Tag: proTip

Podcast#082 – Fundamentals – Interview with Brad Baldridge

Paying for College Expenses with Coverdell, 529s, and hacking the Financial Aid

Brad Baldridge is a late-stage college planning specialist. He helps parents of high school students plan and pay for college using strategies such as merit aid, need based aid, tax planning, savings and investing for college, negotiating with colleges, scholarships and loans. Over the past 10 years Brad has directly helped hundreds of families plan and pay for college. He has provided in-depth college plans resulting in increased financial aid, scholarships, identification of the right schools at the right price, and better loans.

• Coverdell has low contribution limits (2k per year) but the good thing is that it can be used for a wider range of education expenses

• 529 is State sponsored and some states have special breaks based on where you live

• Do the Coverdell first and then the 529 in most cases

• Tuition, fees, computer, room and board, prescribed supplies, and groceries. Up to the cost of what the dorm would be. Sorry no beer

• Need to start before high school or even when a toddler

• You can transfer it to another brother or sister

• Its rare to have too much money in a 529

• Consider making a higher rate of return outside a 529

• A 529 has a menu of choices just like the 401k

• Show that you own nothing so that you don’t make to much money to qualify for financial aid

• The net value is what is important for financial aid

• The look back is two years (prior prior year) but this changes from time to time

• What about putting funds back in the grandparents generation? Gifts from grandparents are reported by income. So time it for the last year of college.

• Can’t use trusts to hide the asset, but can use irrevocable trusts

• There are tax credits but check your taxable income so you don’t

 

Thank you Brad Baldridge for joining us on Simple Passive Cash flow!

Podcast#081 – Fundamentals – Interview with Mark Podolsky – The Land Geek and Raw Land Investing with Facebook Craigslist buy sell groups

Mark J. Podolsky (AKA The Land Geek) is widely considered the Country’s most trusted and foremost authority on buying and selling raw undeveloped land within the United States. He has been actively investing in Real Estate and Raw Land since 2001 and has completed over 5,000 unique transactions. Mark’s company Frontier Equity Properties, LLC is an A+ rated BBB real estate company.

Check out his program and his digital program here.

 

Topics that are covered in this episode:

• Go on Treasury List to see who owns back taxes

• Unsophisticated come into ownership of raw land

• Buy it at 20-30% value, ensure so encumbrances

• The neighbor’s are the first people to buy if not maybe they want to sell theirs and now you have a larger tract

• Use Facebook and craigslist

• Use owner financing

• 3-5% response rate of offers

• All counties are different on how you get land listings

• Use gegolook.com or use craigslist or what three words app

• Facebook buy and sell groups

• Use special warranty deed and full warranty deed

• Blinkist

• Stop being an optimizer once you have your simple passive cashflow number

Thank you Mark Podolsky for joining us on Simple Passive Cash flow!

 

Podcast #076 – Interview with MC Laubscher, The Cashflow Ninja

In this episode MC Laubscher from South Africa explains how his foundation is centered around the infinite banking concept. He tells us where his passive income is coming from, and talks about some investments he is trying to turn into passive income. Laubscher will walk you through his journey of how he purchased his first single family property out of university in South Africa, and how he got to where he is now.

Topics that are covered in this episode:

  • Uses infinite banking to create cashflow and make investments
  • Purchased first property in South Africa in 2001
  • USA leads in creative deals
  • Started with an informal mentorship for them
  • Infinite banking is what wealth Family Offices use
  • Sick, alone, broke in 2011 – the person that is responsible is you
  • Get up in the morning and start moving
  • What you value is not what someone else values
  • Abundance/Scarcity Mindset
  • Is this your highest and best value… if not table it or have someone else do it
  • Document the processes to outcource things
  • A home gym would cut down on time traveling
  • I am not entitled to anything
  • Figure out what takes your time and write down a process to outsource
  • Email Lane if you have questions about infinite banking
  • Self reflect and figuring out what you are good at

 

Podcast #073 – Interview with J. Martin, Organizer of SFBay Real Estate Summit

J. Martin shares his story about how he became the founder/host of the SFBay Real Estate Summit and how he funded his world exploration through real estate. Here are some of the topics we discuss in this episode:

