All Forum Posts by: Eric Sato

Zachary, Sean. Thank you both for your prompt responses! This is very helpful and I think things are a lot clearer now in my head (still with many questions of course, but its a start). 

We started to log hours using REPSTRACKER, but you feel manual tracking in a spreadsheet is just as good / better? 

I would love any resource you may have to share! 

Hi! My wife and I are hoping to close on a SFH soon with the intent on doing an STR! I have a tax question / real estate professional question.

I myself have a W2 job and my wife is a stay-at-home mom (no income). My thought was that it would be best if she does the primary STR work and log her hours and ensure that she spends more time on the STR than I do (at least officially logged hours... since I will most likely always be thinking about the STR... haha).

I am trying to find the most relevant information for our strategy to ensure we get the best joint tax deduction options against MY W2 income.

Is the following strategy correct?

- I maintain my W2 income job

- My wife does the primary amount of work on the STR and logs 150+ hours in a calendar year (I see 100 hours listed in some sites, and 150 in others...)

- We file our taxes as joint / married

- Her tax deduction benefits from qualifying as a real estate professional from the STR can offset my W2 income.

- She can use REPSTRACKER for this

I then of course have a plethora of other questions in terms of book keeping (tracking all purchases etc...) but I will save those for another time unless someone has the best offline resources I can start to learn from? 

Cheers!

Thank you everyone for the perspectives! 

We are now looking at buying a potential Fourplex and or large house with multiple rooms. My Nephew is a student at University of Utah and a competitive climber, and he has a lot of climbing friends that would live with him.

- Buy a house / 4 plex, take one of the rooms / units, and rent out the rest

- Family can just come and stay with the Nephew when needed. 

- Build out the equity on the house while living at reduced price (hopefully) due to charged rent. 

Hi Jasmine. I have been looking at some of those options. I was going to avoid that because I am 42 with a wife and 2 elementary school kids, and although I have the motivation and free-spirit to do that, my wife is quite conservative and wants that nice dream house =) Which I definitely want to provide. Haha. 

I was looking for potential Fourplex / Duplexes that are in good condition and living there for a year perhaps however. 

Thanks everyone. My interest in SLC is that I have family there and want to visit often, it is where the USA Climbing Training Center is which gets lots of visitors etc...  I was hoping for a place there that I can market to certain activities groups (Climbing, Skiing, Hiking), while also having a place for my family to be able to use when visiting for various events. 

I am reading that Salt Lake City is a harder city to crack in the STR game... Any ideas on recent strategies / paths to get an STR going up in Salt Lake City. Note, I am looking to do this as non-owner occupied... I live in Colorado but want an STR in Salt Lake City!

So I am very new to financing. 

Let's say I am going to buy a SFH for a STR.

- I plan to do all the work for the STR etc...

- But I have a family member (Brother or Parent etc...) who is interested in putting some money into it.

- Total start up costs (Down payment + closing costs, furnishing, getting started on Airbnb etc...) = 200k USD

- Family member wants to put in 50k USD of the start up costs, but doesn't want to be on the hook for the mortgage. 

How would you structure that deal? What is typical? Do they only get a portion of the equity of the house? Do they get a portion of the mortgage? Or is it a portion of the all in business venture? 

Any ideas?

Thanks, Nate! 
I guess it comes down to whether or not I can save for both - down payment and costs for my personal residence as well as an investment property. I wanted to be very Dave Ramsay style on my personal property... high down payment (30-5% and only 10 or 15 year loan). 

Hi, I posted quite a bit a year back or so about my interesting situation. I lived in Japan for 20 years and was going to start building my USA based portfolio from Japan. I now actually live in Colorado full time and am looking to get started. 

My big question is... I don't even have my own personal residence yet (live with my parents, and proud of it!). My goal is to buy my family home (wife and 2 kids) in about a year, but don't want to wait a year to get started on Real Estate investing if I don't have to. 

I am most interested in STR as I love the idea of active management and playing the hospitality game. I used to be in marketing and my wife is an interior designer (freelance).

I am saving for my own personal residence as I have never owned before, but don't really know the different consequences I may face if I do an investment property first (concern related to my debt-to-income etc...) and how it may affect me trying to get a personal mortgage later. 

Any general advice would be appreciated!! 

While you are getting answers to that question... can I ask why you have an LLC per rental property? I have seen that before but not sure why (I am newbie).