site www.realestateinyourtwenties.com. The book inspired me to start working on a real estate investing website / application, and I was wondering if you would be interested in being a beta tester? The site helps both new and experienced investors create an investing "roadmap," by creating different property portfolios and tracking the progress of each scenario as you purchase/sell properties, collect rental cash and pay off debt etc..

If you're interested in being a beta tester, just let me know with a reply and we will go from there - I would be so grateful to have you on the team and hear your feedback.

Thank you,

James

Hey Pete! Welcome to BP. Definitely check out their podcasts as much as you can. There was even a recent one with a Pittsburgh investor! If you need assistance buying or selling, I'm a Realtor in Pittsburgh and I'd be happy to help you. Go get 'em!

Matt

If your current primary has a lot of equity, you will lose your tax-free gain status by putting it into an entity.

To save the tax-free gain, sell within 36 months of renting.  Do you have a lot of equity in the house @Peter B.?  Occupy longer than 24 months?  Taxes are our largest lifetime expense.  Something to consider!

I didn't form an LLC until I got several properties and had another investor that wanted to partner. Just had adequate insurance prior to that. That said, a good attorney and CPA will make your life a lot easier from the start. And yes I refinanced my properties and moved them to my LLC. Setting up the LLC was done online in about 20 minutes online, but I have other businesses and was familiar with the process.

If you decide to rent and try to place that existing property into an LLC you may run afoul of your mortgage terms and they can call the loan. I would start by reading the mortgage you signed. That will tell you what you can legally do without violating the loan terms. That is not to say people do not do it, just be aware of the risks.

Pete,

Set up an LLC for your next investment and purchase your next deal in the name of that entity (you can do this easily on line but you may want to pay a lawyer (in pittsburgh Max Bier or Phil Scoleri) to do it for you.

On your current property- do not transfer it into the LLC and the mortgage is fine in your name. Unless you are seriously concern about the liability of the property being in your name, which in my opinion is probably not that great of a concern if ...
1) you are properly insured
2) you run a tight ship
3) do you really have that much to take? If "it" does hit the fan then you are better off (see insurance tip below).

It will cost you a lot to transfer the property and then refinance into the entity name . Instead, take that money you would have spent , or actually a small portion of the saved money, and if your worried about liability get another insurance policy to cover the unknown "an umbrella policy" in addition to you property policy.

That way you will have millions of dollars of insurance back up if something would happen which I think is most of the times better than having just the "corporate protection" alone.

In the future do both. LLC + good insurance + being a good(good does not mean be a push over but take care of you property and be responsive to tenants) landlord = limited issues