All Forum Posts by: Raquel D.

Thinking from a renter's perspective, I would be fairly annoyed about not having blinds.  As for curtains, I would think it's kind of gross to be in a rental with curtains.  It's like hotel curtains -- who knows what's on those things, in addition to months/years of dirt and dust.  

If it's a lower income area, it may be a strain for the tenants to buy blinds. If it's a rental in a more affluent neighborhood, it would probably be odd to rent a nice place and miss something like that.  Every rental I've lived in always had those cheesy metal blinds that get crinkled after awhile.  Not what I have in my own home currently, but they were better than nothing at the time.

Cody L. Whether it's safer or not would be an interesting philosophical question to discuss -- but does it really matter? I'm sure people could wax intellectual about that topic all day long, but unless the context is about lobbying local government to change permit requirements, it's not a very fruitful use of time. What's the maximum way to achieve financial profit in your real estate investments? By maximizing profits and reducing expenses -- which includes mitigating risk to avoid paying fines, damages etc. That's the question an investor should be focusing on to grow their business and profits.

Hi! I'm not a lawyer but it sounds like you are smartly planning on going to one for estate planning and tax advice. As many others have pointed out, a Will does specify how assets will be administered on death, but it usually requires a court proceeding (called a probate) in order for someone to have authority to transfer title to assets to your beneficiaries. The probate is also time consuming and costly. By creating a living trust, you can avoid a probate generally. You'll have a Will as well, but it will "pour over" assets into your Trust (in case you forget to put something in Trust). I'm sure your estate planning attorney will go over this in great deal. It is very important to make sure all your assets get titled in the name of your Trust. The power of attorney for finance would ONLY be valid while you're still alive. You can make it effective immediately (so someone could be POA right now) or make it effective only on your incapacity -- that's called a springing power of attorney. Once you die, the power of attorney is invalid. (Someone also mentioned a power of attorney for health care in here -- also known as an advance health care directive or living will. That's so you can nominate someone to make medical decisions for you if you're incapable of doing so.) Also for the LLC discussion -- if you put property in an LLC, then as long as the member of the LLC is your trust, when you die the LLC interest (and real property owned by the LLC) will pass to whoever you name as beneficiary(s) under your trust. Hope that helps!

Hey, this isn't really about real estate but more about personal wellbeing... You mentioned that SD is the one place that you're happy. As a person who's lived in the Midwest, the deep south and CA, my opinion is that everywhere has stuff you love and stuff you'll hate. The grass is always greener on the other side, and I can list as many positive as negative things about anywhere I've lived. Whether or not you're happy really depends on where you are mentally and not where you are physically though. Barring some kind of real locational barrier -- like you live in a place with a really negative overall mindset or there's no economical opportunity or something -- moving just to be HAPPY isn't a great reason to move. I'm not saying don't do it at all. But if you're really hellbent on being there, think about what will make you intrinsically happy about the relocation, not anticipate that the relocation will make you happy just by virtue of being there. Best of luck!!

This is way beyond the point of needing legal input -- I hope you get an attorney involved soon.

I agree about Rod Khleif's book -- his podcast is great too. It's targeted at newer investors. Regarding software, I don't think syndication software is going to be helpful unless you're actually thinking of doing that. You might want to get a better understanding of how to figure out if a deal meets your goals so you can at least do more basic calculations. Paula Pant's Afford Anything blog has a lot of great posts about buying/renovating/income from her rental properties. Just scroll down and look for anything regarding real estate or renovations. Her explanation of calculations is super easy to follow, too. There are a lot of good posts here in which people analyze deals too -- maybe by reviewing that you'll get an idea of what people are looking for. I'm not saying software is a bad idea -- it's just that if you don't understand how the calculation is done, you're not going to have any sense of when something is wrong or is the formula you're told to use to figure out something is /really/ what you need.

I'm not a lawyer. A lawyer might be able to define the definition of fraud though. sounds like you might know most mortgages have a due on sales clause that get triggered when a property is transferred into an LLC.

Definitely talk to any attorney for legal advice. Not advice but it really depends. Some people form LLCs in different states depending on what protections they need, but that may require registering as a foreign entity in the state where the property is. It depends on state requirements. (Like I've heard of people getting NV and DE LLCs to own their CA real properties, but then the LLC still needs to register with the CA Secretary of State as a foreign entity.)

Change strategies, look at different markets, but don't give up. It doesn't matter how many times it doesn't work as long as it DOES work in the end.

This is really insightful, thanks for sharing. How would you factor in a new investor with an existing mortgage? What is the investor has a mortgage and is also using HELOC funds to make the down payment on the investment property? (Assuming everything else is good -- good credit, no other debt/liens, w2 income...)