All Forum Posts by: Shane Short

Good morning everyone,

I actually grew up in Michigan and still have all of my family there and visit frequently. I have to say, being back in Detroit this past summer for the first time in 7 or 8 years blew my mind. It isn't even the same place downtown anymore. However, I spent most of my time in other areas like Novi and the Thumb area most of my life, so how do you go about finding the best areas to invest? 

I would love to own a home in Detroit, even if just to sit on it and find a tenant for equity buildup, while prices appreciate. My problem is, there are still a lot of bad parts of Detroit that a lot of people wouldn't live, hence 19,000 dollar or less homes. How can I tell, from Oregon, whether or not a house is in an area worth investing, or in an area that could actually appreciate in 2 - 3 years. Do I look at Crime rates in certain areas? I feel like that would take astronomical amounts of time.

Hey everyone, my question is regarding long term house-hacking and moving away from it. I see a lot of people commenting on here that they are treating house hacking differently since instead of trying to profit it, their goal is just to have to pay a minimal amount of the mortgage, like 10% or so. This is great for a few years, but what happens long term? I see others commenting not to worry as much about the 1% rule in these situations. 

The way I look at it, no one is going to want to live in a house hacking environment for 30 years until their mortgage is up. So shouldn't you be treating a house hack exactly the same as a potential rental? Once you move out, you are going to want to be getting some cash flow off of it, or at least break even to gain some equity buildup/ HELOC advantages to use as leverage for another cash flowing property correct?

@Jerry K. Thanks so much for your detailed reply! So informative! I will definitely continue looking into this, it is extremely interesting. 

@Jessica Zolotorofe I will look at your blog for sure! I love good information. Thanks so much for your reply!

Hey everyone!

Tonight at a Seminar the speaker was James Smith, he and his family are very invested in Real Estate across the world. I don't know how much I trust him personally, but he did make some good points, one of which was using SFR as an Assisted Living Rental. I don't remember all the specifics, but he was basically using 5-10 Bedroom (Large SFR) as Assisted Living businesses.

He talked about how the average cost of assisted living is 74,000 per year for a single resident in a normal home. He was discussing how he was able to both help others and make a lot of money off of it. He would hire people he would network with from other countries that were nurses, where a 50,000 dollar salary here to bring back to their families was a multitude of money in their home country, and how the Folks living in the Assisted Living Home were much happier to be in an actual house, with a nice yard, and only a few people instead of hundreds. Then on his end, he was making astronomically more than he would off of just a normal SFR Rental for a few hundred dollar profit a month.

    I thought it was a really interesting point, and I wanted to share it with you guys and see what you think. 

Tonight I was at a Seminar, and one of the things he was discussing was investing in Billboards. He talked about how the average price to put a Billboard in the ground was approx. 66k, and that you can charge 7,500 per/ mo. per face. 7,500 x 2 = 15,000, which is a substantial amount of money, and no hassle of tenants. I'd imagine this land is hard to come by, and not necessarily the most efficient, but I just wanted to share, and see if anyone had experience in this department?

Thanks everyone for the replies! 

@Yonah Weiss I've sent Daniel a message and will be speaking with him Monday, thanks for the referral! 

@Ashley Stafford Feel free to DM me if you are currently accepting clients. I'd love to speak with you and possibly do a consultation and see what your company has to offer.

@John 

@John Warren I appreciate the advice! I'm not necessarily interested in opening a business for Agent work, but more so for the REI investing side of things.

Hey Everyone,

So I'm beginning my first stages of REI, and about halfway through my Real Estate License. I've been researching the different types of business options I have available to me in this industry and I just keep getting more confused the farther down this rabbit hole I get. I also took a major hit on my taxes last year due to my misunderstanding of different laws and stipulations, and after reading multiple books, and attending seminars, I'm beginning to realize that learning how to utilize my taxes and a business can mean MAJOR savings at the end of the year, and money back in my pocket. I'd also like to begin building my investment team and I thought, where better to start than to build a relationship with a great accountant. So... I have some questions for my fellow BP members:

1. Does my accountant need to be in my state of residence for any reason since we have an endless supply of technology at this point?

