All Forum Posts by: Pedro Machin

Hi @Antonio Coleman ,

Very valid point. How do you consider would be a good way to make the mailing educational? Pointing some facts about their local market perhaps? I was thinking a way to collect emails would be to direct them to downloadable materials. Would be interested in your thoughts.

Also @Jeremy T. , I do also add a discount incentive to get money back at closing if they don't find the custom home search valuable. Has anyone found a good return using such incentives or do they sound too sales-sy?

@Frank R. Thanks for the reply.

I guess I didn't assign importance to equity since they could always short sale the property with me even if they don't have equity, although I agree I probably should filter for this to make my life easier. Short of going through public mortgage records individually is there any site that provides this information for free or is listsource and the like the only option?

Hi all,

I just sent out a postcard campaign marketing my Realtor services to over 500 people. Even though some people claim the average home owner relocation time-frame is around 5-7 years, I ran into the following study suggesting to me not to look at average time to move-out but years where you have the highest move out rates (which seems to be between years 2-5): NAHB Study

Even though I had a strong incentive (a credit at closing) and pointed to my lead-generation web page for buyers/sellers to get an accurate home estimate of their home, I have not received a single response from the mailing. Granted I realize you're supposed to send out 5-7 mailings before you see a significant response, but with zero responses there has to be something I can improve upon. Has anyone tried this relocation range. Any other filters that I should apply for a Realtor campaign other than relocation dates, price, and area?

Thanks in advance

Hi Joe,

Find what all yearly costs work out monthly and then add about 25% of the rent for monthly repairs  and another 10-20% for move out costs and capital expenses. With young professionals/ high quality tenants the move out costs are going to be lower since many times they will leave a place almost move-in ready, otherwise you might need to go higher in the range.

Henry, the best way I have found after speaking with a contact in the city is to have a separate signed authorization document that the tenant can take to the city to turn on their water, garbage, and sewer. The electric company in my state (FL) does not require any documentation. Like others have said, make sure they get receipts/confirmation or call to confirm. This is the only way I known how to get everything turned on in their name before lease signing. (I used to have, tenant must turn on utilities within 7 days, but the only way that may be enforced if they don't perform is through an eviction).

As a follow up to that, what length and terms of mortgage do you guys use to gauge properties to "cash flow". 15, 30 years? Though 30 is the standard bank mortgage almost anything would cash flow at that length.

Though forcing short terms negative cash flow seems misguided, it seems to me like a level-minded long term strategy if you have enough capital to buffer your monthly losses. Please chime in if there's an angle I'm missing.

Take my case:

I have a 135K loan at 6% with a private investor. Assuming 50% losses, I stand to make $1525 a month net.

Comparing the cumulative cash flow of 5, 10, 15, and 20 amortizations, if you hold the property more than 8.5 years, the total cashflow will be more in the 5 year amortization than all other cases (at 10 year amortization, property nets approx zero). If you add equity to cashflow, the 5 year plan is superior any time.

Doing a Net Present Value (NPV) calculation makes all income streams a wash at around 7% return, however rents would be scheduled to increase accordingly. (Though I guess I would have to take inflation into account)

Any thoughts?

@Chris Martin Thanks Chris! I also have started using the business deposit card for tenants that didn't use the WF SurePay (Wells Fargo Direct Deposit) service. Great idea to avoid the "bank is closed" excuse. Is quickbooks automatically matching the card number to the appropriate class or are you doing that manually? How do you do it if automatic?

Hi all,

I have all my tenants direct deposit their rents at different times each month. Monthly I just download the transactions from the bank and assign each rent to the appropriate account.

It doesn't seem worthwhile in my situation to create Invoices and go through the whole manual process of getting payments into Undeposited Accounts and then doing a Banking->Make Deposits payment.

Is there a simpler way to use Invoicing or should I just stick to classifying the transactions from the bank statement?

Thanks!

@David Beard @Wayne Brooks I got that idea from an investor friend of mine that apparently was confused. Thanks for the clarification.

Interesting point about the holding LLC being in a more amenable state. Other than that, the only other benefit I found for having a holding company would be tax benefits, but that really doesn't apply to holding LLCs since they are not taxable entities. Are there any other benefits I'm not seeing?

@Jonathan Wilks I've looked up the business trust instrument, but from what I've read it seems like only very specific businesses, like those running mutual funds really need that structure and using it when not necessary just garnishes attention. Please correct me if I'm wrong as I have not done much research on the topic.