All Forum Posts by: David Krulac

you need to have a Self Directed IRA custodian. We have bought houses, condos, land, and mortgages with self directed IRA. If a Roth IRA, all rental income and capital gains are tax free. Downside is need for a custodian (they don't work for free) and you can't use depreciation, and you can't take a loss. (But who wants a loss?)

we also had a house with a detached 2 car garage, and the tenants we rented to did not want the garage.  It was in the back of the property and faced an alley, so we rented it to another tenant, who had 2 show cars.  The garage tenant stayed for 17 years, during which time I never saw them, talked to them a few times, and they paid the rent every month like clockwork.  They only moved out when I sold the property and the new owner/occupant wanted the garage for them self. 

We did have a rental house, renting for over 20 years where the lot was 2 acres.  For one tenant we provided lawn service and added that to the rent along with snow removal.  Other tenants were responsible to mowing, some hired it out other cut the lawn them self.  We did get push back from tenant prospects that did not want to spend the hours needed to mow the lawn.  So it did reduce the rental pool. (pun intended)

I would never rent a house with a pool due to maintenance issues as well as liability.  We had a pool at one of our personal houses and went away for a week and neighbor was supposed to be taking care of pool Maintenace.  When we came home the pool was split pea bright green and took weeks to get back to normal.  I've know of 2 families that lost children in their family pool, would not want to have that happen where I was responisble.  We have had 2 houses where we removed pools, 1 was large above ground with a deck and the other was in ground with concrete around the pool.  For me its a hard rule no pools at rentals.  Exception being a condo where there is a community pool, whose maintenance and liability are not my responsibility. 

Been renting Section 8 for many years. The HUD rents are the MEDIAN for the area, and the results of HUD doing yearly rent surveys. Since we have owned many rentals for a long time we were asked to participate in the rent survey. Many of the participants are apartment complexes. The result of the survey are published for the whole country at their website, HUDuser.org and look for FMR, which stands for Fair Market Rent. Most of our rental properties are single family houses and our market rents exceed the HUD Median Rent, and therefore are not eligible for Section 8. We have had good experiences with the annual inspections, but have heard horror stories from other LLs. When we have participated in the HUD rent surveys we have given them all of our rents including the ones over their thresholds. Some of the Section 8 tenants that we have rented to, have been older single people. We have rented to families (typically single parent) with children. We've rented to people with full time employment, but whose income still qualified for HUD rental assistance. We rented to an LPN and a state employee Section 8. All of the tenants that we rented to Section 8 got partial rent assistance and had to make up the difference themselves and we never had a tenant get 100% of rent from Section 8.

around here the rule is that if the Electric Company is a private company like MetEd or Edison etc. they lien the person activating the electric service, as in the tenant.  And many of the companies will send notice to a third party like the property owner if the tenants don't pay the bill or moves out without telling the owner.  Where the electric is provided by the city they have additional power to lien the property owner, some places will not even send the bill to the tenants only the owner.  

I've had very few vacancies over the last few years since Covid, tenants have been staying put where they are located. We have a tenant who has stayed for 39 years, 31 years, 25 years and 24 years. Our average tenant stays 12.5years. We have been using Craigslist, MLS and Zillow. FB Mktpl has yielded the most quantity of inquiries, but also the most unqualified and applicants that have no idea where the units are located. Some of the applicants are from out of state and have no intention of moving. Some of the applicants have been from 100 to 200 miles away and thing the units are in their neighborhood. You might get 100 inquiries in a day, but everyone is a dud, and a waste of time. Therefore, no more FB. We never or seldom use signs on properties. and get the best quality apps from MLS, Zillow and CL in that order.

@Chris Seveney was this in PA or VA? I spoke in Richmond on March 20, but I didn't speak on Tax Sales directly.

@Chris Seveney In PA. at Upset Sales no mortgages, liens, judgements or any other lien are wiped out except the tax delinquency.  Therefore, you must do a title search BEFORE the Upset Sale or you could be in big trouble.  At one sale the bidders did a quick title search themselves right before the auction and missing a mortgage for $286,000.  they were surprised at the sale when nobody else bid on the property.  But they were more surprised when they found out they bought the property but also bought the $286,000 mortgage.  Very expensive lesson in the school of hard knocks! 

@John Underwood in PA. the statute of limitations for Adverse Possession is 21 years.  We have purchased hundreds of properties at Tax Sales, and in a few cases have not done a Quiet Title Action and waited the 21 years.  Obviously doesn't work for every property, every situation and every Tax Sale.  I'm not an attorney and am not giving legal advice.  

The problem with the Tax Sales is lack of notice or insufficient notice.  In one of our cases the property was titled in husband and wife's names.  we bought at Tax Sale and at the trial to reclaim their property the wife, who had signed the Certified Mail Notice of the sale, swore under penalty of perjury, that she "never" told her husband of the Tax Sale.  Therefore, he did not know of the Tax Sale and the court ruled that the sale was invalid and overturned.  In another case the property was owned by John Smith, but the county records were listed with sur name first, so as Smith John.  The notice was sent to the proper address but addressed to Smith John.  John Smith appealed the Tax Sale and the court ruled in his favor saying that the notice should have been sent to either John Smith or Smith, John.  Since the comma was missing the sale was invalid.  Any time a person has moved, and the sale notice didn't get to the owner, the sale is potentially overturned.  Any time the owner has passed away, the notice is invalid.  Any time the owner has not signed the Certified Mail notice, the sale is potentially invalid.  In one specific county the same judge handled all the Tax Sale cases every year.  The judge believed that the loss of the property was too severe of punishment and would do everything he could from the bench to overturn every Tax Sale before him.  In one case, he actually was instruction the incompetent attorney for the former owner on how to present his case in the best light for the judge.  It was if the Judge was "of counsel" for the plaintiff.  It was almost humorous.  We had one case where the sale was court contested and cost us $45,000 in legal fees and after 9 years of Depositions, Interrogatories, etc, we still had not gone before the judge. 

David Krulac

Bigger Pockets Podcast #82