All Forum Posts by: Ehab Shoukry

@Linda Weygant

Thanks that's very helpful.  Do you add depreciation as an expense in quickbooks or is that something your accountant handles during taxes?

Hi all -

I'm quickly getting more comfortable with quickbooks but as I get better I want to continue to learn more.  Currently I'm entering my mortgage payments into three accounts: principal, interest, and escrow.  I'm confused when in QB am I supposed to enter the transactions for when taxes and insurance are paid out of escrow.  Would these be journal entries?  I currently see my escrow account growing but it eventually will go down when my mortgage company pays taxes and insurance and I'm not sure how that gets reflected in QB.

I'm also not clear when I get my mortgage interest statement at the end of the year, what am I supposed to do with that in QB.  Do I just compare it to the mortgage interest expense I created in QB?

My last question is around depreciate expense.  Is this something I enter in QB at the end of the year or does my accountant just do this when he does my taxes?  I wasn't sure if I actually have to account for this in QB.

Thanks for all the future help.

Ehab

I do see the loans setup in QB but I'm curious when I apply the monthly mortgage payments, how does QB know which of my loans to reduce the principal of?  Is it based on the property class?  I would assume I would enter the mortgage payment and select the property class and it knows to reduce the balance on that loan, right?

Thanks,

Ehab

Hi all -

I recently hired a bookkeeper to setup Quickbooks for me for my rental business. She entered 8 months of transactions for me and told me that for mortgage payments, she created a category of "Unallocated mortgage payments." The reason for this is that it becomes a hassle to properly allocate the PITI portions that come in every month with a mortgage payments.

However, she did mention at the end of the year when I get my mortgage interest statement that I would have to reconcile this.  I'm wondering if this is how others are handling this and how that reconciliation works?

Right now all of my mortgage payments for all of my home loans are going into this one category.

Thanks,

Ehab

Hi all -

Has anyone used Bank of America Express Invoicing to collect rent from your tenants?  You basically can setup recurring invoices to your tenants and they can pay using any bank, debit or credit card.  It costs $10 a month for 20 transactions.

I am currently using Rentpayment.com through mysmartmove.com and they charge 10% per transaction--pretty hefty fees.  Plus every time I get a new property and new tenant, I have to add the property which is a 5 day process and then I can add the tenant.  I also would say that the user interface on the property manager side is very clunky.  

It seems like there should be an easier option than this.

Thanks,

Ehab

Dang man!  I didn't even realize people were capable of that and you're a great guy so that makes it worse.  I hope you find him and get your money back and thanks for spreading the word about this crook.

Ehab

@Nick Giordano I definitely plan on graduating to multi-family some time in the future.  The main reason will simply be to accelerate building my portfolio and getting to that income that I'm looking for.

In retrospect I would not do a whole lot of things differently.  There were certainly things that I did that I didn't enjoy (i.e. wholesaling) but that was helpful in learning how to find and negotiate deals.  I think there will be some things along the way that you may not particularly like but as long as you remind yourself that these are temporary steps along the way to bigger and better things, you'll maintain your motivation and perspective.

Ten rentals is aggressive but that was also my intention.  I wanted a goal that I thought would be difficult to reach and I honestly didn't think I would get there but I'm glad I am proving myself wrong.

I know people debate low income housing and perhaps my strategy will change in the future, but I always keep an exit strategy in mind.  Worst case scenario, I hate it and I end up outsourcing the whole thing to a property management company.  The bottom line...I will succeed no matter what and I believe that's the mindset you have to have.

Thanks,

Ehab

Is There a lot of setup needed with QBO or do they have a property manager template that lets you hit the ground running? Also looks like there are three different plan options with different pricing. Will the basic suffice or do I need to go a step up?

Thanks. 

Ehab

@Doug McLeod I definitely understand where people are coming from on the lower price point houses but here are some of my thoughts.

The first two houses I purchased in the mid $50k range, the tenants I have are young couples who are making the step up from apartment living.  They are computer savvy so they are all paying rent through my online service so I don't knock on doors or get checks in the mail.

Of the six houses I recently purchased in bulk, four have Housing Voucher (section 8) tenants where the city pays 75% to 95% of the rent.  In two cases the city pays $950 and the tenant only pays $50! These tenants have lived in these houses for three to five years and are long term tenants.  When I spoke to the investor who I bought the houses from his explanation was, "that the tenants cannot afford to move.  It's too expensive."  He had virtually no turnover and in one case, one of his elderly tenants passed away and their children took over leasing the house.

I'm sure others have had very different and negative experiences but this has been my experience so far.

Thanks,

Ehab

@Paige Clarke I would say that having a mentor helped me in multiple ways along my journey.

First...where to invest?  Houston is a big place and knowing what areas are good for investing and which ones to stay away from is important.

Second...how to find deals? My particular investor recommended farming MLS to start out. For those who aren't ready to spend a lot of money on direct mail, MLS can be a viable option depending on where you live. I hear many investors say that it's too competitive but there are deals out there if you are persistent. Really the worst thing that can happen trying MLS is that a bunch of realtors will tell you no!

Third...evaluating deals?  My biggest hurdle was fear that I would buy a house that was a bad deal.  I think that is many people's fear.  Having someone just say the words, "this is a great deal" relieved so much pressure for me.

There are so many curve balls and speed bumps you run into when trying to find and put together a deal that it was a huge advantage to be able to call my mentor and say, "the sellers agent called me and said this...what do you think?" or "they countered back at $65k, what should I do?" In the end, I would get advice on how to handle these objections and pick up little strategies on how to overcome them.

Hope this helps.

Ehab