Interesting situation to pick your brains :)

[Cindy Chan]

Hi all,

I have a semi complicated case and thought about a bunch of different options and would now like to hear what everyone else thinks or would do.

My mom has a property that has been vacant for about 10 years now, in another state from where we live. I was thinking of using this as an opportunity to get into real estate, and renovate, and rent this out. My mom wants nothing to do with the property and don't care what I do with it. My original plan was to:

1. Renovate the property (would cost around $40k to do the major renovations such as getting the plumbing and electrical up to code, redo the siding of portion of the house (there's some rotting wood), install new cabinets and redo the bathroom, etc.

2. Rent it out.

That sounds like the easy part from a top level view. However, getting into the details, and tax parts of it. I will not be able to use it as a "business" if it is under the name of my mother. What do you think would be the best option for making it into my "business"? Transferring the property into an LLC? Have my mother sell me the house (This would probably cause my mom to have tax issues, with capital gain)? Gift the house to me?, then I started thinking about gifting the house to me, but then there would be do more depreciation for tax, right?

I am very mixed with what my next steps should be, the property is a 3 hour flight from me so it is not crazy far, but I wouldn't be able to manage it on my own and would of course need a property manager.

I'd love to hear from everyone to see what more experienced real estate individuals think. Hopefully someone else has a similar situation and this could help them out as well.

Thanks in advance,

Cindy C

[John Lewis]

If the house is currently abandoned it isn't doing anybody any good.  If your mother is ok gifting it to you I would go with that and then determine if this is a property I want to start my real estate investing career in or if I should sell it and place the funds somewhere that works better for me.  You may be able to tap into some equity and do the repairs but then you'd have a rental property that is 3 hours away.  You could also do some repairs and sell it or just sell it as is and take the money to fund a deal closer to you.  My advice is to come up with a plan that works for you.  That first deal is very exciting but remember this could be a great start that works for you or it could be a huge headache.