All Forum Posts by: Greg Scott

Most leases indicate the landlord can access the property with 24 hours notice.  We do that all the time for inspections or to make repairs.  If you missed the window for completing the repairs, that is on you. Your tenant should not have to pay for it.

Joe:

This is Federal Law from HUD. While it is probably well-intended, it is horrible regulation.

We've seen a ton of this.  It seems to me that almost every time you get an ESA request for a restricted breed, it is probably someone just trying to get around breed restrictions and having to pay pet rent.  About 60% of our ESA requests are pitbulls.  (I just don't see how a pitbull could offer more emotional support than a poodle or spaniel.)

I'd encourage you to google HUD guidelines for Emotional Support Animals. They have a ~15 page PDF that describes the rules. READ IT AND KNOW IT.

We have a fairly simple process at all our properties.  We require documentation that the owner requires an ESA.  The evidence they provide must be from a medical professional licensed in our state and the letter must indicate the medical professional has had more than a one-time tele-health "diagnosis".  If the evidence does not pass all of those hurdles, we have a form letter that they have not provided sufficient proof of an ESA. 

Do not explain. If you choose to explain exactly what proof you need, you will soon get it.  There are plenty of people that for $100 will use their medical license and type up a letter that their patient needs an ESA.

Also, if the ESA exhibits any aggressive behavior it can be removed from the property IMMEDIATELY.  We recently had an ESA Great Dane (with all the proper ESA documentation) that bit another resident.  Dog was gone as fast as we could make it happen.

I believe that any losses you have in the stock market could offset rental income.

On the other hand, the better solution is to not have any net rental income.  Through depreciation, particularly accelerated depreciation and bonus depreciation, you can typically offset all rental income such that there is no taxable income from your rental . 

You often only have to worry about tax upon the profitable sale of an asset.  Even then, if you've built up enough carry-forward losses, a nice capital gain may not trigger any taxes to be paid. 

@Nathan Frost  Ironically, I did the majority of my real estate investing in Texas while living in Metro Detroit, and you are doing somewhat the reverse.

I didn't want to get too negative, but suffice to say the City of Detroit* is a very tough market.  The desirability of a neighborhood changes from block to block and crime is generally higher than neighboring suburbs.  You also will face a byzantine, corrupt, and incompetent city government.  You need to have some experienced help on your side to manage the issues.

Listen to @Drew Sygit.  He has been in the trenches in this market and has the battle scars to show for it.  He clearly knows the best course of action in this challenging market.

*PS  Many people do not realize that the City of Detroit is a fairly small portion of Metro Detroit. In 1950 a law was passed that the City of Detroit could not expand its borders like other cities have done.  The Metro Detroit MSA is about 4.3M people and the City of Detroit is only about 600K.  When you compare to cities you know think of Detroit as the old urban core.

I've lived in Metro Detroit for over 50 years but have never had real estate in the City of Detroit itself.  I cannot speak to the Fitzgerald / Marygrove area.

Where in Detroit is this?

Depending on where it is, your biggest concern should be will the new furnace, AC and hot water tank will still be there after you close.

Agree with you. I prefer the forum used for investors with actual questions.

I am not a fan of what you call reverse trolling.

I am not a fan of posts in the forum which have no questions and are basically blog posts. They are essentially the same thing you are describing, but sharing an "expert opinion".

I am also not a fan of how BiggerPockets itself is doing this same thing in the forum by posting blog posts and you don't have the ability to comment on the posting (because some times I disagree with the posting!)

Screwing a 4x4 screen into a roof would probably not show up as an "installation".  This would not be something a roofer would do.

I'd look to see if there were any work orders for cleaning debris off the roof or for clogged downspouts.  It's the guy  cleaning gutters that might do this to make his job easier in the future.

Brody:

Hello from a fellow Michigander.

Prior posts and your profile indicate you are new to RE investing.  I'm hoping to help.

Your question is the kind of question a stock investor asks.  If you live in Macomb County, you already know about as much as you need to know to pick good real estate locations.

When buying a stock, the investor has no control over how well it does and we all pay the same price, so we look for stocks with hot growth prospects.  That is all you can do. In real estate much more money is made by finding great deals and making great deals.

To stick with stocks for a minute, would you be as focused on finding the "hot" location if you could find a way to buy stocks at a 20% discount?  How cool would it be with a little bit of searching and probing if you could buy Microsoft or Chase at 80 cents on the dollar?  We can do that in real estate.

How focused would you be on finding the "hot" location if, with your own efforts, you could make your stock go up in value.  Assume that you could meet with the CEO and give him some direction or write articles about how great the stock was and cause its value to go up.  How great would it be if you KNEW you could make the value of the stock go up?  We can do that in real estate.

So, back to your question.  There are a handful of areas worth avoiding in Macomb County.  Avoid rough parts of town.  Also, it is probably better to avoid the rural areas.  You've now elminted about half of Macomb County.  Everything else is fair game.  Buy where you find the great deals.  Buy the deals that you can improve to raise value.

What your CPA is saying aligns with what I understand to be true.

However, you are just at the start of your journey.  The more you engage in real estate, the more savings you will get.  At first, you won't be able to offset your W2 income with losses, but it is nice when you sell a property at a profit and all the capital gains are wiped out by losses from other properties.

A huge amount of tax savings get unlocked if one of you leaves your W2 job to focus on real estate and you get Real Estate Professional Status (REPS).  Once you have REPS the distinction between passive income (or losses) and active income (W2) disappears and all those tax losses you have been banking can be applied to the W2.

Good luck