All Forum Posts by: Coleman Nelson

We are looking for recommendations for a good alternative to the tax accountant our company is currently working with. Our accountant has been reliable in completing our company tax returns, but we are looking for someone who is more responsive and can provide more. I am a CPA myself, but my experience is more in audit and corporate accounting and reporting...not as much in tax.

We are a small, but growing company with high ambitions. We are looking for a company or individual who can not only prepare our taxes, but also be an adviser to guide us along the way. We want someone who can advise us on entity structure and tax strategies as we continue to acquire and self-manage apartment buildings. We also anticipate syndication in our near future and would like someone with experience in that area.

Our preference is someone local to Cincinnati, Ohio or Northern Kentucky, but we are open to someone remote if they are a good fit. If you have anyone that you have used and would recommend, we would really appreciate it. Or, if you think you would be a good fit for what we are looking for, please message me.

Thanks for your help!

Hey everyone. We will be closing on a 42-unit apartment complex with a $2.15M purchase price here in Cincinnati, Ohio within the next month. We are considering having a cost segregation study done to accelerate depreciation. I'm familiar with a couple companies that do them, but wanted to see if the community members have any companies that they would be willing to recommend or not recommend based on good or bad experiences they had with them.

Also, does it make a big difference if the company is local versus national?

Thanks in advance for all of your help!

Do you use any property management software? We use Buildium, and they provide a very basic website and online applications along with tenant screening. Background checks are done through TransUnion's SmartMove for $15. I think if you were to use SmartMove outside of Buildium it is $25 per screening.

Buildium is $40 per month for up to 40 units, then an additional $10 for 10 more units up until a certain amount, then it gets a little cheaper. It is definitely worth every penny. There may be better options out there, but this has worked well for us.

Also check out Valley Central bank. They have been great for us and really easy to work with. 

Hi @Andrew Nickell. Best of luck to you and I hope you find success! As far as finding capital for your first flip, I think your best option starting out may be to use your maintenance skills to pick up jobs on the side to do on nights and weekends and save up money to fund your first deal or two yourself.

My business partners started out in a similar situation as you. They started with handyman and maintenance work for an investor while in high school. Then they started doing kitchen and bath renovations for other people while they earned their degrees from UC. Once they were able to save up enough money from their renovation jobs, they bought their first cheap rental that they renovated themselves. They kept working and saving up money. A few years ago they stopped the kitchen and bath remodels and devoted all of their time to the rentals, and started flipping houses over the past year. We now own 22 rental units and have a 42 unit apartment building under contract that we are funding the 25% down payment from the money that they have saved up over the years.

Moral of the story: do not let a lack of access to capital keep you from investing. Work hard, save up money, and get some experience, and then it will be much easier finding people who want to invest with you. Best of luck, and let me know if there's anything I can help you with.

I should be able to attend.

It's hard being a judge when only hearing the story from one perspective, but I'll throw in my 2 cents.

Landlords can recoup damages for things above normal wear and tear. According to the IRS, carpet has a useful life of 5 years. So you may have a pretty good argument that after 5 years of normal wear and tear the carpet would need to be replaced anyway.

For the water leak, I have no idea. Does it say anything in the lease about cleaning gutters? We clean our rental property gutters on a regular basis and don't trust the tenants to do it for multiple reasons. I would think she would have to be able to prove that you knew about it and didn't report it. A good landlord would be in the property quarterly for maintenance inspections and would have caught it.

Hey @Mark Nienaber, welcome to the site! There's a great network of investors here in the greater Cincy area. We have a monthly meetup...follow the thread below to get updates on when the next one will be. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/205197-cincinnati-biggerpockets-monthly-meetup

Welcome @Crystal Warner! There is a great network forming in our local market, so make sure you set your keyword alerts so you are notified of what's going on around here. I live in NKY, but all of our rentals are in northern cincy. I'm sure at some point we will expand across the rest of the area and make our way down here to NKY. Best of luck with all of your goals this year!

Check out Sundance Property Management in Cincy.