Love Austin Homes Investing Blog

Yes I was needing to sell my house in Leander… Westwood edition..
It is a KB Home we just bought it in Jan ‘05, then me and my husband
seperated and we are going to be getting a divorce and i was trying
to see how i can get rid of this property before it gets forclosed
on… If you think you can help me please email me back… That is
the best way for me to be contacted I work M-f 1:15-10pm so I am
never at home and i do not have my cell phone any longer thank. Or
you can give me a time when it is conveniet for me to contact you.

Thanks
Daisy

ANSWER

Daisy,
We have Three programs that might fit your needs:

1) I have tenants that are looking to buy a property by taking over the prior owner’s payments.

2) I negotiate short-sales directly with lenders. A short sale is a transaction where we negotiate a discount on your loan such that the property can be sold at a reduced price avoiding foreclosure.

3) Deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. A program where you give up the property to avoid foreclosure.

Please contact me to discuss this further

Phill Grove

I Got a house with an existing alarm system that the wiring looks like a
spagetti western…….does anyone have a reasonable alarm technician that
won’t cost more than the break-ins they are preventing?

thanks much!
Richard

ANSWER

Richard,
You my find a handy man with these skills, however, my experience is that most alarm companies will fix the wiring and the rest of the system FOR FREE if you sign up for their monthly monitoring service. Additionally, most companies won’t service a system that they don’t monitor.

Phill

We have a couple of properties wer’e going to
wholesale in Austin area within the next 3-6 weeks.
Are you a cash buyer?

Danny

ANSWER

Danny,
I am a fast + CASH buyer!

Phill Grove

I’m looking at buying a group of mobile homes.

Anyone have any resources for evaluatiing? What is best profit model for these?

Any other random notes/thoughts?

thanks!
Best,
Jason

ANSWER

Jason,
All I can say is that I hope you get them CHEAP!

If you buy singlewides, you can probably flip them and/or lease them and make money. Buy for $5-10K and sell for $8-15K…

If you buy doublewides, I really don’t know too many business models that work, unless you get them with the land.

I know some people that set up mobile home parks, in which case you are really making $ on the rental programs.

Personally, I would not touch a doublewide with a 10-foot pole, and other than that, I’ll buy anything.
My $.02… Phill

I would like to set up 2 business entities, one for flips and one for long term properties. Can anyone give some advice/insight on how they have done this. Also, any referrals for an accountant and attorney would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ashley

ANSWER

Ashley,
This is a very complex question. I have paid multiple lawyers and accountants to help me with this. The problem you get into is that the lawyers answer the question in terms of how to limit your liability “Put everything into separate LLCs…blah blah blah”, while the accountants answer the question in terms of how to save on taxes “Don’t use LLC’s because of franchise tax and bookkeeping overhead…blah blah blah”.

To help sort this out, I did go to Adrian Van Zelfden, because he’s a lawyer and accountant (though really an accountant), and he was helpful initially, however, unfortunately he is no longer doing much in real estate, so he basically told me that that there are several better guys in town than him to help set up and do taxes for real estate businesses.

One thing I suggest is that you need to draw up a 5-year plan that says what types of transactions (and how many of each type) you plan to do.

If buying rental properties, consider how these will be bought (subject-to, personally guaranteed loans, business loans), and how these will be held. Things get quite complex if you buy something with an entity and want the entity to get financing. You’ll quickly discover, for example, that an entity will pay 2-3% more for a mortgage and 50% more for insurance, which may make this option uneconomical long term. Buying things in your own name brings about liability issues, which brings up the topic of insurance… and what it covers, and what, no matter what they tell you, it does not cover… You can also move things back and forth into entities, but that raises several other issues.

If flipping properties, consider how many tax returns you want to generate (which are required for some types of entities), and consider the dreaded “IRS dealer” status you risk getting if you do things the wrong way. Oh, and don’t forget employment tax – 15% right off the top, depending again on how you do it all…

Take your 5-year plan and map these transactions into different entities and see what the ramifications are. There is no perfect solution – just tradeoffs between liability protection, cost, tax efficiency, insurance requirements, etc.

Regards,
Phill Grove

Do you agree that the best way to buy a property subject-to is to use a land trust?
The general idea is to form a trust, deed the property to the Trust,
assign benefical interest in the trust to you, along with POA to
access the necessary info to ensure you get all the payment details
from the bank to continue paying the existing mortgage.
Best regards,
Bruce

ANSWER

Bruce,
Keep in mind also that a trust offers nothing in the form of liability protection beyond making you, the new owner, a little more difficult to find.

In other words, when the tenant drops her baby down the stairs after tripping over a carpet thread that she will tell the jury should have been repaired, she will still sue you, the new owner, for every penny you ever earned and then some. And, when your sitting in front of your twelve piers looking at pictures of the dead child while talking to her attorney, I wonder how well received the “trust game” will be, when to a laymen, moving things around through assigning the beneficial interest in a trust might appear to be a mechanism to commit some form a fraud (even if it is indeed legal).

For this reason, I prefer to transfer ownership into an LLC or LP. You can also still use a trust to disguise the identity of the LLC, if you really want to go to town, or you may decide this is not necessary…

Phill

Hi,
Do you have any recommendations for a good selling real-estate agent in Kyle?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

ANSWER

I have listed probably a dozen homes in Kyle with:

Shenoah Peck: 913-3718

Shenoah is also an active real estate investor and may bring that expertise to the table.
Phill

Do you know what forms I can use for seller financing and where
to get them?
Thanks,
Mark

ANSWER

Mark,
The standard TREC sales contract and the standard TREC financing addendum include provisions for seller (owner) financing. Any realtor in Texas can give you these, or you can pull them down on-line.

Phill