What we learned about real estate
This is a collection of articles I wrote about real estate. I sometimes know what I’m talking about. But it is up to you whether you take what is written here to heart.
I’m a huge real estate nerd and will be happy to exchange emails with you about real estate if you want. We can also meet virtually if you’re up for it, grab a time from my calendar. If you have a real estate puzzler that you need an independent opinion on, hit me up.
Disclaimer
Information presented here is what we learned, not advice on what you should do. It is presented only for self-education.
This is not expert advice. This is not legal advice.
I am not a lawyer. I am not an accountant.
I am a licensed real estate salesperson (“agent”) in California, but I am not your agent. Consult a professional that works for you.
Articles
Here they are, for your enjoyment.
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Five years of essays on this site have grown up and become a book. It is called Our Adventures in Real Estate — What We Learned, and it is now on Amazon. Buy it on Amazon → What it is It is the writing from this site, …
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Here’s an overview of my favorite real estate reference manuals. These are the books which, in my opinion, form the smallest finite cover of the topics falling under the general umbrella of real estate investing. I’m …
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I’ve re-typed this piece of advice about a dozen or so times in the past few weeks. Might as well then write it up here, to short-circuit the future re-typing. Do not ask a CPA for tax law advice. Do not listen to a CPA …
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Whether real estate courses, workshops, clubs etc are worth the trouble appears as a question every once in a while. Have you heard about such-and-such an influencer? What do you think about the course by so-and-so? I …
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In short: do not hire Whittington Professional Services LLC. Save yourself time, money and nerves. They are not capable to complete the work they get paid to do. They do not appear to hold any licenses, which means there …
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Why I invest in Real Estate Summary People sometimes ask me why I invest in Real Estate. This is my answer. Background I had a few conversations recently with would-be Real Estate investors from work. These are people …
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Why use a buyer agent? Since about the time of the NAR settlement, questions comes up about the use of a buyer agent. With buyers finding properties online, what is an agent bringing to the table? Here’s a version of …
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To self-insure or not This is a question that comes up repeatedly in real estate discussions. Does it make sense to pay for insurance for your property, for your HVAC unit, for home warranty. These are my …
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We recently fell out of a 1031 exchange, and will need to pay capital gains tax on the sale of one of our residential buildings. While it’s a bit disheartening, it’s not the end of the world. A person at work was …
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I read somewhere a possibly important factoid about failed 1031 exchanges: If your 1031 exchange fails, you will not see your money until day 181 from the close of the relinquished property. If you have money left over, …
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It is allowed to transfer title into an LLC on a property with a conforming loan* *) under some conditions Someone surely needs to read this. Despite the common myth, transfers of property titles into an LLC, while the …
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On ‘velocity banking’ (2) This is my attempt at an explainer, from 2020. Explain velocity banking, since there’s quite a bit of sales pitches out there, and non-explanations. First, does it work? It depends. Does it do …
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On ‘velocity banking’ I recently answered this question. Is anyone doing this? Has anyone gotten into the mathematical weeds on this? If you’re not familiar with velocity banking here’s a video that explains it, more or …
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Introduction There is a proverb making rounds on the Internet: “if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.” Despite its dubious origins, there is something to be said about the ability to go …
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Things that happened Go into short term rentals, they said… Here’s an inventory of things that happened recently, say in the last month or so: Dryer dead Guest’s phone charger fried Microwave falls apart Thermostat loses …
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What we learned about creative financing Introduction With the increase of the FED lending rates, the interest is renewed in creative financing for real estate. So I thought it might be of interest to write down some …
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Inventory of things that happened over the holidays 1x unit flooded: ice maker supply hose got cut because of friction with a vibrating AC, then flooded the unit. $2,200 to repair and clean up. 1x water in unit (again, …
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Filip Filmar See LinkedIn too. I spend quite a bit of time outside my “regular” work hours thinking about, discussing—and practicing—real estate. In discussion, I sometimes get questions that I have an opinion on. Some …
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Residential transactions (1 to 4 units) are usually written on form contracts, which consist of boilerplate text and fields to fill out. Here’s a handy form that I started using to make sure that all relevant offer …
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tl;dr: Go here if you need to print a check quickly: https://re.filmar.us/checkwriter - it’s completely free, as in beer. The simple page at https://re.filmar.us/checkwriter allows you to typeset and print your own valid …
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** tl;dr: go here if you need to print a check quickly: https://re.filmar.us/checkwriter** - it’s completely free, as in beer. Did you know that it is completely legal to print your own checks? If you didn’t, well now …
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Buyer beware of serious undisclosed issues at 4113 Holiday Dr, Panama City Beach, FL This is a notice to all to heed the undisclosed issues with 4113 Holiday Dr, in Panama City Beach FL. The property has serious issues …
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After what turned out to be an acquisition where I got more difficulties than I bargained for, I finally decided to write up my real estate due diligence checklist. I hope it will be useful to us in the future, as well …
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I asked Google’s Bard to give me some excuses for not investing in real estate. Here are the answers. The point of this exercise was to show that if your plan is to wait with investing in real estate, you could always …
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This is a short Google Colab note about how interest works in lending.
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This is a short Google Colab note about optimal pricing for vacation rentals. It is work in progress. If I get new ideas, I will write them up.
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Way back when at the beginning of the pandemic, I gave a presentation called “Real Estate for Absolute Beginners” for colleagues at work. You can now access the slides to the presentation here.
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Summary I explained the various ways real estate gets taxed on several occasions during the “beginners real estate” meetings we had at work. Since some questions tend to repeat, it leads me to believe that the real …
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Summary This is a short story about how we started investing in real estate. I am writing it up because it comes up often, and as time goes by I remember less of it. So on the one hand, I’m rescuing the story from …
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Summary About once a month we have a virtual meetup of real estate investors at work. Less experienced investors ask questions and more experienced investors answer them. It works really well. Some questions pop up more …
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This is a public version of the text I wrote for friends and colleagues. It has been edited to omit some excessively personal details. Summary Some of you may know that I am a licensed real estate salesperson in …
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Summary A while ago I noticed that there is some confusion around financing and qualification for residential loans specifically for second homes. So I decided to dig a little bit into this, and here is what I found. …
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Earlier versions are published as a series of articles on www.svinvestorsclub.com. This article has a series of edits made after that publication. Summary This is a quick overview of lending options that we use to …
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Information presented here is what we learned, not advice on what you should do. It is presented only for self-education. This is not expert advice. This is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer. I am not an accountant. I …
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Correction 2024-07-29: the article says that the debt in a 1031 exchange needs to be replaced with debt. This is not correct, or rather not fine-grained enough. The debt value can be replaced by other things as well: …
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Summary This is what we learned when we decided to escape from the City into nature, set to the backdrop of a worldwide pandemic. We ended up buying a second home on the slopes of the Sierras, in a place called Twain …
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Also on svinvestorclub.com Summary Here’s what happened when we (finally) decided to deed our properties, which we owned in our own names, into respective LLCs. This is a story that I promised to write up in What we …
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This article is a set of notes that my colleague Sundar made when we discussed our past short term rental experiences. Thank you, Sundar, for making the notes this detailed! It reads like I’m much smarter with answers …
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IMPORTANT UPDATE 2023-11-17: It turns out that anonymity that you get by building an LLC corporate structure is extremely brittle. I have recently learned that I should not consider any LLC structure as fulfilling …