All Forum Posts by: Sam Alomari

Hi @David Goossens

I suggest that you send a notice before entry. Just to be legally protected in case someone was there.

You are not even sure that the person who texted you is the same tenant.

Hi @Drew Kimminau

I looked at Kansas city real estate rental market 2 years ago and it was pretty promising and properties are appreciating well. I ended up investing in Indianapolis IN because it's better cash flow.

The only reason I'm commenting on your post is that I want to clarify that A class neighborhoods generally attract A class tenant but A class tenants are pain in the butt!! They are very picky and tend to complain more than C/B tenants.

I invest for cash flow so my bread and better is C class. I love it! Remember that if there is a market crash coming soon, A properties will be the most affected because A tenants are high paid employees so they will be the first to get laid off!

Even during the worst crash, you will always need a postman, a Walmart cashier, a barber, etc. Those hard working people have stable jobs so they are likely to maintain their income during bad economics. 

Hi @Kelli Thomas

Why do you need the money for? Do you want to pull your equity to invest in rentals? or flips?

You said you need the cash you have to live off of, so you have no capital to invest in flips. Also I don't recommend that you invest that money anyway because there is always a risk. Remember this time of the year is good for acquiring real estate but you don't have a close exist before spring. My point is, I don't want to see you investing all your money and not to be able to pay your bills again. You had a bankruptcy already so you should avoid stressing your financial situation anymore.

The good news is that you still can invest in real estate. Not your money, but your time and hard work. In your situation, you need cash and a lot of cash, so you should focus on wholesaling. 

Invest your time and find great discounted deals and wholesale them for a quick profit. It won't cost you much and you have a shorter exist and a quick cash to establish yourself again.

Good luck

Hi @Gregory Keleshian PM me for contacts. I have the right team for you. I live in Virginia and invest in Indianapolis. It's been a blast!

Thanks for sharing @Lily R. I don't understand how the tenant didn't notice that the structure is not sound? Also the picture of the article shows bunch of people celebrating on a deck, if the tenant has a similar party, at least he/she should make sure everyone is safe!

Unfortunately it always burns the landlord, that's why you should have semi-annual inspections. I'm pretty sure the landlord insurance wouldn't pay because they always try to play that card (landlord was negligent).

I have replaced my deck for my own residence 2 weeks ago, It was in a bad shape but the structure is solid. I didn't even allow anyone to hangout there because I was worried about safety, now I can host a crazy party as soon as spring comes :)

Hi @Lauren Gilliard

Yes I prefer a new LLC. Some people do a separate LLC per property for maximum protection. In my opinion, it's not bad if you don't mind the added headache.

Few other options are a Trust, LLP, LLC owned by your LLC and your Partner's LLC.

I strongly recommend that you consult with a lawyer. Many smart lawyers out there can help you protect your investment and pick the right entity.

Hi @Chris Watson

Welcome to BP! You are in the right place to learn and connect with real estate investors.

To accelerate your success, I strongly recommend that you find a mentor. Just fine ONE mentor and learn everything you can from him/her, then you can graduate and move to other mentors. Don't be all over the internet and learning everything possible, just focus on ONE THING, learn it and do it, then you can move to the next one. It is important that you experience different strategies and actually apply them until you are comfortable with various strategies, then you can pick your own that works with you,

I also recommend that you set specific small achievable goals. I know that some folks try to plan everything for 10-20 years but then you will get overwhelmed especially that it's not easy and it's a slow process. Real estate is great but very slow wealth building vehicle!

The easiest way to figure out your goal is to figure out how much income you need every month to comfortably quite your trucking business? Once you have that number, it will be your goal.

BP, Books, Podcasts, Articles, Meetups, etc. are all good and free learning tools, don't skip any of these great tools. Read read read and take action! Many people get excited about real estate but they get stuck in the learning process or the analysis paralysis phase that many newbies experience. Run your deals and numbers by an experienced investor or here at the forum, and if you have a good deal, take action and don't overthink it.

I guarantee you that you will make bad decisions sometimes, but that how you learn and grow. It's a business, and every business has some risk and headache.

I wish you all the best. 

Hi @Ernesto Ortega

There is no good reason in my opinion not to leverage technology to your advantage if you can. I wish I can train my tenants to pay me electronically. It takes 4-5 days to receive their check in the main and I have to deposit it in the ATM. At least I will start using my bank mobile app to snap the check instead of going to the ATM.

I tried with my tenants but you can't get all of them on board. Some of them are not technology friendly and even hate emails!

At the end of the day, if it helps you and make your life easier, do it!

@Daniel Kent just google "Pay your mortgage in 7 years" and read about the strategy. If you decide to go that route, my financial adviser can help you to implement it and actually pay off your mortgage as well as any other debt quickly. PM for more details if you like what you read about it.

The trick with the lease option "unfortunately" is that statistics shows that 85% of the tenants don't buy the property when the option expires. That works to your advantage.  Tenant buyers usually maintain your property better than renters. They believe it's their home so they will keep up the property.

I know investors that made a fortune using the lease option strategy, and they kept most of their properties after years of pure positive cash flow.

You can also invest your equity and buy other properties. You have $110k equity, so you can pull 80%-90% of your equity and if you don't mind remote investing, you can buy 2 solid rentals in the mid west that cashflow 10%+. Use that passive income to payoff your heloc and your mortgage. That actually works well with using your heloc to payoff your mortgage principal quickly. 

I am doing this exact strategy now. I have around $140k equity in my house which was appraised for $505k last year. I pulled the equity as a heloc, and I invested the money in Indianapolis, IN. If I can do it, indeed you can. If you decide to consider this approach, make sure you get interest only heloc.

I learned that you can use higher interest debt to payoff lower interest debt such as a mortgage and save tens of thousands. I paid mentors and advisers to get that kind of knowledge and to help me through the process. This probably doesn't sound right, but it's the real deal and I'm experiencing great results.

Hi @Daniel Kent

My rule of thumb is "Never fall in love with the property". You probably kept the property and decided to rent it out because you fell in love with it. Of course, it's your home and you have good memories right?

You will be surprised by the number of options you have to concert a bad deal to a good deal. You probably can't make it a great deal but good is good enough :)

When you refinance from a longer term to a shorter term usually you build up equity much faster. How much equity you have? It plays an important role to what's your next step.

If you have a decent equity, you can get a heloc and use it to payoff your mortgage in as short as 5 years. With $1,200 negative cash flow, that's probably not the best you can do.

I always find that you can easily get out of that situation when you sell with "rent to own", "subject to" or "seller financing". The point is that your negative cash flow comes from maintenance, insurance, taxes, vacancy, CapEx, and management. If you sell with the mentioned strategies, your tenant buyer takes care of all expenses and your mortgage will be paid off on time.

My preferred method in this situation is to offer seller financing structured as a long-term lease option if this strategy works well in your state (your state is landlord friendly). if the tenant buyer stops paying, you don't need to foreclose on the property. You can simply file eviction and you get your property back.

I hope that helps.