All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Originally posted by **********:

If YOUR party looses-How will YOU react?

I will get up each morning and continue to do what I do. I will make whatever changes I need to make to survive the darktimes we are entering. It will probably mean firing employees and restructuring my business to minimize any adverse impacts.

But, hey, we survived two world wars and Jimmy Carter, we can survive the socialist triumvirate of Pelosi-Reid-Obama.

Personally, I think this is a key difference between the left and the right. I can be opposed to a politician because of their policies without suffering any emotional distress because they don't share my beliefs and values.

I will look at the Obama Presidency the same way I did the Clinton one before the 1994 election. Something to be skeptical of and suspicious and one that may cause me to adjust my business model many times.

But, as for strong feelings sorry, not gonna happen. He will be nothing more than one in a succession of Presidents and at most will be there 8 years, but I suspect he is much more like Carter than FDR and will be gone in 4.

We are not too divided as a nation. If we were monolithic we would be boring and weak like France.

Judging by his history, Obama is unlikely to include Republicans in anything and if the Senate has 60 or more dems there is no reason for him to do it.

See, in a rather selfish way, I am secretly giggling with joy over the left having control of the government. But, I am going to keep the reasons to myself at least on a public site this for now. My only real regret is I do expect a lot of SCOTUS appointments and don't like the thought of the socialist types Obama will appoint. But, we will survive it, we always have.

These are two different things here. First, I doubt you are going to see the mentally unstable anger from the right like we have seen from the left over the last eight years. I have a brother-in-law who foams at the mouth when he talks about Bush and how they are going to impeach him after the election (not gonna happen) and try him for war crimes after Obama is in office (again, just won't happen) and how if McCain wins the draft is coming back. When in fact, Obama is the only candidate who has proposed anything even remotely resembling a draft.

But, the point is. I and those who lean to the right like me can separate the man from the policy. The left doesn't seem that have that level of mental maturity.

Case in point, when I met Bill Clinton in 1996 I found him engaging, witty and in all aspects would be a great member of a golf foursome, a poker or drinking buddy. I still don't agree with many of his views and policies but I would still play golf, poker or drink with him and shoot the breeze. How many on the left would say the same about Bush?

Interesting you should ask that since it does not even remotely agree with the plans Pelosi, Reid and Obama are laying.

Here is the thing, the left has screamed for the last eight years that those of us on the right are the problem. Well, now you are poised to take full control for at least the next two years. In all fairness, I think those of us on the right should step back and remove ourselves from the equation. That way you can show the American people how it is done, how much better things will be under your control, then in two years the American voters can have their say on how they think it is going.

So, how will I react when Obama wins? Pretty much like always because I know no matter what he would like to do, we are not going to slide into a dictatorship in the next eight years.

Why?

Too many of "us" own guns.

Just move on learn from your mistake and sin no more.

Seriously, even if you went through the process of suing for the rent and getting a judgment you will probably not collect.

Just take the high road and as Mike said require the monies to be paid before the lease is signed.

We have all made these kinds of mistakes. Don't beat yourself up about it and don't waste energy that could be put to productive use elsewhere.

Originally posted by BizLender_:

Bill,

You should probably read up on this. I have heard of investors having an LLC for each property.That way the liability is limited to only that property. If you have ten properties in one LLC and someone sues you, all properties in that LLC are vulnerable.

Hope that makes sense.I am certainly no attorney! :-)

Paula

I used to do the one property per LLC bit but as we grew and our holdings grew it became unwieldy.

Now, we break up the holdings based on area and property manager. For example, in TN, even though they allow a series LLC, this year I rolled all of our TN properties into one LLC. They are all right around the Knoxville area and are all managed by the same manager.

However, in GA and NC we are still using multiple LLCs.

By the end of this year I expect to add holdings in SC and we will start with one LLC there and evaluate it as time goes by.

But, you touched on the liability issue and in my opinion the complexity hyped by many gurus over the use of lots of LLCs does not match reality. I don't care how you break things up and try to hide them they can be found, the dots can be connected and any entity can be wiped out with the stroke of a pen from a judge.

The best liability protection is to first do the right thing! Keep the properties in good repair and don't harm people. Second, maintain adequate liability insurance.

The best way to figure out how to hold your properties is to sit down with your accountant and attorney and map out your long term plans. Once that happens, everything else just falls into place.

Originally posted by Brandon Schlichter:

Got off the phone with my investment advisor, i had emailed him about whether or not he knew how to invest in real estate with a self directed IRA. I hear about it relatively frequently, and have one person in my office that has a rental property held by her 401k/IRA.

Anyways, my question to him was (and he couldn't figure out the way to do it yet). Is

Could someone hold a Sub-S Corporation for the purpose of real estate transactions, purchasing and selling, renting and the like. And have the IRA/401k invest into that fund?

Maybe, as long as that "someone" is not you or anyone related to you. It would depend on how it was structured.

