All Forum Posts by: Garrett Blanchard

@Garrett Blanchard It's best to see exactly what's involved for the town should the park be fixed up. This will give you an idea of exactly what you need to do and the costs involved. Also, you'll have to look to see if the town wants the old units fixed up or moved off the property to be replaced with new units. Right now, you're in the information gathering stage so just get as much info as you can and work from there. Best of luck with things! 

I would recommend a Profit First certified bookkeeper, I have been so happy with ours and because they work primarily with Real Estate professionals, they are doing everything that I need to do my taxes properly.  I also recommend using Cost Segregation Analysis 

Bookkeeping can be done for two purposes. It has to be done for tax paying purposes. The balance sheet that will result from this would have the property as an asset, plus any improvements that have to be depreciated (like a new roof, for example.) The dollar values assigned for these assets are what you pay for them, not what you guess, suppose, theorize that they are worth today. The IRS will not care about what it's worth 'today' until the 'today' that you actually sell it and know for sure that that's what it's worth. Depreciation will get included (subtracted) each year (I always date that on December 31.)  You, or your bookkeeper, or accountant should be keeping track and their software can easily print a balance sheet.

Another purpose of bookkeeping is to give you an idea of what you're worth. The main things that will change from what I've stated above is that your properties have (hopefully) gone up in value. In my experience, banks are interested in my best estimate of how much equity I have in my properties. Another difference is that the properties probably have not gone down in value as the depreciation calculation assumes. So remove depreciation. 

I only produce the balance sheet using the bookkeeping required by the IRS. I can look at it and easily add an amount I think the properties have appreciated, subtract out the depreciation and get a rough idea of what I'm really worth (financially speaking.) 

@Garrett Blanchard who do you use for the ach payments? What is the fee?

The tenant set it up directly with their bank. The tenant made up a “password” for me to tell the bank when they called me and then I gave them my banking info. I never take cash or personal checks. Always want to make sure there is proof on both sides.