All Forum Posts by: Erin Mullaney

I want to do STR to pay for my mortgage - kind of like house hacking but for a vacation rental.

 We literally did nothing to set him off. We had long phone calls at the beginning of our business relationship - and he was very relaxed and didn't rush us off the phone, we didn't pester him.

FYI for those in the Durham/Chapel Hill area, we went with Lea Enterprises in Hillsborough. We're all set now. They are doing my husband's business taxes and our personal taxes. I am no longer running my own business (I'm W2 now). 

https://www.leaenterprises.com

I did not ask him to spend hours on the phone with me! I think I had like 2 or 3 calls over the course of a few years where we spent 30-45 minutes each. So sum that up to several hours. I think he had just started working for himself so he had that time in the beginning. It's not something I ever assumed he had time for. I didn't pester him via phone/email. The ghosting happened after we simply asked for our personal taxes to be completed in a timely manner - giving him all the materials in early Spring, being put off continually until we finally asked for our money back in late July.   

 None of the places we are considering will need work to get started. We definitely don't have contracting budget, but maybe several years down the line! 

P.S. 

We found a local accountant who has been awesome at picking up the pieces for us. It's a mother-daughter team, black-owned business, in a small town next to our small town. Thanks for all the DM offers for accounting, but we are all set now!

Thank you so much! I was searching via my phone this morning so maybe that's why I couldn't find him. That's him! I'm going to leave an honest review. 

I found an accountant in 2017 after I started contracting (leaving my W2 job to work for myself). He was FANTASTIC: he spent hours on the phone with me and answered all my questions. I gave him 5 stars on Thumbtack. He also did our personal taxes, for me and my husband, each year, in addition to being my business accountant.

Fast forward to 2022. We send him our personal documents for our taxes, everything by March 2022 or so. He sends us the doc to sign that says he'll do our taxes etc. We sign it and pay him to do our personal taxes. He stops replying to our emails. We email him about twice a month. He emails us back sporadically "I'll file these next week!" etc. In July, we ask him for a refund, we'll just file our taxes with someone else. He says, no refund, but I'll complete them now and is very snarky and mean (not AT ALL like he was in 2017, complete personality change!) So ok, he sends us the draft of our taxes for state and federal and we sign it. He says he's now cutting ties with us. Ok, whatever. (We are very chill people, trust me, this is all him).

We still haven't received our refunds as of September (after a supposed July filing) so we check in with IRS and our local state. He never filed anything. So not only was he a total jerk to us over email, he also never filed our taxes. So now we're out a few hundred dollars (his fee) and filing with someone else. 

Anything else we can do? I looked him up on Thumbtack and updated my review to one star. I found a similar review from yesterday that he did the same thing to someone else. But he's not really on Thumbtack actively now and I can't find him listed anywhere else. He does have a website: yourtechcpa.com but I see no other way to review him.

I'm considering buying an apartment, 2BR-4BR with 10% down, second home mortgage, in the 450K-550K range. 

Some stats:

- We probably won't be able to find too many vacation renters in the off season. Season starts in June.

- We have about 70K in savings (closer to 80K once our tax refund comes for 2021, late filing)

- We've never been STR landlords before, total newbies.

- I really just want to be able to cover the mortgage with the rental, don't need positive cash flow, 0 is ok. We plan to visit it in the off season each year, just at the season's end when the area is still warm and nice but with way fewer vacationers. It will be awesome to have a place to go each year.

- Our realtor has access to airdna and is running numbers on how much we would likely make. I'm not getting an account yet because it's expensive and he doesn't mind doing that research for us!

Should I wait until late spring to make this purchase? The good thing about purchasing in the off season is it might be a quieter market. Suggestions on finding vacation renters for the off season?