All Forum Posts by: Eugene Fedotov

Except for the Capital region, most of the upstate is slowly dying. There is no economy. Just look at the population loss in NYS overall and the counties w the biggest loss. There a a couple of college towns where you can do student housing.  As far as an eviction process concerned, not much will depend on an attorney. 1st, “Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019” made it a very difficult and prolonged process. Then, Covid eviction moratorium made it impossible. And now courts are backed up. 

You need to talk to CPA familiar with self-rental rules explained in Regs. Sec. 1.469-2T(f)(6) that covers the treatment of self-rental transactions. Basically your income from a passive activity is treated as nonpassive income because the owner materially participates in the operating-lessee entity. A lot of CPA's are not familiar with this issue and prepare tax returns wrong. IRS then catches it and initiates an audit. This rule was put in place to level a field between  taxpayers who place the real estate used in their trade or business in a separate entity and the taxpayers who retain the real estate in the same entity as the business operations. 

if anyone is looking to rent to Sec 8 tenants, read this article. I personally experienced this issue and had to evict a few good tenants after apts had failed an annual inspection and we could not reschedule it. And that was even before Covid.

https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-section-8-landlord-housing-choice-vouchers/42541225

Before you get involved w upstate read about population loss in NYS. New York State in the last two years has seen a sharp drop in its population, losing more than 400,000 people.

Read "Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019". And you can get the latest updates https://hcr.ny.gov/rent-laws-updates.

I would go w 4plex. It is 1 roof, 1 sewer line, 1 closing cost, 1 mortgage, tax and insurance (cuts down on time), easier to find management company and 1 LLC.

My experience is in the north. I always go with asphalt roofing system if I can. My preference is 1st  w torch applied then cold applied then self adhesive. After installation apply white coating. Make sure you are using a reputable roofing company. I tried to use a rubber rooftop system a few times. Was not impressed for various reasons. Although I know people who swear by it.

Quote from @Derek Brickley:

Quote from @Eugene Fedotov:

Quote from @Derek Brickley:

Quote from @Eugene Fedotov:

It may be a good idea as long as your tenants do not know you are the owner.

 How would you accomplish that?  Hire a property manager?

Take the property in either LLC or living trust name. And you are just a property manager. This way you can always blame " the owner" for anything. The tenants will not be taking their anger on you since you are on their side and it is the blood sucking penny pinching owner making you do something. Plus there are some tax and asset protection advantages. On the flip side, your mortgage and insurance cost is higher.

Can you vest a property in an LLC with a house hack? Most gov and conventional programs don't allow that I thought??

At this point, you are not house hacking. You will be paying rent to LLC like any other tenant. Basically you will take money from one pocket and put it in the other. You will be obtaining a commercial mortgage and the bank will go through it's underwriting process with an assumption that 1 apt is vacant at the closing.

Quote from @Derek Brickley:

Quote from @Eugene Fedotov:

It may be a good idea as long as your tenants do not know you are the owner.

 How would you accomplish that?  Hire a property manager?

Take the property in either LLC or living trust name. And you are just a property manager. This way you can always blame " the owner" for anything. The tenants will not be taking their anger on you since you are on their side and it is the blood sucking penny pinching owner making you do something. Plus there are some tax and asset protection advantages. On the flip side, your mortgage and insurance cost is higher.

It may be a good idea as long as your tenants do not know you are the owner.