All Forum Posts by: Gracie Brown

Thanks, Ben! It will be our primary residence, though we do hope to find something with value-add potential, and income potential in the form of an ADU. Baby steps investment property :)

 Hi Jon! Thanks so much for your reply! I think at this point they are going to do a cash-out refinance on both properties, but now we have to figure out what needs to be done to transfer the money to us without huge tax implications, or how that all works!! 

Sounds way too messy, and likely 8 strangers are not going to all agree to part with money from a long lost relative.

This is hopefully not as complicated as it might sound, but was wondering if any of the great minds on this forum have thoughts on best strategy for current situation.

My husband's parents are fortunate enough to own two properties:

House #1: A bungalow a few blocks from the beach in Venice Beach, CA - purchased for basically nothing in the 80s, own outright, probably worth about $1.2 million (guessing).

House #2: A 3bed 2 bath amazing view house with guest house in Topanga, CA - purchased for basically nothing in the 80s, has a 350k mortgage on it, probably worth about $2 million.

(both have extremely low tax basis)

My husband parents are also incredible generous, and were looking into way to help us and his sister purchase properties, without having to wait for the trust to be divided upon their death (knock on wood, not for a long while!).

The first idea was to 1031 the Venice house, giving each child enough to pay ~$500k or so down on a house.

Pros: higher payout

Cons: they have an existing tenant whom they are collecting $4k/mo from that they would lose, each sibling is looking for completely different things, so the timeline of the 1031 is scary in this real estate market, the house would be out of the trust.

The second idea was to take a loan on one (or both?) properties, giving each child just enough for a down payment, essentially (a few hundred grand).

Pros: both houses left in trust, quicker (?), simpler (?)

Cons: less $$, the loans on the properties would increase, would have to pay the loan (likely with the rental income from property #1)

Is there a better option that we just don't know about? I have been on this forum for a minute, but in practice, I don't know what the best way to go about this is. I thought this would be a great place to get any creative ideas that may be out there that we are unaware of. Is there a different way to use the equity in each home without overcomplicating? 

You have been doing real estate for 1 year, and have done 2 deals?

Do you think a stranger would pay you for this expertise? If not, why would you charge your friends? You are still learning, and a good friend would want to help their friends gain success also.

If they are relying on your knowledge too much, why don't you just point them in the direction of the resources you used when you started your journey, and hope you can leverage off of each other's unique knowledge in the future.

I'm no lawyer, but I would think it would be reasonable to inform her that the locks are changed, and if she would still like her property to please let you know when she needs to come by, but if she doesn't come in x days (I think it's 30 days, so she still has two weeks before you can toss it -- don't quote me on that), then you will dispose of it unless she would like to start paying storage fees.

Wow, I would be beyond annoyed if my landlord tried to come in once a month to "check-in" on me, and would surely not stay there any longer than necessary. 

 HAHA!

Good luck and keep us posted! CC is insane, I was recently browsing rentals and a renovated 1bdrm with amenities was around $2,500 in one of the large developments. I need to get out of CA asap! haha.

I am pretty sure AirBnB automatically collects the 14% tax in order to satisfy the regulations.

There is an article about it on the AirBnB FAQ that I read recently.