All Forum Posts by: Paul Winka

I am selling a SFH on 15% down land contract carried for 2.5 years with a starting balance of ~$34K, 15-year amortization with balloon. This is my first land contract. I'll have an attorney guide me through the first time. One thing that the buyer and I didn't touch on: What interest rate? Oops!!

What’s a fair and reasonable interest rate for those terms? The house will be owner-occupied initially, if that changes anything. I know the answer is “whatever you can agree to” but I was hoping to get a range. As of now it’s assumed to be 0% since it was never discussed in our face to face meeting. Or is it normally 0%?

Dan, thanks... My question was more about the WHAT than the HOW, but you answered both questions. :)

Other than index funds, I see REITS and crowdfunding as other avenues. Have you personally tried either, and have a preference to which and what company you used for that?

And just a one-off question for you, but do you see owning property, whether financed or not, as more trouble than it is worth inside of a SD-IRA? Loss of depreciation benefits and fatter CPA bill come to mind...

I have around $20K of lazy cash in my SD-IRA (this is with iPlan Group) that's come from some hard money loan payments that I have received. I want to put it to work, but not doing more notes.

These crowdfunding platforms like FundRise, PatchofLand, etc, are marketed thoroughly on the BP podcast, and the marketing worked on me because that was at the top of my mind as to where to put the money.

So I've called up Fundrise and RealtyMogul a few times talking to different reps that gave me different information about whether I could invest with them with my SD-IRA. I am sure it is possible but the path ahead to get the funds to them isn't obvious and they really weren't much help. I may have to go the route of creating the SD-IRA LLC to enable checkbook capability to make that possible. I am not sure it is worth the trouble or cost yet. So I am checking other options, perhaps there is a go-to option for idle money for SD-IRAs I can learn about from this post.

Most of what I have found regarding SD-IRAs here has mostly to do with their rules, like disqualified persons, UBIT, etc. But not the actual investment options. There were a few mentions in this article, but I don't see those as being quick deploy, straightforward options (like LLC or business equity), especially for a smaller sum of money.

I've read a bit about REITs being better than crowdfunding in that the former has better liquidity with the same amount of risk.

Another consideration is to put the money back at Vanguard into the 500 index. I haven't yet checked into the red tape of doing that.

Any recommendations? Am I headed down the right path? 

Jon, why do you think your clients don't ask about insurance? Ignorance, or they don't know what to ask for or how to evaluate it, fear of looking foolish? 

Sounds like a no then, I am just a small timer.

I'll keep track of the interest for my own sake but just rely on the borrower to calculate his own interest then. But this all came about getting 2016's taxes ready. One borrower asked me for a 1098 for his tax prep. It's not my worry, but what "proof" would the borrower have of what interest he paid if the IRS came asking? To him, it's a legitimate tax deduction for his home flipping business that for me is just a way to grow my SD-IRA.

Michael, just curious why you mentioned $15/hr, $20/hr in your post. For whatever the odd job I'd need done would be, isn't is easier and wiser to ask for a fixed price to do the job? Seems like a lot of BS would be avoided that way. Like the vegetation removal job I had done by CL guys this week, I put up a YouTube video of the job in the ad. I got at least 30 text and calls on it. Prices ranged from $50 to $1200.

I am just guessing what you meant by the hourly rate is that it is a way to reverse-engineer the basis for what it might cost to do something, so a 5-hour vegetation removal job for 2 guys would be 5 x $20 X 2 = $200. Oddly enough, that's what I paid for two guys to do the job and it took them 5 hours. LOL

I have a remote property handled by a property manager, rented by Section 8 tenant. Rent is $973, and section 8 pays $936 of that, the tenant paying $37. 

Assuming they are otherwise a decent tenant and not tearing up the place and are staying long-term, and considering re-renting costs, vacancies, unknown nature of the next section 8 tenant, etc, do many of you hands-on Section 8 landlords with tenants having rent 95% paid just opt to do nothing and let it ride?

 The meter for one property in particular is in the basement in open sight. I could see some tenants that are more handy than wise try to bypass the meter. Have you seen this happen? How does the water company keep this from happening?

Today I learned that the water shutoff valve at the street is done with a simple tool such as this one:
Water key with t-style handle link.

I always thought that the homeowner either turned it off in the basement or the water company would have to come out to shut it off at the street.

Is shut-off valve standardized (like 110V wall outlets) and the case with 99% of the shut off valves in the rest of the country?