In this Episode, you'll hear the second of two parts of an interview I did with my long-time Real Estate Attorney, Russell Balch of the law firm Akridge & Balch in Auburn. Besides being my attorney, Russell has also been my office landlord for a few years too. I met Russell through my first post-college employer (Fred & Miles of the Charter Companies) in the late 1990's, and when I started my mobile home sales business way back in 2000, Russell was my guy!
Eventually, I moved on to single condos, and then started buying apartment buildings to turn around, or renovate and cut into condos. Later on, Russell helped me acquire a 50+ unit portfolio with a multi-million dollar "Lease-Option" type of contract. Well, that huge acquisition completely burned me out and I needed a break for a while, so I decided to sell all of my properties, and Russell helped me with that, too. He's started 8 or 9 LLC's for me, either as solo businesses or with partners, and I always felt prepared for what happened next, even when one of the partners in a 3 man group actually died and the other filed bankruptcy! The bottom line is this: a good Real Estate attorney is one of the most valuable members of your team, and Russell is a damn good one.
Listen in as Russell and I talk about: (items in bold are in this episode, the rest were discussed in the previous episode)
- Various types of closings
- The differences between Residential and Commercial Deals
- The finer points of contracts and how they can affect negotiations
- Contract and the review process for complicated deals
- Options, Due Diligence periods, and Hard Money clauses
- LLC's and how they are designed to be firm but flexible, and can be modified on the fly to fit your evolving projects
- Three types of dispute resolution (Mediation, Arbitration, and Litigation)
- Parting thoughts and words of wisdom
Links from this episode: