All Forum Posts by: Ben Zimmerman

If it was incompetence, I would contact the PM to attempt to get the fees waived.  I would let them know that you have documented proof that they screwed up, and if they won't waive the fees then you will make it your personal mission in life to leave a negative review (with proof) on any website that allows reviews.  You mentioned that the tenant is elderly and doesn't do much online, but that doesn't stop YOU from writing a review.  I would also check to see if there is a local news channel that would be interested in covering a "shady PM company wrongfully tries to evict elderly tenant" story.

While there is no legal grounds (based on the limited section you posted) to demand the removal of these fees since they are clearly stated in the contract, chances are good that the company won't want to go through all of the negative publicity and lost business due to poor reviews.  

You would need to read the entire contract however, since there may be grounds to void the contract in its entirety if the PM company isn't doing that which they are required to, such as keep accurate records.

I won't comment on whether its 'worth' it or not, however one thing I've learned and will share with you since you are new, is to be careful of homes that have low rent rates because maintenance costs tend to be disproportionately big.

It costs just as much to replace an HVAC for a house that rents for 2k/mo, as it does to replace an HVAC on an 800/mo house.  The difference is that on the 2k house you can pay for that HVAC relatively quickly, where as the 800 house it takes many months to offset the costs.

The same can be said for other costs such as property management.  Many companies charge a % of total rent, but for homes with a low overall rent they either won't manage it at all, or they move it to a flat $ amount, which is typically rather large as a percentage of rental income.  A hypothetical $150/mo fee to manage a 2k/mo home is tolerable, but a 150 fee to manage a 750/mo house hurts.

Just make sure you factor in all of your expenses into your equation and don't just calculate your cashflow as being how much money you have after paying the mortgage.

The interest on your primary is sort of deductible.  And by that I mean that it is only deductible if you itemize your taxes.  If you don't have enough random deductions to warrant itemization and you simply take the federal standard deduction, then your primary interest doesn't do you any good.  The standard deduction is currently 14,600, or 29,200 if married filing jointly.  And that's just the amount to meet the minimum threshold for itemization, you realistically don't start seeing any benefit until you hit those initial thresholds which is a lot of interest payments.  So 30k in interest payments on a primary would only net most people an $800 tax deduction since they would have already got the standard deduction by default, where as 30k in rental interest would translate into 30k in deductions.

This means that for an awful lot of people, they effectively don't get to deduct the interest on their primary.

Keeping the loan on your rentals, while getting rid of the loan on your primary also helps from an asset protection side of things.  Many states have homestead style laws that make it difficult to take someone's home during a lawsuit or similar event.

However, cash out refinances are typically at a higher interest rate than a normal mortgage.  

I'll disagree with a few things here.  While you can typically only ask for a small amount of information in regards to emotional or service animals, that also implies that the person with the dog is telling the truth.  Things get more complicated if you have a legitimate reason to believe the person is lying to you. (which appears to be what question you're actually wanting answered)

*Insert generic "I'm not a lawyer, consult your own professionals" statement here*

First, I have all tenants fill out a worksheet that indicates what type of animal it is, including generic information about the dog such as name, age, breed, and who does the dog assist (if not readily apparent and there will be multiple people residing in the house.) Then they are required to answer whether this is a service animal, or an emotional support animal.

The vast majority of people who lie about the status of their animals, claim that it is a service animal since that typically confers the most rights to the animal.  

While Fair Housing Act of 1988 is the overall law that governs housing discrimination based on health conditions, the law doesn't go into great detail on how those health conditions should be interpreted and applied, and often references back to the ADA for several things, including determining if an animal is actually a service animal in the first place.

https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/PA/documents/HUDAsstAnimalN...

QUOTE: "Because HUD interprets the FHA to require access for individuals who use service animals, housing providers should initially follow the analysis that DOJ has determined is used for assessing whether an animal is a service animal under the ADA."

Part of the ADA requirements for a service animal, is that the animal always be under the control of its owner.  This means that not only does the animal need to typically be restrained (usually with a leash), but it also means the animal must physically be present at all (or virtually all) times.  This makes sense because an animal obviously can not be of service to you, if the animal is not actually with you.

This means that if someone shows up to initially view the home without their dog, doesn't take their dog with them to work, leaves the dog outside and unattended for hours at a time, or goes out for a night on the town and leaves the dog at home, then it may be the case that the dog no longer qualifies as a service animal under the ADA.  This is how hotels often catch people faking service animals, as the person checks into the rooms, and then immediately leaves for 5hrs and leave the dog behind.  https://www.ada.gov/resources/service-animals-faqs/

Q29. Are hotel guests allowed to leave their service animals in their hotel room when they leave the hotel?

A. No, the dog must be under the handler’s control at all times.

When it comes to fake emotional support or assistance animals, the law says that you can ask for proper documentation from a certified health professional.  There are plenty of scam websites that will send anyone a certificate as long as they pay a fee.  However under no circumstances are you required to accept these types of letters as valid proof of the animals status.  

QUOTE: "Some websites sell certificates, registrations, and licensing documents for assistance animals to anyone who answers certain questions or participates in a short interview and pays a fee. Under the Fair Housing Act, a housing provider may request reliable documentation when an individual requesting a reasonable accommodation has a disability and disability-related need for an accommodation that are not obvious or otherwise known. In HUD's experience, such documentation from the internet is not, by itself, sufficient to reliably establish that an individual has a non-observable disability or disability-related need for an assistance animal. By contrast, many legitimate, licensed health care professionals deliver services remotely, including over the internet.

One reliable form of documentation is a note from a person’s health care professional that confirms a person’s disability and/or need for an animal when the provider has personal knowledge of the individual." END QUOTE

If someone submits BS documentation for an emotional support animal, they are notified that their application is being put on hold until additional valid documentation is submitted.  (and realistically a different fully qualified applicant will be given the lease while the first person tries to obtain additional documents)

My lease allows for a small monthly pet fee, a modest non-refundable pet deposit, and verbiage that if they lie about the status of a service animal, that they will be charged an additional large fee for lying. Once they have lied I assess the large fee, the deposit, and retroactively apply all monthly pet fees. I've never had any pushback on this because they know they're busted. Just make sure you properly document any and all reasons why this is a fake service animal and present the evidence to them up front or you risk a fair housing lawsuit.  The more documentation you have, and over a longer time period you have, the better.

I guess you always risk a lawsuit regardless of how much proof you have, but I have busted several people lying about their service animal, and have never had any pushback once I show them the relevant proof that they never take their animal with them when they leave the house. Additionally in many states its a crime to misrepresent the status of a service animal. In your state of NC its a Class 3 misdemeanor.  It's amazing how many people suddenly stop pretending that the dog is a service animal once they realize that what they did is a crime.   https://news.orvis.com/dogs/fake-service-dog-laws-protecting...

Is it worth trying to bust fake service animals and risk a lawsuit?  Honestly probably not, but I hate people who blatantly flout the rules because they are too cheap to pay an extra $25 bucks a month.

As Joe mentioned, you are paying the interest back into your TSP account, so you aren't "losing" money by paying interest which is very nice. With only a $50 or $100 origination fee, and "essentially" not losing any money to an interest rate, TSP loans are probably one of your cheaper loan options out there.

I just took out a 40+k loan from my TSP to invest in other ventures and it was a very simple and straightforward process. My only problem was that the longest repayment period you can choose is only 60 months, which means that your monthly payments on a 40-50k loan is probably in the $700-$1000 range per month.

This means that it will be extremely likely that you will be cashflow negative from whatever investment you are looking to buy and will need to be able to cover that monthly spread out of pocket.  Having a mortgage payment plus needing to pay an extra $1k/mo towards this TSP loan will crush any cashflow you had hoped for.  

In some cases this can still be a good option, just be cognizant of how high the monthly payments will be due to the short duration that these loans are for.

You would need the help of a decent lawyer to compel companies like AirBNB or VRBO to disclose statements.  But any decent lawyer will know the proper ways to request this data in discovery.  Alternatively you can simply wait a month or two as the person will likely start relisting the property on those websites once they feel like its safe to do so.  They aren't going to let a perfectly good vrbo income stream sit idle for long.

Alternatively, you could try to find the house on various websites such as AirDNA, which should give you a rough approximation of what the property has historically earned.  You don't necessarily need to prove exactly how much the person earned, you only need to prove that the person is lying through their teeth about their income.  Once the judge realizes that the person is purposefully hiding income, its game over for that person and the judge will make sure they start paying up.

Flipping is a job, while rentals is an investment.

With flipping, as soon as you stop flipping, you also stop getting a paycheck.  This means you never actually escape "the rate race".  You have essentially traded your current 9-5 job, for a different job.  Yes, flipping can be lucrative (if you know what you're doing), but it can also be highly risky.  There is also a limit to the number of flips you can do at once and thus it's extremely difficult to scale this business model.

Owning rentals on the other hand is *mostly* passive income that appears in your mailbox each and every month, which allows you to free up your most valuable resource -TIME.  This gives you the ultimate in flexibility in life, which is typically what most people actually want.

Legacy:  If you want to pass something down to your heirs, then flipping is taxed at your highest income rate, so those nice profits get quickly eaten by the IRS.  Meanwhile rentals are one of the biggest tax shelters ever created and you will likely never pay income taxes on the vast majority of your wealth.  Over time this leads to an exponential increase in your overall net worth as opposed to flipping.

If all you did was lease the house, then the seller is under no obligation to actually sell you their house.  Are you sure they still want to sell now that they just got 100k worth of repairs for free?

 Not a single one of those people were tagged and notified.  The only people that get notified is the person you are directly quoting, and any people that YOU specifically tag.  If you reply to a message that has a tagged person embedded in the quote, then that person does NOT get notified.  Just because there is a hyperlink for a name doesn't mean that person was notified.  After nearly 3k posts, the notification process shouldn't come as a surprise to you, and you can easily verify this for yourself since I know that you aren't going to inherently trust me.  

As for etiquette, that's a hilarious point to bring up, and then immediately follow up by calling me "son".  Please don't refer to me as your son moments after you make a verifiably factually incorrect statement...or any other time for that matter.

Pace has created his own community, so are you really surprised when his students that join his program stop posting on BP?  Why would they come back to BP and hear people like yourself continually putting down a program when you admit that you don't know what he teaches or how he teaches it?  Every single one of his students raves about his community, including this poster who says, "But what I received was 10x better: the Subto community."



While I am not a student of his, I am friends with several of his students and have seen their community page.  There is a non-stop supply of deals being done within the community which is all you really need to know about his program.