All Forum Posts by: Kristine Eickman

Interesting - I have never heard that before. I was always told that if it is going to be rented more than I am staying, than it is considered an investment and therefore I needed an investment loan. I previously had 2 homes down there and all the lenders I spoke to said this. We vacationed there at least 2-4 times a year but the fact that I made an income from it made it an investment. I am going to have to make sure I talk to lenders about this again because it will be the same scenario. Like I said, I have been out of the game for a few years so maybe that has changed?

I am looking to purchase a vacation home that I plan on using as a short-term rental. I have done this once before, so know that I will need an investment loan vs a second home loan. It has been a few years so I wanted to brush up on what I should be looking for in a lender and also what questions I should be asking. This property would be in Florida and I reside in Minnesota. 

Thanks for any advice you can give!

I have a question. I own 2 rental properties, one long-term and one short-term. With the short term one alone, I work well over 750 hours on it per year. The other one I also put in some time. My issue, however, is that I also have a job working 35 hours a week. If I am reading correctly, I would not qualify as a real estate professional because of the 35 hour a week job, even though I work well over the required time with my rentals. Is this correct? Is there any exception to this rule? It seems silly as it really equates to someone having both a full and part-time job, which lots of people do. Can anyone give me some guidance on this?

Kristine

Thanks John - I will definitely message you!

 Thanks for the info - we are looking for someone local. I like to be able to sit across the table from someone and look them in the eye.

Our tax guy that we really liked and have used for 4 years, up and sold his company and is no longer doing taxes. He did not tell anyone that he was planning on doing this. We were forced to use this new company for our 2016 taxes because he did not tell us he had sold when we met him in Feb. to go over our taxes. Our tax return came from this new company with a note letting us know that they bought him out. We are not impressed with this new company AT ALL (plus they were way more than our guy) and are now looking for someone else. If anyone can recommend someone I would really appreciate it!

Our tax guy that we really liked and have used for 4 years, up and sold his company and is no longer doing taxes. He did not tell anyone that he was planning on doing this. We were forced to use this new company for our 2016 taxes because he did not tell us he had sold when we met him in Feb. to go over our taxes. Our tax return came from this new company with a note letting us know that they bought him out.  We are not impressed with this new company AT ALL (plus they were way more than our guy) and are now looking for someone else. If anyone can recommend someone I would really appreciate it!

Thanks! 

Because I don't trust that he would not try and sue me. 

Yes - we did return the EMD because we just are not willing to spend the money on this guy to go after him. We would never get it back. And yes your right, situations like this suck.

But like someone else posted prior, I am fortunate I am not someone who got caught up on this and then was foreclosed on because the contract never closed. I can move on and be OK and invest more. For some people, this could be earth shattering.

 Because it is a vacation rental and rents weekly getting anywhere from 120-170 a night. It was off the market for a 1 1/2 months during which I was asked to keep it open for 2 weeks to do the appraisals and inspection and the appraisal never happened ($2100.00), During that time I got a couple people wanting future bookings which I did not accept because I was not going to be owning it anymore ($2600.00 for inquired dates) and the next offer I got on the house was $5000 less than what this other person was going to pay for it and they are not budging on that price. The house is pretty much fully booked for the rest of the summer until September 29th, this means that no prospective buyers can see it because we have guests in the home. The buyer who offered $5000 less was able to see the home during a 4 night gap that we had. So if no other buyers can get in, then you don't sell. So we accepted the offer because otherwise we would have to wait until Sept. 29th to even have someone be able to look at it.

The loss totals $9700.00. Not to mention the new offer is not to close until October so that is that many more months of mortgage, utilities, HOA dues.......