Taken from one of the Multifamily Investing Academy's Owner Forum weekly group coaching calls.

I want to come up with a rule that everybody can use and keep in their back pocket. When you're analyzing a deal and you're trying to figure out exactly what to do, you can apply this rule and it's going to give you the answer towards how this works.  

So, what is the rule that we apply to make a determination? What you learned was that to capitalize the income, you increase the value of the property, and you pay more for it if you do it wrong. You don't want to be in that situation! So what rule can we use to come up with a solution so we know exactly how to do it?

Here's a new rule : If the tenant modifies their behavior the next month and then the income disappears, it's not income worthy of capitalization (ergo, it's Bad Income). 

So always ask yourself the question - What if the tenant changed their behavior? What if the tenant started to perform under the terms of...

Assigning a contract in Pennsylvania may cost you transfer taxes

Expense Rules of Thumb and Ratios

One of the first things that we talked about is what we call the Pennsylvania transfer taxes. One of my students was asking me a question and I thought his question was ridiculous. Then, he posted the same question on the Whatsapp group with all the other OWNER FORUM members on there and they all thought his question was ridiculous. His question had to do with transfer taxes. 

What he was planning on doing was signing the purchase and sale contract in the name of ABC LLC, his entity. When he goes to buy the property, the bank wants him to sign a contract to the entity that is getting a mortgage who is going to own the property, 123 main street LLC. So all he does is just take one piece of paper that says assignment right on the top. And he goes through it. And he says, OK, I assign this contract from ABC LLC to 123 main street LLC and transfer. So both are done. 

He got on...

Always Remain in Control of the Deal!

How do you respond when an investor asks you what type of cash on cash return you are looking for? How do you respond when a broker asks you who you will be using for your lending source? How do you respond when a lender tells you that you are not entitled to an acquisition fee?

What I have done over the course of a week or of the last two weeks was accumulating stories or questions from students about stuff that's going on in their business. And we brought this to our weekly Monday Night calls. 

I'm going to give you three broker questions that people came up with. And just giving you an idea of how I teach. But more importantly, how I want my students to perform and what I want my students to do when they're in these types of situations. 

So the first situation is, I had one student who sent me this question from a broker. And the student asked me, “how do you respond to this brokerage’s question?” And so the...

Attorney Jeff Lerman joined us to discuss Joint Venturing on your next deal instead of raising private money. What’s the difference? Learn and make sure you understand the one rule you need to know to make sure you do it correctly.

I just finished up with a another call for our Monday night OWNER FORUM. It was a great call and we had a lot of fun. I know, I always say they're great calls. But they're always great calls. But this one was different. 

We had a special guest, Jeff Lerman, who is an attorney out of California. Jeff Lerman is a transactional attorney and as a litigator. What we talked about today had to do with joint venture partnerships and how to avoid securities laws by doing a joint venture. 

You might think to yourself - if I'm raising private money, I've got to be doing PPMs and subscription agreements in determining whether accredited investors or sophisticated investors and all that type of stuff. But what Jeff got into is the fact that if you're...

Charles examines an Owner Forum member's CFA and delves into how to structure Debt Financing.

Charles had his students send him over property packages of deals they are currently working on.  He then chose one and analyzed it live during his weekly Owner Forum Coaching Call.

This Vlog gives a summary of his tips for analyzing a deal. 

For example,  Never, never, never share your analysis of a deal with the broker!

Two of my successful students have exact same investment strategies in mind when they enter a deal but each approaches it entirely differently.

How two of Charles' most successful students use completely different strategies: Debt & Equity

One of my students is buying a 48 unit apartment complex in Kentucky. He nursed it from beginning to end. He's got himself a nice property that's going to be a very great launching pad to his 1,000 units. He'd already gone to probably before, but this is a little bigger scale. So that was a great deal. 

And another student who should be closing on a much bigger deal next week. Fingers crossed. I think that one crosses the finish line as well. But we had a bunch of topics we talked about, the one that I want to bring to your attention was really cool. 

I had two of my most successful students on the call and they both have the exact same investment strategy. But they come about it in different ways. Now, that sounds strange, but let...

Charles examines an Owner Forum member's CFA and delves into how to structure Debt Financing. He ask his students to send him over property packages of deals they are currently working on. Then, he choose one and analyze it live during his weekly Owner Forum Coaching Call.

This is a summary of Charles' tips for analyzing a deal.
Here's one: Never, never, never share your analysis of a deal with the broker!

With all the members of the OWNER FORUM that are all on the call, I just want to kind of give you an overview of some of the fun stuff we talked about - kind of giving us some great tips on multifamily investing and how it works. I have a bunch of students and I ask them if they want to see me analyze a deal online and we can take a look at it. They send me a property package and I will choose one. I will analyze it while we're on the call so that you can take a look at it and see how I analyze a deal. 

We did a little small 9-unit property, not a big property. It was an...

I received an email from a potential student with a bunch of questions trying to figure out why the MFIA Owner Forum was a different type of coaching/consulting/mentoring program for real estate investors looking to own apartments. I figured that if I responded, he would just take anything I said as a sales pitch, so instead, I put it out there to my students and here is what one of them came back with . . . . . 

“Charlie forwarded your email below over so I thought I would jump in and answer your questions to the best of my ability as a student of his.  

“First, a little background on me...I was working a corporate job and investing in real estate on the side, but couldn't get over the hump into the bigger properties.  I left my job to take the plunge full-time investing in 2013, and at that point, had a vacation rental, a single-family townhouse rental and a 10-unit multifamily.  That may sound like a lot, but believe me, it wasn't enough for...

I did a live radio show! You have to hear this one. This was one of the best interviews I have ever been on. This guy (Brian Stark) was the best interviewers. He had me on my toes the whole hour. You have to hear it! You can download it by clicking here. 

What are the biggest mistakes you should avoid when investing in multi-family properties? Hear that answer and much more in this awesome podcast interview with Charles Dobens. You can listen to it by clicking here.