All Forum Posts by: Glen Sonnenberg

The panels are holding up pretty well.  From what I can tell they drop about 1% per year in efficiency depending on how clean you keep them which is a challenge in Phoenix.  I'm about to see how well Solar City/Telsa handles repairs as when I cleaned them last week I noticed one panel had been shattered by some impact.  I called and they are sending out someone to repair it on November 11th.  We'll see how that goes.

Actually you can get the tax credit but you have to sign up for a lease.  Solar City hooked me up and they get the credit but they pass it through in their lease price.  For my rental in Phoenix it was about $15k over 20 years which you can prepay or finance at what was about 8% with no prepayment allowed.  You can deduct 1/20th each year of the lease.  They claim at the end of the lease the panels will have essentially no value so they can then "sell" them to you for some minimum cost.  It's been thrre years now and I'm very pleased.

That sounds complicated. Rental properties are specifically excluded from the tax credit so it's not clear how this purchase would be classified for everyone and since you're using association funds it's not clear who gets the tax credit if there is one allowed. What I ended up doing was leasing them from Solar City (or whoever you decide to work with). They take the credit (because businesses are allowed) and discount the 20-year lease cost by that amount. The rental properties can write off their portion of the lease costs over the period of the lease. I don't think that you'd get to write off your portion since it's owner-occupied but your payment would be reduced by the tax credit. I'm not an accountant or lawyer so you definitely should check with one/both before you go down this road. Good luck.

Glen

All,

Just as an update, it's been a few more months with the solar panels and I am very pleased. The results for the past few months have been similar to the info I posted previously. The latest power bill (April) was $42 and we banked another 120kWh of peak power. For the past few months I haven't paid for a single, peak-priced kW of energy and have over 700 kWh's of peak power banked which I'm assuming I'll use over the hottest summer months. This means that I'm paying $0.061 per kWh which is less than half of the rate I was paying before installing the panels. As the days are getting longer the amount of power I've generated has grown to around 44-47 kWh/day. I'm assuming it will hit around 50 kWh/day during the long days of Summer. We'll see how things go over Summer but so far Solar City's estimates have been spot on and I'm thrilled with their performance.

Glen

I've used it on two wood decks on two different properties. I think it's great. It goes on pretty easily and the grit which it contains makes the end result look/feel a lot like the surface which is common around pools. I'd power wash the surface of the deck before painting it. I'm betting the pealing has to do with not preparing the surface well before applying it. Make sure you put on at least two coats with time to dry between them to get good coverage. Also, make sure you give it time to cure after you've put on the two coats before you put anything on it. It hardens up pretty well and resists scratching from furniture better. It's a bit pricey but so far it's been worth it. I don't have any experience putting in on concrete though.

The key to success in most things is knowledge. If you are prepared for the negotiation (having done all of the required homework) it won't matter how old you are or look. If you work hard to be the most informed/prepared person in the room then it won't matter what the other parties think about you. Knowledge is power at any age.

Is $70k the total amount or just the law school debt? If that's it then I think you should finish law school. It's a very useful skill-set and fallback plan. It shouldn't take too long to pay off and it's low interest debt. Now if you said $200k I think I'd definitely consider moving on.

I have three rentals and I have separate accounts for each (checking for bills/rent, savings for deposits). I think at some point if I were to get a few more I might switch to using a single business account but maybe not. It makes it easy to keep track of each property separately. With online banking having 10+ accounts isn't that hard to keep track of.

Glen

Found this a while back. Lots of info.

http://www.trexglobal.com/property-management/landlord-resources/rental-property-tax-deductions

I haven't experienced it but I've heard of it with others. Sometimes there is a delay in closing on a house the seller is purchasing and they go month-to-month until they can move. If the seller knows how long they are going to want to stay you might consider seeing if they would be willing to pre-pay the rent as part of the closing. That way you don't have to worry about them paying.