Fliperati

That’s right: cash money bling bling.  Houses don’t finance themselves and I’m not of the “zero money down” camp (this approach seems to be particularly impossible in the NYC area), so that leaves me in need of some serious cash.  Fortunately, several years of soul-sucking work in finance have left me with a decent-sized savings account and I have always been a stickler about paying my bills on time, so hopefully lenders will be bending over backwards to give me a $300,000 - $450,000 mortgage on an ugly property in an up-and-coming neighborhood.  Lots of recommendations on area mortgage brokers (most literature suggests they’re the way to go vs. getting a loan direct from a bank, right?) available here.  I’m a sucker for a decent website with good information, so Manhattan Mortgages seems like a good place to start.  I’m going to pay them a visit as soon as I finish compiling my personal financial statement and gathering recent tax returns, bank statements, etc.

Comments(0)

Not the most riveting topic, I know, but taxes and bookkeeping are clearly tremendously important issues in the universe of real estate investment.  There are countless books and seminars on both points within this category, so I don’t expect anyone to glean any earth-shattering insights from anything I post here (WARNING: I am neither a tax attorney nor a qualified accountant!!).  What I expect will be interesting is following the real life trajectory of my successes and failures in this arena.  From the reading I’ve done to-date (a few examples here and here), I think I’ll setup an LLC taxable as an S Corporation for the flipping enterprise.  I’m in the process of setting up a few interviews with accountants and real estate/tax lawyers, so I’ll report back with the end result after I have a team assembled and paperwork filed.  Fast-forward three years into the future and I’m either paying $5 dollars in taxes per year and enjoying life on a tropical island, or I’m deep in the red after closing a number of seemingly profitable deals only to find out that everything was a net loss after taxes.  Wish I had a crystal ball…

Irrelevant side note: The first accountant I am meeting sounds like a lovely, intelligent woman over the phone — an impression that is strongly reinforced by her raging British accent.  Charming as this may be, it gives me pause in seeking her services because in order to develop such a thick accent, I would assume she must have grown up in an equally raging part of the United Kingdom (or one of its many former colonies and protectorates).  I would think that growing up listening to your parents rant and rave against all-things-IRS every April would be a necessary condition for having a strong understanding of the outrageously byzantine US Tax Code and practicing accounting, but I guess I can test that theory next week when I chat with Lady Tax Advice directly.

Comments(0)

Picking a place to make your first real estate investment is the subject of many “how to” and “wealth building” seminars on flipping, but I’ve found that hardly any of the existing authors of these materials are in the northeast.  Is it too cold here for any of these real estate barons to spend their time, or is it impossible to make a profit in this region for some undisclosed reason?  I certainly hope it’s not the latter.

Undeterred by the dearth of published media and unwilling to leave Manhattan for Phoenix, Las Vegas, Palm Springs or Naples (offensive to my urban sensibilities), I’ve begun exploring the greater New York metropolitan area in search of the perfect ‘hood for my first flip.  I haven’t settled on a location yet, but you can find a distillation of my thoughts to-date after the jump.

(Read the article)

Comments(0)