All Forum Posts by: Becky Watkins

My husband is concerned that people, when receiving letters from us (say, for example, preforeclosure letters) that they would be suspicious and google the address, and that they won't take us as seriously if they can't find it/see a UPS store instead of an actual office building. Is this something they do? I might, but I'm not buying houses from myself.

Also, may I ask where you got your PMB from? We've been calling around and can't find anything less than $30 (they are requiring that businesses have bigger boxes and won't offer the personal rates).

Hi all,
This might be location specific, so I understand I may get a low response on this.

I'm a little confused about business licenses. Is real estate investment considered a home occupation? What if it's an LLC with a private mail box as its address? As you know, the business would be conducted at my home and various houses and offices all over southern California. It's not so simple as for someone with a home bookkeeping service or handmade jewelry online shop, is it?

We're trying to figure out where to get a private mail box, and if it matters. We're on the border of the county lines, and the three different UPS stores are in three different cities. That's just by our house. There are other cities we're in every week so the location is really open and we want to find the one that's in the city with the lowest taxes. Unless, of course, it's based on where we live.

Thanks for any help. You guys are always the best. I can't want until I have more experience so I can pass the favor on!

We are forming it in California.

Our CPA advised us to form a single-member LLC. She said we could do an s-corp election later as our needs change/income increases.

Since you are in OC, do you know if there are any local taxes or other factors that should influence what city/county we use as our address? I figure most taxes are based on where the transaction took place, and the only thing would be the business license. We are still analyzing neighborhoods, and will be buying houses wherever we find deals, which could be LA, OC, or the IE.

Yeah, I thought you were saying you couldn't pay someone to do it. Or do those services count as real people? My question was how to get an LLC address. I want to know if the LLC address could be the agent's address, not vice versa. $80-100/mo is a lot of money to pay for an address. If we can't use the agent's address as the LLC's address, does the government accept a PO Box? I know they don't for voter registration, and was wondering if it's the same guidelines for LLC formation.

Also, we're going to be doing wholesaling, so there's not going to be any property management companies involved.

Why would there be professional services to act as agent for service of process if it has to be a person? Are these places scams? Sorry I'm new to all this. I'm sure the job is easy, but my in-law's take a while to give us stuff, they work, and they are two counties away. I wouldn't know how to go about asking a friend, and I wouldn't want to get other people involved if something did happen. I wouldn't want them to get harassed.

How would you suggest I double-check? It was my CPA that suggested to get an address service. Navigating the Secretary of State's and other government websites are confusing.

So can the agent's address be the LLC's address?

Right now I did more googling and found that UPS stores offer PO Box with a regular address. That sounds a lot better than a virtual office, at least at this point. My husband thinks the virtual office is a good idea if someone googles the address (they'll see an actual office building) or try to go there (there is a receptionist that will tell visitors we're not in) but I don't think any of that will really happen.

We're working on setting up our LLC and need an address and agent for service of process.

Our CPA suggested we looked into virtual offices. We did and they are about $80-100 a month. That seems like a lot just to protect our privacy (although that's pretty important). What do you guys do?

Also, our CPA suggested we use a friend or family member or professional service for the agent for service of process. I hadn't thought of using a friend before. My husband suggests we use his parents, but I'm not so sure that's a good idea. I was reading all these requirements of a service agent, and don't trust it's a good idea to go with anyone besides a professional.

We are still looking for an attorney, so we'll ask those we interview about this, but in your experience, do many attorneys offer this? I've read that most don't want to, but to me, it makes sense for the attorney to be the service agent.

Let me know your thoughts and thanks for any help!

Thanks. We have the word we want to use, just trying to find the right suffix. I like real estate solutions, but I would prefer 2-3 words. We think we're going with House Buyers. House is more a of general term in everyday language. In casual conversation, I often call our apartment a "house" out of ease. House Buyers is completely different from our first ideas of Real Estate Solutions and Property Solutions, but I like Rob's idea of being direct. The life of a motivated seller is complicated enough, so a simple name probably works best.

So we like home buyers, but then my husband brought up the good point that home is more of an emotional term, which can be good, but in this case, it's like rubbing it in that they're losing it. But house doesn't have a good a ring to it, and we want to deal in mobile homes too, which aren't houses.

Maybe I'm overthinking things.

So how would the name Home Buyers appeal to those who are buying homes themselves? Rehabbers would understand, being investors themselves, but what about potential lease-option residents and the like?

Also, I have "solutions" in my slogan, and keep coming back to the idea of using it in my name. The redundancy bothers me, but sometimes repetition is a good thing. Solutions is a word that catches the attention of a person with problems. Ideas?