2. Depending on the answer above, does anyone have references to accountants that work with Investors and Real Estate Investors (possibly in the Portland, OR area)?

3. Am I barking up the right tree as far as looking for an Accountant? I'm looking for someone that can guide me on the correct business entity to open (LLC, C-corp, S-Corp), help with taxes, and help me save/ get money back from my taxes at the end of each year, and someone to help me understand the tax and financial perks of financial decisions.

     Forgive me if this comes off the wrong way, but I'm looking for someone that is looking to help put money in my pocket. The reason I feel the need to say this is I met this real stickler type guy that worked at H&R Block a few years ago, and when I asked about legal loopholes to saving me money, and not just giving 30% of my income to the government, he acted as if I said "I hate America, burn it to the ground". I feel like it's ridiculous for me to have to defend wanting to keep as much of my income as possible, I'm 23 and new to the investing game. The more I read about people that are financially intelligent such as Robert Kiyosaki, I find that one of the biggest things they do, is utilizing their business, and taxes. They find innovative ways to make family trips become write off's and to legally hack the system. I'm looking to learn these tricks, by no means are my intentions to do anything illegal, but I'd like to legally do as much as I can to save money.

Hello Everyone,

I have some beginner questions for my REI work.

I already have an agreement as an Independent Contractor with Century 21 once I'm finished with getting my license, aside from that I'd also like to begin to actually start investing in Real Estate myself. My goal is a Tri-plex in the next 8 months. I have 2 questions that I would really appreciate some guidance on.

1. I know there are a lot of benefits to opening a business, and that I have a 2-year window before making any actual earnings that I can still get the benefits of write-offs (vehicle, office, repairs, etc.). I'm just confused as to what the best business route is, in 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' Robert Kiyosaki preaches the benefits of having a corporation, but I guess I don't really understand the benefits of LLC, Sole, and Corp in regards to Real Estate, any guidance in laymen terms would be really appreciated.

2. While watching some really good finance seminars, one of the speakers covered using your vehicle as a write off in real estate, and how he pretty much covers his payment and insurance in just write-offs from his car. He touched on how when he takes road trips with his family he looks into some investment opportunities in the area so he can use that mileage as a write-off, and how most drives you make present the opportunity to be written off. Does anyone have any details on this, or experience with this? Any information is greatly appreciated. What other things do you as a REI, or Real Estate Agent write off on a weekly basis?

Regards,

Hey everyone!

This may be a question that has been asked many a time, but I'd like to customize it and ask it in a way that reflects my situation. So I've been interested in real estate investing for years, and I decided to take my first steps! I was hired by Century 21, and they are helping me get my REA License, then I will be working as an agent under them, and mentoring under one of their top brokers. I'm currently an Engineer by trade, working 3 nights per week, so I will use my days to work as an REA until I make the full transition. 

I know a lot of people go on about how you don't need a Real Estate License in order to invest, but I could use the extra money, and I think it would provide a good learning experience, and I wanted to... so, that's that. But I do have a few questions to ask, and I'm hoping you guys can help, those questions are:

1. As a Real Estate Agent/Broker, I obviously plan to have a Sole Proprietorship, with this SP, can I also use this SP when investing in properties in the future? Say I invest in an MFR and SFR, and whatever else, can I use my REA SP for write off's, tax purposes, etc?

2. Where is the best place for me to go to learn about the wonderful secrets of Taxes? Write-offs, knowledge to lower my taxes substantially, write-off's you don't commonly think of, things like "paying your kids 12k a year", and "using 'vacations' as 'team building' exercises for said employees, etc.

3. I always hear about corporations, Robert Kiyosaki drills corporations into your head for better tax rates, along with Warren Buffet, and multiple other articles/ books I read. Are they just referring to owning a business period for write off's, or are they referring to strictly Corporations? And if they are referring to Corporations, what are the stipulations? Why not just open a Corp instead of an SP, or LLC?

4. Where do YOU find the best leads? Cold calls? Facebook? 

So far that's the extent of my questions, if I think of more I will update this thread, any help is greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Hey Everyone! I appreciate your replies! I've been inboxing everyone so far :)