  • $85K Passive income with a furnished rental business and other rental investments
  • He started a meet up in San Francisco and Josh Dorkin from BiggerPockets contacted him
  • After the 2012 BiggerPockets summit he copied the speaker list and called everyone
  • Replicate what people want
  • A lot of REI clubs are pitch-fest with profit sharing
  • Contact me with an iTunes review or referral to a new listener and I will let you know who to stay away from
  • Speech or topic meeting appeal to new members
  • Open circle
  • Don’t be an ask-hole, always add with value
  • Think what the potential mentor needs and do it
  • A lot of people what to be active when they really want to be passive
  • In every interaction try and add value
  • Give away info and value to see who are the sharks out there
  • There can be value to talking to people who do completely different type of investing thing using the same tool
  • IP Targeting to target certain people
  • Before an event look people up and see who you want to meet
  • Have a goal of what you are looking for and what you have to give
  • Make the initial contact to follow up later
  • Just realize that everyone else is there looking to people just like you
  • In today’s market J Martin is realizing that he can’t travel and purchase to properties and is traveling
  • He likes to deploy capital when the odds are best in his favor
  • Funding & Deals work in inverse

Thank you J.Martin for joining us on Simple Passive Cash flow!

Continue reading “Podcast #073 – Interview with J. Martin, Organizer of SFBay Real Estate Summit”

Bad Data: Class C/B vs Class A

Being an Industrial Engineer by education it drives me crazy how “Bad Data” is prevalent everywhere… much like how English majors get headaches over my writings.

“Lifestyle Asset Class” is the Class A inventory. The place rich people live in (or people who think they are) and what institutional and unsophisticated investors invest in.

“Renter-by-Necessity” is the Class B/C inventory. This is where blue collar hard working Americans live and where sophisticated investors are able to carve out double digit gains with stabilized properties that still produce cashflow in case of a market correction.

Take a look at the data below for All-Classes and compare it with “Lifestyle” and “Renter By-Necessity” tables and take note how you can’t take data you read in the Wall Street Journal at face value. We invest in “Renter-by-Necessity” properties and we need not let the “Lifestyle” data skew our analysis.

All Classes Data

 

Using Life Insurance to be your own bank

This page has been updated here.

Video: Using Life Insurance to be your own bank

Find more videos in the video section. And please share the podcast by emailing it (I know you guys don’t want to share on social media because you are scared of others knowing that you are going to quit your job. I just want to get the word out that there is something other than the stock market!

The inspiration behind this:

I got really upset the other day. A friend of mine was talking to a so called financial planner and was getting sold Whole Life Insurance. To set the stage, the subject client did not have investments or much cashflow. Why the heck was Whole Life Insurance was being prescribed?!? Oh because Whole Life has some fat commissions and the ding-dong financial planner does not know enough to get themself out the rat-race.

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately… about what I really want to do with myself. One realization I have discovered is when something gets you so upset or passionate (like a financial planner screwing regular people… people who don’t have the cashflow or liquidity and being sold on the BS line of “conservative investing”) you have found a higher calling.

My rant is now over… As we covered very briefly on this past podcast. We are not talking about buying these types of policies for “insurance” or death payout, we are doing it for liquidity (to invest) and shield assets from creditors or lawsuits. I spoke to a couple other life insurance guys (smart guys) but they don’t get this either. They just tried to sell EIULs which do have higher yields but don’t have the liquidity component we are looking for so we can take out a loan from ourselves to invest and make a spread on the difference.

SPC065 – #LaneHack – Resonance Frequency & 10 ways to appear engaged at your day job

Happy Independence Day!
It is currently my 10 year anniversary of working and being a productive adult in the workforce
Somewhere along the way I found my way into this real estate investing and dedicated my efforts to building passive streams of income to do what I want, where I want, with who I want
Anti Rich Dad Poor Dad will call us undisciplined and with poor work ethic
I have collected the data points of over a hundred calls with investors and have found that it is rare that someone is able to align what they are good at and what they are passionate about
If you like what you do (I mean Saturday morning like what you do) consider yourself lucky
I use the analogy of a sonicare toothbrush and resonance frequency

10 ways to appear engaged at your day job with you are building passive streams of income
1) walk fast and move around frantically – general work areas
2) don’t tell people where your are going on vacation (ie going to Dallas to look at apartments)
3) don’t take calls in your car where people can see you
4) don’t drive a fancy car to work
5) attempt to look like your bring a brown bag to work… Say something like you are being healthy
6) invest in a small compact laptop to analyze deals and emails & Google Drive!
7) use calendar scheduler and VAs to schedule your calls around your work
8) when asked why you are not investing in the company sponsored 401k just say you are a government conspiracy folk… It will be easier to understand
9) just nod and say yes!
10) when you purposely keep your workspace cluttered so you look busy and appear indispensable
(Just for fun!)

And btw keep the day job as long as you can. SimplePassiveCashflow.com/quit

Podcast#62 – Fundamentals – 3 Things to do this summer for your rentals

Ask assistance from your property manager for your tenants about lease option. An option for the tenant to purchase the home.
$100 or $5000 lease option fee. A win-win for yourself as a home owner and for the tenant.

