All Forum Posts by: Trevor Finton

Jacob,

Decent suggestions from others regarding financing options. One other direction you could consider is getting a slightly larger property, say 2-4 unit that would alleviate your low loan amount issues while opening up increased cash flow opportunities. Lansing has many duplex opportunities ranging widely in price.

Just a thought.

@Costin I. thank you much for your take on this and furthermore for the AssPro flow diagram (definitely makes me want to CY my A). All joking aside,  those are the sort of tools that can help some of us over-analyzers make sense of the sequencing so thank you.

Thank you @Brian Bradley. I'm somewhat familiar with the Series LLC but it seems outside of Bigger Pockets community it is much less well understood or even heard of. That includes an attorney friend who is in asset protection and has owned real estate himself, CPA and even investors. I may PM you for more information or at least how to direct these conversations as I don't frankly want to be more knowledgeable about the Series than my attorney.

Thank you Scott. I’ve read several of your posts and listened to the podcast and it’s obviously a compelling directive especially from the degree of detail you share so thank you. My attorney friend very much echoes your sentiments though I think it ultimately leaves me with the same uncertainty for starting out. More research I suppose.

Thanks Drew. Is most of your financing coming through traditional lending thus far? If not has it changed over time?

@Jordan White I have not had the opportunity to do this with tenants but at its heart this is a business relationship. As such if you have clearly defined the tenant/landlord expectations then this is a reasonable way to show appreciation for a good customer. In my 9-5 we have vendors stoping by all the time giving holiday gifts and it’s appreciated. It doesn’t make up for lousy service but can solidify a strong bond.

I am very much an aspiring investor in Grand Rapids and West Michigan and am checking off my list of needs (CPA, PM, capital, lending etc) but one area that keeps tripping me up is asset protection (i.e. umbrella policy only vs LLC). I have personal assets I want to protect but don't want to have this all slow me down unduly. I'm leaning toward pursuing LLC formation (with advice of both attorney and CPA...and spouse) but am concerned about implications for lending.

I'm wondering if others could share their approach when starting out, particularly those that aren't (or weren't) outright pros (e.g. 4-15 doors), not necessarily working in real estate full-time and  seeking a modest passive income. What were your experiences both positive and potentially disastrous?