All Forum Posts by: Steve Osowicz

@Sara Peak I took both my sales associate and brokers test with Todd Thornton (online), you can get through relatively quickly, but there is a benefit to being in a classroom setting. Of course there are fees and continuing ed each year and a more recent requirement of additionally classes (I'm grandfathered in as exempt). Find a broker to affiliate with, should be pretty easy, but ask about "desk fees" commission splits, how they handle deals you do for yourself, etc. what they provide. Good Luck!

@Cassidy Burns funny you should mention that, I own an S-Corp of which I am the sole employee and pay myself a salary. Please note *** I will mention I am not an attorney nor a tax professional so I am not giving you advice. *** So you should talk to a tax professional, but I take my salary and I take an owner distribution as the S-Corp is profitable and I am a shareholder. I can write off my employee (me) expenses. So, my wages are taxed by social sec etc., but my distributions as a shareholder are not. 

Also, I have checks (like commission) made out to the S-Corp

@Craig D.  what @Michael Seeker said is good, those are two larger title companies, the only issue that I have found is cost, some title companies are wildly different in pricing their work. If you get some deals done, a smaller company/attorney may cut you a deal if you keep bringing them work. 

@Marcello Di Gerlando this one is best left to your attorney, but I can't imagine Colorado would allow a unlicensed or even licensed homeowner to work on a gas line and not have it inspected after. Likely he would have had to pull a permit also, which you may be able to check on. 

@Juan Rodriguez so you are thinking about buying an empty building and hoping someone else wants it? That might be more of a long term investment, are you going to remodel it? You should take into account the expenses that go along with it, taxes, insurance, are you going to keep the utilities on you will need heat if you don't want pipes to freeze or you will need to winterize the property, if you are financing you will have those costs. Are you prepared to hold it for 6 months, a year, longer without it generating any revenue? That being said, I have done exactly that with a commercial property, held it (though some work was done to it) and waited for a buyer. Good Luck!

@Michael Jenkins as long as the area is not saturated, great investment in my opinion, high up front cost, but great. Just like owning a bunch of little rentals without plumbing, wear and tear of tenants. My understanding is climate controlled storage units are very favorable now, especially if you can find an empty building and put the units inside, use the old parking lot to build more outside storage units. Almost everything can be done now using automated systems. Steel is quite high so you should try to get some good prices, companies run specials from time to time, good luck!

@Lauryn Meadows I just had a portfolio that wouldn't sell (11 properties multi and sfr's) on its own so it is headed to auction (next month actually) the numbers look good on it too, but with the condition and area it is a tough sale. I haven't dealt with Section 8 in a while I think they do an annual certification so I assume the properties are habitable but I'm guessing they are filled with a lot of deferred maintenance, and unless I am mistaken they are on one year leases per Section 8. Dealing with those properties is a pretty big challenge if you haven't already dealt with tenants, if you buy expect a deluge of calls when they find out the properties are under new ownership with all the issues that the previous owner did not take care of (which may or may not be correct). Also, if your husband takes money out of a retirement account (IRA?) you can pretty much count on paying around 25% in taxes plus another 10% penalty, not that I'm against using retirement money and there might be some ways you can mitigate those amounts, but if not, 35% is steep. Are you having an inspection on each home? Also an appraisal and title search on each home, with that many you can get a deal but still going to run you quite a bit for all those. If you want multi-family you can try contacting a commercial broker and see if they have any "off market" properties or if they can look for you. You will find a lot of commercial brokers have these properties that are not advertised for sale but can be bought, some with owner financing. Good luck!

@Zack Dunn you would need to get a sales person license and work under a broker in order to manage properties for a fee or commission in Kentucky. The only loophole I know of outside of being appointed by a court would be to work for a property manager as a W-2 employee which would not require licensing. When I started doing property management, I leased a space and basically "gave" a broker free space for them to be my broker, as they are responsible for what you do. They would also need to be a signer on your escrow and other management accounts. So again, you do not have to have a brokers license to manage property, but you need to work under a broker to manage for others to collect a fee for service. 

@James Beam another online course you can try if you want to go quickly is greatwaytolearn.com I used them to get my sales license and to get my brokers license. I thought they provided a good course and good material. 

@Joseph Pike @Pavel Reyes Valdes is a great resource I think he does a great job for his clients.