All Forum Posts by: Jeffrey Cervi

Thank you to everyone that provided feedback. We took Elizabeth and Markus' advice and passed on the cat house. Now we are in negotiations for a unit that had a dead body in it! This one was remediated extremely well, and we are hopeful.....

I am getting ready to finalize a contract on a potential rental property. The property looks great, we got a good price, and it will cashflow. My only concern is that the previous owner had a cat for many years. The unit has been cleaned, but we can still smell the cat, and we feel the effects of the cat dander/urine. 

Our plan is to initially rent the unit to our daughter, who is highly allergic to cats.

My concern is - can I cost effectively remove all traces of the cat, so that she can stay comfortably? We plan on removing the carpet and padding, at a minimum. What else would you do in our shoes?

Should we just walk away and look for another property?

Help.....

Just bought my first rental in Coraopolis. Trying to make sure I haven't missed anything in my financial analysis. Looks like rental income is subject to sales and use tax in PA, I believe 7%? Any other tax implications to be aware of?

Looking at a 2/1.5 condo purchase for rental.

List price is $129.9, which I think is about $10K overpriced. 

New appliances in kitchen, granite countertops, ceramic tile, new carpets - nothing needs to be done to unit but clean carpets - cats....

Expect it to rent for $1,100-$1,200 so should cash flow nicely.

Question - I'd like to try to buy the unit fully furnished - couches,washer/dryer, everything but the mattresses and box springs.

I know I can't put the furnishings in the offer price for mortgage, but would provide a separate cash offer for those.

I am thinking about structuring an offer like this:

Open at $115 for the unit unfurnished, seller to steam clean carpets plus a couple thousand cash for the furnishings. Expect a counteroffer....

If you were seller, would this interest or offend you?

Adam I am from Ohio (Youngstown area) and recently purchased a second home in Naples. We have had our Florida home for a couple of years. We have had a wonderful experience with this property. If you would like to talk in more detail please let me know. Jeff

Derek all depends on your expectations. I have a vacation rental in Naples and couldn't be happier with it as it was not pure cash flow purchase but a way to offset cost of a vacation home. Best of luck

Kyle - I too own a vacation rental in Naples. We have only rented it seasonally (with great success) so that we can use it ourselves in other months. From a cash flow perspective, annual would be the way to go.

Any tax wizards out there? Vacation property deductions are reduced according to the percentage of time the unit is available for rental versus time allocated for personal use. Let's say in year one that was 60%. Depreciation is straight line over 27.5 years. So depreciation deduction is 60% of first year depreciation.

Second year your rental/personal ratio goes down to 55%. Do you reduce your depreciation deduction accordingly? If so, doesn't this contradict the straight line method?

Sorry for getting all financial, but I have been calling the IRS hotline for about a week, and they have been no help at all!

Thank you all for the feedback and guidance.

Looking for guidance on marketing our vacation rental in Naples, FL. We have been very successful in getting seasonal rentals in past. Broker has now dropped us due to requirement for broker to be responsible for 10% sales and tourist tax payment. Trying to determine best way to market our unit going forward.

1.) Can we list the unit ourselves on the MLS? How much would it cost?

2.) Is VRBO or Homeaway a cost effective option? Our development has approximately 75 different vacation rentals advertised, and we are concerned about getting lost in the mix.

3.) What about developing our own website? Can we get high enough on the search engines to make it worthwhile?

4.) Our current broker was charging 10% which is under market. Other realtors are looking for 15-20%.

5.) We have a property manager who can help us with showing the unit, and dealing with tenant issues.

6.) Looking for guidance from others who have come up with creative solutions....