All Forum Posts by: Debbie J. Skora

I believe there is a misunderstanding about what your accountant told you.  What she(he) meant was that you cannot write off your depreciation expense,as you will not have enough income to offset the loss, especially if you are married filing single.  My first bit of advice woud be to not file as MFS, it is the most disadvantaged filing status there is!  However, if you must file MFS, you will be able to roll forward your passive losses resulting from depreciation (or expenses) to a future tax year when you do have enough passive income to offset the passive loss.  It could be a year where your expenses are very low, or even when you sell and have a gain.  However, do not be confused that you can evade depreciation recapture by not depreciating your property.  That is absolutely NOT correct.  You will have to recapture whatever depreciation would have been allowable over your business use of the property, whether or not you actually took that depreciation loss.  Your accountant can explain this further!

Hi All,  I have ten properties in Lufkin, including a small commercial building and a short term rental.  I'm looking to sell one of them - a 2 bedroom 1 bath thats rented for $850 with a lease in place until next July.  Open to seller financing options.

I look them up on Facebook.  People who project a loving, grateful personality with cute pics of their dogs and/or kids tend to be favorable, IMO, while those who have pics of their middle finger in the air and F*** this and F**** that I tend to pass on by!

Why would that be legal, unless the remaining tenant breaks the lease?  As I mentioned, the lease states joint and severable responsibility.  I’m wondering if I should get something in writing from the tenant who left, terminating her claim to tenancy or her part of the deposit, etc?

In one of my rentals, the couple broke up and one moved out with the child back to the state they originally came from.  Lease states that all parties are jointly and severally responsible for the obligations under the lease, and that any refunds following termination of the lease will be made out to all parties on the lease.  The remaining tenant has also not paid rent yet - and was always on time before the break-up.  Should I get a written notice from the tenant who vacated?  Should I re-execute the lease with the remaining tenant (I believe she qualifies on her own).  Does anyone have insights on this?  BTW, property is in Texas.

Yeah, The four units (two of them are commercial) have terms that end NLT April of next year, some as soon as Feb.  All of the rents are WAY below market and if they aren't on board for paying market rent and having reasonable deposits, etc. then I'm not sorry to see them go.  I just hope nothing happens between now and then!

We are inheriting tenants in four of the units in our next purchase. I know that we must uphold their leases as long as they are valid. My question is what ability we have to enforce certain “policies” such as requirement to maintain renter’s insurance(their leases don’t require it) prescribed method of payment (they currently deliver cash to the landlord’s local bank) or increasing their deposit (some are as low as $100, and one tenant has no deposit at all)?

If she's a prostitute (or a drug dealer) and your spy is only seeing two different "clients", then she's not very successful at either.  It's also possible she's a piano teacher or a tutor, or counselor.  If she's not a problem tenant, don't fix what ain't broken!

@Brad Piper actually, very few renters go through an agent (unless you have luxury rentals). List on the MLS, but don't forget Craigslist, Zillow, and Facebook Marketplace. And take great photos, or pay someone else to take great photos! In order to get the best tenants, you want to have your choice of applicants.

@Shon Ben-Kely your CPA is correct. You can leverage your property all day long, and most investors do. The IRS only cares about your gain. Which, to simplify, is the difference between the value when you bought and the value when you sold. You also must reinvest all the cash, or that will be considered boot, but that is only part of the requirement. The replacement property must also be of equal or greater value than what you relinquished in the exchange(the sold property). So if you sold for $1.2M, you must buy for at least $1.2M.