All Forum Posts by: Annie Balagot

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone! We are getting new professional photos but when I look at other listings that have better decor, I don't see them with booked calendars too so worried about putting more money in without confidence of a return. The cost of really decking out the house seems like a considerable investment. We originally wanted to hold for the long term to potentially retire in but at this point, there may be better use of our money if we can sell. 

The extra cost of the grill was due to my cleaners charging me and seeing others including the charge. I've played around with upping price and significantly reducing the cleaning fee and removing the grill fees but it didn't really change much. I feel like people look at the listed price first before clicking in so wanted to at least get people to look at the house first but will keep trying...

Here's the link:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/693013995408186878?adults=6&...

Hi BP STR experts - I need some help. I've been self managing our STR in Davenport for the last 2 yrs and don't know how to drive more rentals. We have a great, themed, 7bd/5.5bth home in a resort community close to the parks. I have great reviews from guests (over 30) though do have the occassional 4 stars that brings it down even though they loved the stay. Any case, it's such a saturated market that rentals are going for $125-150/night if I'm lucky. I'm happy to deal with the day to day management but don't know what else to do to drive more bookings. Do I try to throw more money to up the decor even more? We don't have a spa so that makes it difficult but I don't think putting one in will make that significant a difference for the cost. Do I hire a property manager? Can I hire someone just to help with marketing? We were doing ok yr 1 but now insurance and taxes have both gone up and bookings are down and I'm looking at selling but inventory is high also... any suggestions?

Thanks for all your input! appreciate the advice.

Hi BiggerPockets pros, I need some advice on what i should do. 

We live in a very desirable town 30mins outside NYC with great schools. My primary home, if sold, is prob worth around $2M and we only have $700k mortgage so tons of equity not being used. We have a $500k HELOC currently @ 9% we haven't used. we recently renovated and expanded this house so our basis is prob $1.5M so we're hitting the home exclusion cap.

Potential to buy a new home in town (kids still need 4 more yrs before going to college) for $1.2M with some work needed and potential to expand a bit.

Thinking we should sell home, take $500k tax free, put down 20% on new home so paying more in total mnthly payments but mainly in interest. Use the remaining equity ($1M) to go invest in more rental properties.

Or, keep primary home which has a 2.75% ARM until 2030 (mortgage out til 2050). My mthly payments are only $6.5k but I could rent my house out for $10-12K/mth. Can't use bonus depreciation but could use accelerated depreciation and get most (not all) of my rental income tax free. I'll still have my HELOC but it's at 9% and only $500k vs $1M cash.

What would you do? Sell primary or rent it out? Oh, primary house is in a flood zone and we had a major incident during IDA but our house was raised so meant to deal with floods so no damage but more a pain in the *** so concerned about dealing with that with renters or if more climate issues happen, could impact future value of the home.

Would love any thoughts or ideas! Thanks!

thanks!

We did a 1031 exchange (our 2nd) and sold a $900k condo and bought 2 single family homes ($660k & $490k) totaling around $1.2M. the original basis of the relinquished property was pretty low. I want to do a cost seg on the $660k home as it is a short term rental and we materially participate so want to take advantage of the STR loophole however, now i'm being told that the cost seg will be based off the tax basis of the relinquished property, not the market value of the new property. is that correct? Then it may not be worth doing at all... anyone else have experience with this?

@Greg O'Brien Thanks! and for all your answers above. Very helpful. My plan is to use bonus dep this year from 2 STR to offset W2 income. Both STR will have a paper loss even without the bonus depreciation I'm guessing so most of the bonus dep will help offset our W2 income.

@Greg O'Brien that's what I researched. Isn't the Excess Business Loss $500k? That's what I'm working off of.

A CPA would be helpful here. Short term rentals with avg stays less than 7 days are not considered rental activities and falls under similar status of hotels, therefore is not passive and so long as I materially participate, I can offset active income and do not need Real Estate Professional status.