I know this can be done but it has to be done EXACTLY right. One slip up and the IRS will treat it as a distribution and you will be subject to taxes AND penalties. Since you must have a self-directed IRA to do this talk to the trustees you are considering to hold your self directed IRA owning real estate and they will be able to guide you.

Originally posted by fertilegal:

Closing on my first property and I have an offer on a second house, at first we were going to fix 'em up and try to sell but both houses are very rentable. These are single family homes - I am not looking at owning a big # of rentals but maybe 8-10. Any recommendations on rental property / landlord books?

Hands down the best book on being a landlord is ...

Landlording by Leigh Robinson

There is no fluff or feel good stuff just factual matter of fact information to run your rentals as a business. The 9th edition is 486 pages of nothing but landlording. Nothing about how to buy the properties or how rich you will be or how to hold them in entities or trusts or anything like that. Just 100% landlording.

It is the "bible" I have used to train all of our internal property managers and I always ask prospective fee based property managers if they have read it and their opinion of it.

I know Leigh and he is the absolute best expert in this area.

Originally posted by lifesstudent:

Hello everyone, i was just wondering if anyone has come up with any creative ways of either delaying or not putting down an earnest money deposit when putting a huge commercial property under contract.

the reason for my question is that when putting commercial properties under contract the earnest money deposit can be pretty substantial (normally 1% of purchase price or a little less if you negotiate, but chances are it'll still be a lot)

It is called "earnest money" for a reason.



You can put anything you would like in the commercial LOI and purchase agreements, it doesn't mean the seller or their attorney will accept it. I will tell you a clause like that is a dead give away as to amateur status in a commercial transaction. That doesn't mean you won't get it accepted by an amateur seller, you might.

i plan on having pretty rock solid contingencies in all of my contracts to protect me from having my money go hard before i actually have the funding to close on the property.

The best course of action is to have access to several sources before you ever start negotiating with the seller.

Typically, a commercial transaction will start with either a LOI or the first purchase agreement. If it is an LOI, it won't have any earnest money at all.

But, once the due diligence is completed, earnest money will be needed. Most commercial contracts do not have escape clauses for lack of funding once the due diligence period is complete. So, secure your funding as you are doing the due diligence, which btw, will cost you about 1% as well.

If the due diligence checks out, your funding should be in place and ready to go. DO NOT SIGN OFF ON THE DUE DILIGENCE IF YOUR FUNDING IS NOT SET.

I must say when I am on the selling side and it even smells like the buyer coming up with the earnest money is a problem, they lose credibility as a buyer very quickly in my eyes. The plus side is I know their due diligence won't be very diligent.

If you are worshiping at the FICO alter, no, do not close the accounts.

Keeping the accounts open and lightly used will keep your score higher than closing them.

Make sure you use each for small purchases you pay off each month a couple of times each year.

If you just want to reduce the number of accounts you have, then close the newest ones keeping the oldest ones. That has a minimal impact on your score and within 6 months you are pretty much back to where you were before.

Originally posted by Corey Williams:

I saw some earlier posts that mention realtors are in it only for the money.

I have never understood the almost apologetic attitude toward making money in this county. Of course the real estate agent is in it for the money. Every investor is in it for the money. I have no problem explaining to an agent or seller I can't pay anymore because I must make a profit, simple as that.

Where I think real estate agents shoot themselves in the foot is looking down on investors because they claim we always make insultingly low offers they are embarrassed to take to their seller mostly because they blew smoke up their nether regions to get the listing. To which I say, "Mr(s). Agent, if you can get them a higher price, by all means do it. But, I am constrained with economic realities that limit my offer to what you have in front of you."

Agents that see beyond a retail mentality work well with investors and make really great money doing it. Those who see investors as a nuisance are the types who are struggling in this market where little to nothing is selling at retail.

Oracle is the database engine the most of the bureaus use. It is part of the back end technology.

Originally posted by Jon Holdman:

Alina & Taz, I appreciate both of your contributions here. This must be kept non-personal. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please keep this discussion civil and non-personal.

Thanks Jon. I'm done with her. She claims this and that but if it were the way she fantasizes she could easily provide proof. She reads bits and pieces or just flat out misrepresents what others are saying. It is impossible to have any kind of discussion that way.

I know the raw reports with the flagged notations exist because those are the reports we order on a daily basis. I've seen mine with all the crap from the id theft problem I had in the 1980's still right there and flagged correctly. That data does not appear on my "Consumer Credit Report".

Alina provides a service to "purge" things causing a consumers credit score to be lower than it could be if the derogatory information weren't there. That's fine. But, she doesn't appear to know who uses "Consumer Credit Reports" and who uses and is legally entitled to use, the much more complete data in the file.

Here is the bottom line. If there is something inaccurate on your credit file, it is in your best interest to get it corrected. If there is something there you just don't like, you can probably get it "removed" from your "Consumer Credit Report" but you will never get it removed from your credit file.

Look at it this way. Your credit file is a bunch of interrelated records in the tables of their database. BTW, most of them run Oracle. Your "Consumer Credit Report" is a consolidated view of the data in those tables.