All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

The worst marketing sin is not doing it at all, the second worst is not doing it consistently and the third worst is not measuring the effectiveness along the way.

Originally posted by Steve Nicewarner:

I never said it should be illegal. All I said is that the letter of the law says its illegal.

I'm sorry but the US Constitution trumps any local or state law limiting how I dispose of things I own.

A bird dog is not acting like a broker. They get a signed contract from the seller to buy a property. If they are REALLY smart, there will actually be demonstrable value exchanged to evidence the bird dog having an ownership interest in the transaction.

A bird dog sells their interest in the transaction. It is perfectly legal if done correctly.

BTW, if a state allows employee stock options to be pledged as collateral on a loan and be seized in case of default, the law allows any contract to be assigned unless the contract itself prohibits it.

BTW, NC does allow these types of collateral pledged.

Wow! You mean like the Durham DA who went after the Duke Lacrosse team a few years ago for PURELY political reasons?

Personally, I don't care. In my mind bird-dogging is a long way from "unlicensed real estate brokerage." I'm just reluctant to base my business model on something that relies on a prosecutor looking the other way.

We buy from bird dogs in NC every month. I'm more than happy to be a test case for a prosecutor looking for a trophy. They will fail and I will be the one with ANOTHER trophy check deposited into my bank account.

I seriously doubt that would pass muster either.

To be a broker they agree to certain standards of conduct and behavior no matter what their part in the transactions happens to be.

Fran, sit down with a lawyer and go over this stuff.

You and RA are both in CA, there are some interesting options available to you is some conditions exist and you are refusing to pay based on fraud or deceit.

No, that is not allowed in any state and would most likely be theft by conversion or fraud.

Yep, I have said that many times about gurus.

Really great real estate agents are like BigFoot; lots of people claim to have seen them but so far no one has produced a body.

Originally posted by Robert Burns:

I've recently had my accountant do my 2008 income taxes and I was surprised that he informed me that I could not take deductions for my real estate investment training that I purchased in 2008. A big one was the Rich Dad REI Coaching Program @ $6,285 and several smaller courses amounting to several hundreds of dollars. I have a full time job and am working on building my REI business albeit I have not done any deals or made any money yet, I believed the training material and other expenses directly related to my part time REI business were legitimate tax deductions. I know people can't respond or "give tax advice" officially but unofficially am I wrong about this and my accountant is right?

The issue is you haven't done any deals and probably have no way of demonstrating you are actually in business.

It is possible all or some of those costs can be capitalized and applied to future profits assuming those profits are generated in reasonable proximity to the expenses you incurred.

In other words, if you incurred those in 2008 and actually do some deals in 2009 AS A RESULT of incurring those expenses you might be able to get at least a partial deduction. For this to work, impeccable documentation is an absolute must. It will trigger an audit.

This is the darker side of the seminar industry. Yes, learning fees are a deductible business expense if and only if you are actually in business.

Everything is negotiable. What did you say about arrears and fees in your offer they accepted?

For commercial, cityfeet.com hands down. There is no equal.

For houses, there just aren't any that are reliable or all that helpful.