All Forum Posts by: Geoffrey Israel

I am in the fortunate situation of: 

• A) High income earner
• B) No family
• C) I can work from anywhere 

I currently own two properties in Washington D.C. and am on the hunt for number three. I can obtain a primary loan with 5% down for ~$700k. All in, I can consider a primary property at or below the $750k depending on HOA/Insurance/Taxes/etc. At it stands, spending $750k in the DMV is NOT the best use of my money. I can travel anywhere and purchase a residential property and convert it to a rental after six months to a year. Some of my ideas are:

• 1) Beach/Mountain property for short term rentals
• 2) A Duplex/Triplex/Quadplex in a metro city (Philly, Cleveland, etc.)
• 3) Single family property in a great area

If you were looking for the best ROI, what would you focus on?

Hi everyone,

I am looking to update my primary insurance, my rental insurance, my auto insurance and get an umbrella policy. How do you go looking for a good brokerage to work with? I cant seem to find any useful information or leads online to get me to the best people.

Hi everyone,

In my county (Arlington, VA), there is a rule that more than four unrelated people cannot live together regardless of the size of the property. I have a five bedroom house that can easily accommodate five renters but I cannot seem to figure out the appropriate angle to take on this position. I called the county and they told me:

A) They will only investigate if a complaint is made

B) The first time is a warning, the second time, you have 30 days to act and respond. 

The person in charge of occupancy told me people tell them: Two people living in the house are related (cousins), that drops the threshold to four unrelated people and they do not ask any more questions. 

What would you do in my situation?

Hi everyone, 

I am considering contesting my property taxes (as I have been told that is generally a good practice to follow). Oddly, I have talked to a few professionals here in Arlington and most of them tell me either contesting is a waste of my time or it is actually going to make me owe more in property taxes... I wanted to see if anyone on BP has experience and can offer me advice. Here are some useful pieces of information:

The townhouse is currently a 3 bed 4 bath with two fireplaces. I plan on converting the basement office into a legal bedroom by adding an egress window and converting the basement living room into another bedroom. Soon the property will be a legal 5/4. Here is my dilemma:

- Is it worth contesting my property taxes in the first place? If not, the rest is moot.

- If I do contest and then need a permit for creating the egress window, I assume the county will swing by and re-inspect the property and treat it as a legal 4/4. This is out of my hands, but I am trying to plan my order of operations.

- My current plan is to remove the hearth, cover the fireplace, contest the property taxes, deal with the egress window, (potentially deal with the county again tax wise if necessary), and then add the 5th bedroom last.

What do you think of my situation? I do rent by the room so this is for sure the best path forward for me. Also, what other things can I do to lower the value of my property on paper come contest time besides removing a fireplace? 

Thank you in advanced!