All Forum Posts by: Cody Fenske

 Hey Tim, congratulations! Sounds exciting. I'm happy to help and answer whatever questions you have. Just let me know. You can take it to private massaging if you want to avoid posting about it.

 Hey Leanna,

The answer may very slightly based on your situation and as always, make sure to talk to a few people at minimum making it very clear that you are shopping lenders. They will absolutely do what they can to keep your business and that often results in them buying down your rate a bit on their own dime. Idaho Central Credit Union tends to be the lowest rates I see, but I know some very hungry lenders who may go even lower by doing the loan for almost nothing just to get the business. Keep in mind, there is a point of diminishing returns and you may hurt yourself by making the rate all that matters. Also, make sure to consider the closing costs and be prepared for lenders to make the rate very low by building it into your costs or even your loan total. I deal with all of these local lenders daily, so if you want a full list of specific names, let's take it to messaging where I can go really detailed for you.

Hey, welcome Heather! That's a big "why", very exciting stuff! How has the journey gone so far? Have you pulled off your first deal yet? If no, what was it and how'd it turn out? I live on the Idaho side but I work in WA too so I can tell you without a doubt, you have some great opportunities there! I wish our Idaho returns looked as good as there haha

 No worries, we'll continue communication in DM. 

 I wouldn't jump too hard at that home. It may be great, but shoot me a DM with the address and I'll run comps if you want. I know of several homes for cheaper so even though the price sounds great, that's not an unheard of price for Spokane area homes.

Smart! I agree. Although the Washington returns are attractive, the politics are scary as an investor. What kind of return are you looking for to make sense of the purchase? I can shoot you some good ones that you may or may not have seen.

 Hey Casey,

Sounds exciting! I live in CDA but I'm up that way often since I work there. I've had more and more clients go up that way over the last year due to the affordability. It's probably a really good market for flipping since you can still pick up stuff cheaper and once done up nicely and properly marketed you can sell pretty darn well. Are flips the only thing your trying to do?

Hi Eric, I'll leave the accounting question to the accountant. However, the property tax exemptions are in my world, so I'll chime in there. As people mentioned, the homeowner exemption is only if it is your primary residence, but it is a reduction to the taxes that you may not get and there is not an increased rate for you being out of state. May homes are already owned by someone out of state or used as a rental and none of those have the exemption either so you would see no difference if you purchased it. The exemption actually removes up to $125,000 of your assessed value or 50%, whichever comes first. It is important to know, this is on your assessed value, not your market value and that is where things get really neat with Idaho. Idaho is a non-disclosure state so the government has a very difficult time properly assessing property values and therefore the assessed value is often far less than market value, especially on older homes. I often find that the assessed value is dramatically under market value and it's not uncommon for me to see a $600,000 home that is assessed in the 300 or 400s. If you have your home assessed at 400k and you apply the exemption, you will now reduce the taxable value to 275k. That's why you cannot set a general rule. You need to handle it case by case since some people voluntarily disclose the value to the government thinking they have to, while others don't. This causes a huge range of taxes even between similar properties. Also, there are other exemptions as well that don't require it to be your main residence which likely won't be applicable for you, but they may. Like Stephan said, some agents are terrible and don't properly input the tax amount and exemption into the MLS and therefore the information doesn't syndicate to other sites. However, any of us agents worth our salt will vet that for our clients when buying so it won't be much of a problem for you. If you ever see properties and want to know the details, shoot me a message and I'll send you the current info. It isn't hard for me to pull up the current assessor records showing both tax amounts and current exemptions. Although I cover the panhandle from Lewiston Idaho to Canada, I can pull records for almost anywhere in the state.

Yeah, when there is more to consider then the simple cash flow, Idaho is still a beautiful option. If you want to be close enough to people for a social life, near Coeur d'Alene would be the place. Not in Coeur d'Alene because the prices for anything with land sounds like it'd be out of budget, but there are a ton of smaller towns and places in the county that you can easily drive in for the social stuff and still buy something that checks most or all of your boxes at a reasonable price. Also, I think it'd be good to hear the people you want to be surrounded by because that would likely play a role. I can make a guess, but we can take it to private messages to go really in-depth if you want.

Hey, I'm from Idaho so I figured I'd chime in. Idaho is incredible and frankly one of the only areas I feel safe investing due to the reasons you mentioned. There is no doubt about it that you can find higher returns in other areas, but I just get nervous about states that protect tenants too much and treat all landlords like they are rich and greedy vampires trying to suck every dime out of the little guy. Coming from a background in California law enforcement to now working as a Realtor in Idaho, I'm always amazed to see the justice system support the landlords here because in California we would just wish you luck and walk away. Im not sure which areas you were looking at in Idaho, but I'm very familiar with my service areas which include the entire panhandle and I'm happy to answer any questions if you want to dig deeper. I'd just warn that you may be disappointed with the returns when comparing us to other states. You are mostly trading out for the piece of mind and the appreciation potential if you came here. Also, important side note, property taxes here are super low generally, not only because the tax rate is low, but Idaho is also a non-disclosure state so the government doesn't get to use data to accurately assess your property and as long as you are wise enough to avoid telling them what you paid, your property will often be assessed far lower than the market value. As a result it's pretty rare for single family home rentals to be taxed more than 2k a year.