All Forum Posts by: Ed L.

I've have the metro express plank vinyl wood look flooring installed in my commercial building for 2 years now. Has held up extremely well.

Impervious to water and is Very scratch resistant. Cost about 3.00 per foot installed

It also looks great and feels much more solid underfoot than laminate.

I really love the stuff and we have successfully used it in flips as well as rental.

For cheap you can't beat the $.65 loop carpet from lowes. We just did a 1000 sq ft and it looks outstanding for the money. Also seems to hold up much better than the strand carpet

Jump in and get your feet wet..

I leverage my cash and use other peoples money as much as possible...

My last deal I literally had $0 invested of my own funds.. I even received a sales commission back when I purchased the property on the front side...

It may be crazy, but it's worth 5% interest to have my cash on hand in case something big comes up that I need a large down payment for..

I imagine you will be fine legally but you may have some problems starting out as tenants learn the system. There will also be those who use the online billing as a excuse for paying late. My computer broke, my internet not working, etc etc.

Overall it seems like a great plan IMo. Especially with more tech savy tenants.

Might look into ATM machines.

One of my commercial tenants asked if she could put a ATM outside her salon. I said sure go ahead.

I'm not sure how much she makes off it but there is always someone withdrawing funds when I leave the office.

Still beating myself up for not trying that. On the other hand im happy for my tenant and I hope it helps keep her around.

I'm always trying to think of small business ventures that might work out. Reality is that starting a small business of most any kind is hard and usually not very profitable. Especially after work in real estate for a while.

You have to be careful with employee compensation when working in real estate. I've seen first hand how salaries going out in a dry spell can empty the coffers pretty quickly.

That being said. Ivehad a full time assistant for about two years now and it has definitely led to increased productivity. Ie.... Going on vacation and the machine chugs on without me. I also have a app on my iPad that allows me to remotely control my office desktop. Log me in is the name of it I believe.

We do minimum wage plus weekly bonuses based on our productivity.

His primary function is to man the office 9-5 and field calls for my brokerage. I cant believe we used to do the cluster fu$& phone day routine at my office. Got to be the most inefficient real estate model ever.

It did actually!! We settled at 95k with buyer paying closing.

Guy closed in 2 weeks right on schedule. Still can't bellieve how easy the transaction went.

Actually bought another house the same day I sold that one. About 1/2 way through that project. I was rushed like hell the day I purchased the new house. After reading a horror story about some people in Mississippi who bought a foreclose and remodeled it only to find out they were working on the wrong house I decided to review my legal description from the closing docs. I actually had a good surprise. In addition to the lot that the house was on I also received the vacant lot next door. It was a tiny 1/4 acre lot, but it's some nice lagniappe for a deal that only cost $19,000 lol

Also just put another finished rehab on the market and are having some great showings.

We are also working a small land deal that should perform very well. Just closed the first of three parcels last Friday.

If all that weren't great enough I just leased one of my vacant spaces at my commercial building and am expecting to lease a 2nd one this Friday.! I can't wait to be back at full occupancy. I lost a tenant who was occupying 3 spaces a few months ago. Pretty stressful in this market.

Pretty psyched about a trip out west next week. Turning 25 and my wife and I are also celebrating our 4 yr.

Flying to Vegas and picking up a new car for mom. Then heading west for California for a road trip. Going north through California and then Back east through the Rockies all the way back home in moms new econo box crv.

That's my past two weeks in a nut shell lol..

Sorry for the poor writing. I'm pecking on my iPad @2 Am as usual.

I try to keep enough cash on hands to purchase homes under 100k with cash. I submit my offer with pof from my savings bank.

In order to keep from using my cash I will then establish a secured loc with the subject property as collateral.

Haven't had any complaints yet. I technically have the cash to purchase and will use it if necessary, but I prefer to use the banks money if possible.

I don't think the seller cares much as long as they have a guaranteed sell with no financing concerns.

J Scott- Exactly what I'm looking for!..

Just general figures.. After doing this stuff for a while you get a knack for guestimating what things will cost without having to drag the contractors out to every prospect before submitting offers.

What exactly is OTS tub surround? I'm guessing a prefab fiberglass replacement of sorts??

First of all.... They attempt to be benevolent social planners with the OO BS... I could write a thesis on the damaging effects this particular policy causes to homeowners, investors, and communities..

Next is the bureaucracy and inefficiency... One of my RE agents is representing a OO client who wishes to submit a full price offer on a HUD owned property...

Now they require selling brokers to submit their offer directly through the HUD Homestore... (Good idea IMO) No more shady listing agents handling competing offers...

Unfortunately you have to register to be a HUD Selling Broker...

One would assume that registration would be a simple online process requiring the creation of a login and verification of ones RE license number... WRONG....

Have to go on the Hud website, print out some forms, mail off said forms and other documentation and then wait a minimum of 2 weeks for HUD to issue a Registration number.

Once HUD finally issues your NAID number you can then finish the registration process online....

So thanks to HUD our client will no be able to submit a offer for a minimum of 2 weeks....

On top of that the HUD Homestore website is experiencing difficulties and won't allow me to download the required form 1111 in order to even begin the process of registering...

Would welcome any advice on how to expedite the process or if anyone has access to the form 1111 required to start the process... I called the Help hotline and they said I would just have to wait for the site to start working in order to download the form..

And that is why I despise the Federal Government....

Great topic for this time of year!

Feels like I was just Raped and left for dead by dear ol Uncle Sam... The sad part is seeing how much money they take, and still run trillion dollar deficits...Thats a whole different discussion

I know this is a question for my CPA, but you guys may be able to advise me where she might be failing...

I currently have 3 different sources of income.

My primary is income from being a RE agent and owning a brokerage. The brokerage basically breaks even and all the income comes to me personally.

Second is Rental Income.

Third is income from Flipping.

Would it be possible/feasible to open a S-corp that receives incomes from all these ventures & then pays me personally a salary& dividends.

Would I have to transfer ownership of all the rental property and flips to the S-corp?

If I understand things correctly the S-corp would receive all the money and then pay me a small "Salary"..

All Remaining funds would be paid out as dividends at the end of the year at regular Tax rates?