All Forum Posts by: Seolhyun Lee

@Kevin Coggins LOL!! I finally belly laughed after going through all these exhausting posts. I like black comedy.

I bought a SFH with 40k about 1 year ago which has been rented for 750/month. I am trying to get refinance on it with a bank. The loan amount will be 60k with appraised value of 80k. The monthly payment is about $300 with 4.500% rate which gives me margin of $50 to $100 per month approximately. I just found total cost to originate the loan will be about $4000 including first 4 months of insurance and taxes. Do you think it is worth to get this loan with cost of $4,000?

There is a company called Active property management. He has been managing one for me for about 9 months and so far I have no major complaints. Sometimes it takes a few hours to days to hear back from him after I left a voice mail. You can google and it will show up. He will manage a low income property for sure. Please PM me if you have questions. Thanks.

Welcome Jason, my current model is very close to your case. I have been coming to Macon REIA. It is a great place to learn and get to know people. I am hoping to develop a faster and bigger strategy some day.

I am about to buy a HUD wholesale deal in Georgia and this is my first purchase from a wholesaler. Can I put earnest money into My Attorney and choose closing attorney myself? I feel like using my attorney will be better for me. Can. I also have inspection done before I sign this contract? I believe the seller did not close it with HUD yet since they are wholesaling. Anything I need to worry about in this contract? Any input would be appreciated.

No, it was in extended period. I was putting an offer as an investor. 

I offered 50,000 to HUD through my agent for a SFH 2b/2b (listing price 62,000) where comps are around 65,000. The offer was on 10/14 and HUD kept sending us counter offer at 52,000 up until 11/07. There was no listing price change since our first offer. Our plan was to submit another offer at the same price once they reduce the listing price. Today, we found that they just accepted an 29,000 (less than 50% of listing price!) offer which was made on 10/31! What went wrong here? Is it some kind of insider deal? Did I just have to make the same offer every day or every week? P.S. My agent had been dealing with HUD for several years and was pretty confident with their formula. We knew that they changed their formula recently when our offer was declined. However, less than 50%of listing price is quite a surprise even to my agent.

Originally posted by @Colleen F.:

I will caution  you  that while paying a CPA a reasonable amount to do your taxes is worth it be careful of the tax strategy CPA.  We were really taken for a ride by one CPA who basically billed himself this way and our taxes were no better by him then then other while he cost thousands. He had us thinking we would at least make his fee back and for our wage earning and "passive" RE investments that wasn't true.  You are a wage earner at the moment and you are going to pay the rate the current administration is asking plus pay for any income you show on rentals. The key is what income you show. 

Your wife's visa may not bar her from positioning herself through training now  to have a primary real estate occupation should she ever have a working visa down the road. That would move you out of the "Passive" investor category and open more tax deductions but that would be long term planning. 

I agree. It is very difficult to know their price will be worth in my situation beforehand. I certainly do not want someone recommends unlawful strategies. I will have to go with a CPA who does not charge top price but still specialize in real estate. 

Originally posted by @Nathaniel Busch:

All in all, I think the best strategy for Lee would be to find an accountant that is specialized and knowledgeable in the Real Estate Professional designation and help get his wife to meet that criteria. It allows for his rental losses to offset his wages, there's no creation of any taxes, there's no special tax returns that need prepared to do it, and he keeps his bill to his CPA and IRS at an absolute minimum while adhering to tax laws. 

That was exactly what I wanted to do; make smart investment with 1/3 of my hard work using real estate investment as the tool. The dilemma is that I am not sure if my wife is allowed to be a Real Estate Professional under the immigration law. Maybe I should find an immigration law attorney? :) 

I am in a situation that traditional tax benefit of real estate investment is not applicable.

My wife and I want to buy a primary residence and rental properties within next 3 months and hoping to make this investment beneficial for my tax return as well. I have an earned income job which is at 33% tax bracket when married filing jointly and my wife cannot be a real estate investor since she is on H4 Visa status which dose not allow any income generating activity.

I have a strong passion in real estate. Gas and oil or agricultural investment might give me tax benefit but it looks risky. After speaking to CPAs who are very knowledgeable in real estate investment, only answer I now have is to maximize my 401K.