Hi property manager,

With the summer coming up and rent up season approaching I was wondering if you would be able to ask every one of my tenants if they were interested in purchasing the home via lease option.. Here is an idea on how to have a conversation about the proposition..

1) Praise the tenant for a good track record.. And let them know we are looking to create a win-win situation.

2) Ask if they would like to own their own home one day.. This also provides us information on if we need to plan for vacancy.

3) Present the lease option deal idea, if the rent is 1000, ask to raise the price to 1100 (+100) and 50 dollars goes to a deposit account and 50 goes as a fee as a deposit.

We can work on the exact contract with a lawyer. This is offer is not for everyone but is ideal for someone who has to recover from bankruptcy and/or has a credit score improving… Once they are signed on with the lease option this should greatly eliminate service calls making your job easier… Also when we sell you will be the agent on record on can have the commission$… Please report back on the following within the next month after you have had a brief conversation with the tenant: 123 Main Street:

1) Interested in buying this home? if not why/when? any issues with current living conditions? 2) What are their barriers to a lease option? (credit score, job/location stability) —

2) What are their barriers to a lease option? (credit score, job/location stability) —

3) Present the lease option deal idea, if the rent is 1000, ask to raise the price to 1100 (+100) and 50 dollars goes to a deposit

 

Are we in a Recession?

Many of you have been hearing me show my frustrations over the lack of deals since we are in a seller’s market. I don’t have the answers but I do ask the right questions… and that question is are we ‘already in a recession’?

Recessions are loosely defined as two-quarters of stagnant GDP growth. I don’t really know what goes into those numbers but I can tell you that the explosive rent growth in markets like Dallas are starting to stagnant (still increasing though).

Take a look at these articles and email me your feedback (Lane@simplepassivecashflow.com).

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-11/restaurant-sales-traffic-tumble-industry-hasnt-reported-positive-month-february-2016

[Americans are minimizing discretionary spending on Main Street]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-10/us-weeks-away-recession-according-latest-loan-data
[The real Americans are decreasing their home purchasing]

Everyone talks about every 8-12 years we are due for another correction. There is some validity to it, however, the past does not predict the future.

 

Today is a different day with the internet product cycles are compressed and this helps smooth out market fragmentation. Unfortunately fear and greed make up a large portion of stock evaluations which is extremely difficult to model or predict.

Podcast #59 – Interview – Amy Wan – Advises on syndication/crowdfunding law & fights for the bootstrap entrepreneur

 

-family has RE background

-did private money loans, fundrise e-reit
-was GC of a private money online lender
-now, does the equity piece as well with Trowbridge sidoti
-turnkeys, but just started a company that’ll help RE syndicators, so the money is going towards that.
-Recently invested in a business coach that is providing great accountability mechanisms. I just started using productivity planner + 5 minute journal.
-Follow the money (instead of wasting time on little things), my life mission is to democratize law for the people, but it has to be substantial improvement. I’m not happy with the way law is practice today and how attorneys and clients are supposed to interact.

Here is my best attempt at explaining this… An accredited investor is a defined by the United States Securities & Exchange Commission as someone who makes a minimum of $200,000 ($300,000 if filing jointly) or has a net worth of 1 million dollars excluding personal residence. The significance of being an accredited investor is that you can invest in things that those with less money, cannot. You can also be something called “a sophisticated investor” which has a much more nebulous definition but essentially says you know what you are doing even if you don’t have that much money.

These laws were put in place long ago to “protect” the average person from predatory activity. The irony of this all is that there is no protection for the average Joe, or pension funds for that matter, against investing in a wildly bloated stock market at record valuations. Every major trader out there knows we are in a bubble but there is no protection for individuals dumping money into their retirement accounts to buy mutual funds.

It’s an archaic system which makes little sense. Certainly, there has been some recognition of this fact. The 2012 JOBS act made it easier for Main Street America to participate in “alternative” investments via crowdfunding and made it easier for sponsors to advertise previously unknown opportunities. However, we have a long way to go.

I would advise you that you need to know the lead syndicator personally. None of this “we met at a local REIA and he pitched me his deal”. If a guy does not have a list of solid investors they must lack the track record.

Contact info:
Crowdfundinglawyers.net
Amywanlaw.com
@amyywan

“In the end, you want to buy direct as possible. Buying REITS is the same thing as buying mutual funds with a bunch of middlemen. Crowdfunding sites remove a few layers but as a syndication working with a Crowdfunding site is very expensive way of acquiring capital. Sometimes I wonder who are the people using this high cost of private equity… Perhaps they are “desperate syndicators?”