All Forum Posts by: Jane A.

@Stephen Glover   CONGRATS ON SUCCESS!!! 

My tips to prepare for appraiser visit - I prepare and print out the comparable analysis (supporting my value) and full list of upgrades we done to the property and give it to appraiser.  One more thing -  I could list the property by owner, receive emails with interest, even better - receive the signed offer and show it to appraiser as well.  

We like COZY as well - it looks beautiful, easy setup, does a few important things, making our life easier.  I used it from my Mobile Phone - looks normal.   You could attach picture of the property, the Lease, manage account balance easy, add/remove fees, and tenant may use the Credit Card for rent payment if they have emergency (Cozy will charge them some fee).  

Lees Summit MO, Blue Springs MO, 

contact the realtor Lee Anderson

They do property management as well

These are both nice towns with great schools, and you still could buy for about 100 times monthly rent.

If you want cheaper, you could consider

MO: Raytown, Grandview, Belton

If you are out of state, I would not recommend to consider KC MO or KC KS because acceptable and bad neighborhoods could be just next to each other and you would not know 

@Greg M.   OMG, such a pain, I started liking one-story buildings :))) bathrooms on the second level could make so many damages potentially

Hello everybody!

I need your help, please.

After long term tenants the unit needs full renovation:

full interior painting, new carpet, some times new interior doors :)  vanity and toilet. 

I am confused when what is the best way to put it on the tax return:

It looks like all the new carpet, appliances, repairs, supplies we could expense during the same year.

What to do with full interior painting?  How to depreciate it?  I use HR Block software and do not see where to put it. 

My old business tax people from HR Block used to depreciate full renovation project (which could cost me around 6K) under real estate property for 27years.  I would agree that a new roof, windows, new tile, new kitchen cabinets will be considered as improvement and depreciate for 27 year or so.  But I do not see how interior painting should depreciate for 27 years.  We usually do it every 5 years or so. 

Please advise

@Dave Fontana thank you very much for sharing your experience, did I understand you right - you are providing PM for some of your rental business?

@Junior Soares  sounds as a solid system, by the way, how much does it cost to file taxes for all of this? and legal expenses to support this legal structure every year?  Does it make any difference if some of  properties in different states?  THX

@Dakoda Spencer

for how much could you rent it for?  find the partner to get it into rentable condition and split the income or just borrow.  Sometimes you could make a deal with tenant, who will rent for less than market but will update your property (be sure you have good liability insurance and tenant is professional insured handyman), talk to attorney.  

@Eamonn McElroy  In Midwest region if you have 75% mortgage on your rental and you invest in good area (not super cheap with high cashflow and high risks), your numbers may look like this: 50% of your cash goes to Mortgage -Insurance -Taxes, your interest, Ins and RE Taxes are tax deductible. 10% of cashflow may be you Property Management expenses, 10-20% may be your repairs and improvements.  Depreciation is about the full price you paid divided by 27.5 or so - this you could deduct each year as well.  So you taxable income depends mainly on your direct expenses - losses (vacancies, evictions and repairs/improvements). On tax return you could deduct some expenses during the same year or during 3-5 years or even longer, it give you some freedom.   After depreciation you may end up with some taxable income for rental part of your RE business, but I do not see that it could be 1/3 or 1/4 of cash flow.  You may pay high taxes only if you do not use the mortgage and if you would decide to not depreciate.   Rule of Thumb is that RE business gives you a lot of flexibility, your W2 gives you access to bank's money - you will love your job much more as you will start investing in RE :)  If you would invest in super cheap areas with high cash flow and less demand for improvements / renovations (slumlord business model) you may see higher taxes, but it means that you left with more cash in your pockets :)

Hold on, you are building equity at least, in NY area negative $100 is not too bad :) raise the rent and you will be even with growing equity.  As I remember, during the last crash NY area did not look bad at all (correct me if I am wrong), only CA, FL &  AR experienced 3 times fold.  Some areas were not so bad.  If you think that you (NY) is almost on the top of the cycle and you want to fix your profit - go for it and invest money in better cash flowing regions (my favorite is Kansas City Metro area :)   or just wait with cash for better prices in NY :)  there are a lot you could do with cash (buying property at actions is one of them).  It looks like you have pretty good job.  You may want to explore different ways to make money in Real Estate and think, what could work better within your life style.  You cash may look much better at your Roth IRA accounts which will be invested in RE (leveraged with non recourse mortgage if you are up to it).  You may want to think strategically before making any decisions.   There are a lot of strategies in RE - from very active to mostly passive.  Choose what will work better for you.