All Forum Posts by: Kumar Tummalapalli

Hi @Cal C  -- when you look at the responses , look at who they are , for ex an agent here , answered favorable to the agent , but make note that all his assumptions are infavor of the agent . So watchout for biased answers .

First point - If you think from a common sense / ethics point of view , it is clearly shady . Ofcourse the full details will make a difference. Some circumstances will make this fall in the grey area , and some will make it outright illegal. But you would only know that it is outright illegal - if you know the interaction between agent and the owner .

So there is no way for anybody to conclusively say whether it is illegal ., But whats wrong in reporting this to the board , you are not saying he acted unethically , you are just providing them your interpretation and why you found it fishy . Its their responsibility to review and make final decision . Now I dont know if the boards review will be comprehensive or name sake , But it is definitely worth it .

If I were , I would not try to deal with this first agent as a compromise , especially as you dont have a positive feeling , there is a very good chance he could screw you in other ways . But if it is an awesome deal , then I will let your business mind explore further

Wow .. 300 fr countertops with some sweat equity , If time permits can you detail more. Like if you use a wet saw or dry saw . How do you take measurements and make sure that the slab fits right . I am scared that I won't be accurate and end up wasting a slab

All very good suggestions ... I have been in the same stage of researching for better prices on various building materials

1. Building supplies auctions - these usually don't seem to have good info on the websites and you have to go to them physically . 

2.  Clearances and sales in all the stores such as Menards , homedepot , lowes . Ofcourse online stores such as wayfair , houzz and others also might have good deals

3. OOPs sections in the big box stores : These might not always be advertised online, but especially things such as paint ,tiles ...might have pretty good deals

4. Appliances : Sears outlet seems to be the one beating all the prices . 

5. Habitat for humaity , restore and these go by different names in different places - And also sometimes you would get new items here 

6. Floor model pieces : there are some sites where they sell floor model 

7. Facebook market place / craigslist : Hit and miss and more time taking

8. Specialty stores :   Again specialty store doesn't mean better price , so have to pretty much validate the prices and quality like anywhere else . some online specialty stores , who have the worlds horrible websites have such good deals . 

Not directly material related :

1. Looking for better labor prices : You will hear "you get what you pay for"  mentioned everywhere . But the reality is sometimes you get , sometimes you won't . Whether you hire the highest bidder or the lowest bidder , you will need to have a process in place to identify and handle this situation  . 

2. In some cases investing in better tools helps , especially the ones which would cut down your learning curve . But the challenge here is to know what is the right way to do certain things and that is not always easy . 

One caution :

1. If you are not a professional flipper with many projects : One important suggestion is that sometimes sites such as buildersdirect - have items marked significantly higher than lowes/homedepot . So if you have time , compare costs and just don't assume that as you got a good deal on X , you might get a good deal on Y

wow .. this was going through my mind , not necessarily to do it myself , but atleast have everything ready for a good handyman to train and do it

@Jim K.  usually I can find the prefab slabs pretty inexpensive ( 112 by 26 , 2 cmor 3 cm ). But I was stuck at thinking

-- How do we transport it to site ? I think we need A frame and and some dolly specifically for slabs . I think you might be using a more simple - no non sense approach . So thought I should ask

-- Now that we have the slab , cutting to size , and cutting the sink cut out are the next things to deal with . I saw lots of videos using a 1100 rpm grinder with a specialized 4.5 inch wheel 

what would you suggest to make this cutting manageable ? 

By the way , i was also looking at thin slabs which weight less and easy to cut , they should be installed on plywood  , but provide the same benefits

other options I considered are Porcelain slabs / corian , its very thin , but it looks like there are no price savings , but atleast they could be transported easily , if in case you find a good deal a little farther from your place

Hi @Jennifer Barlow Congrats on your purchase and you seem have made some progress

I think you already moved in , but if not , I would suggest to make alternative arrangements for your kids school and occupy the property for an year or so .  I feel its better to do this , than deal with all the red tape associated . If its an absolute necessity than I would suggest to reach out to experts like Michael . And certainly i dont think its "illegal" that is little exaggeration.

Hi @Michael Facchini - lets say she has already occupied the property and its been 6 months ,  can she refi in to a loan which doesnt have occupancy requirements . Then it will give her the flexibility and she might or might not move out after the refi

@Brent Coombs I think the rationale behind making home mortgage interest as tax deductible is to encourage buying homes . Residential sales seem to have a great impact on the economy , as we know the biggest reason for 2008 debacle is sub prime loans for real estate .

Talking from vague memory here , the boox tax loop holes of real estate investing , has a very good explanation of why governments encourage home buying through incentives and how a consumer can take advantage of this .

I also have to tell one important thing I learned about the recent tax changes , so I don't mislead anyone in to thinking that buying a home has great tax benefits for everyone . The  stndard deduction for married couple has been increased to 24000 , So most middle class households won't get any benefit by itemizing their tax returns . 

This is a high level summary :

https://www.fool.com/taxes/2018/12/30/5-tax-deductions-that-could-save-you-big-bucks-in.aspx

@Elliot Rudmann I think @Account Closed did some good analysis on how many lots would qualify. His website is one of the best (for chicago city)  interms of this sort of data and analysis .

@Brent Coombs  

Yeah , I misspoke . @Basit Siddiqi summed up pretty nicely . 

I understand in case of owner occupied , we could take mortgage interest and property tax as tax deductions .

With rental property , I think all these will be claimed as expenses and so you might end up paying tax on any net cash flow . If net cash flow is negative then , may be in some cases , rene can show as loss and tax deduct . 

It also look like , itemizing might not be a great strategy , with the recent change in limits . 

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Regarding husband and wife buying separately , its just to utilize schemes where the benefits are for only firs time home buyer , If both are on the title for first house , then with just one property both of them are using up their "first time buyer advantage" . But if they do it in one by one , they might be able to make better use of this "first time buyer advantage "

For rene ..

One learning experience for me was to go directly to the source of these loans , ( govnmt websites - I know its painful to read 50 page guides with financial mumbo jumbo ) and then interview mortgage brokers , because most of them would be specialized in only certain type of loans and would say "can't be done "

@Brandon Metzler got it , I will explore those options

The important thing to note is that ..in oakpark the lot has to be more than 6500 sq ft , is that right? If so there is no point in even making this change , as houses around 800k will mostly fall in to that category and I don't know if the SFH consumer at that level would even consider a coach house and even if they build they will likely use it as a man cave or some sort of recreation

I don't know if this was done just to fill the pockets of some consultants and so on ... Anyway ,,, atleast something has happened