All Forum Posts by: Matthew Samson

Thanks Laura and everyone for the help! After multiple quotes, some great advice here, and an engineer inspection, we decided to repair the foundation with an external pier system. Here is our rationale, in case anyone else encounters a similar problem. 

- In our Georgia home, when it was new the warranty would have covered settling up to 1/4 inch. That ours is 3/4 inch out suggested settling since the warranty passed and/or a serious enough issue to remedy. 

- Drainage patterns and erosion around the foundation were consistent with the settling we saw, suggesting the slab foundation had been continuously undermined throughout the 23-year life of the house. 

- We plan on holding the property as a long-term rental, and the amortized cost of the repairs is marginal. The house will continue to be an excellent investment.  

What we learned: We got lucky that we gained a lot of extra equity soon after we bought the house, which makes these repairs palatable. When buying the house, we made the mistake of getting an inspector recommended by our realtor who seemed credible and detail-oriented but I think just wanted to get us into the house. Whilst there were no obvious structural issues caused by the settling, the evidence was there for a trained and impartial eye to see. In addition, I will also be paying much closer attention to water flow patterns and signs of erosion around our next investment!  

Hi Rick. Thanks so much for your reply! We're definitely in an area know for regular settling. The problem does appear to be somewhat old, but still thinking it might be worth it given this is a long term investment that would still be netting us a really solid YoY return.

Definitely getting a 3rd opinion/bid now. A tough thing we've found though (like you mentioned) is even the highly rated foundation folks in our area -- as well as a lot of the content online -- all have a strong incentive to sell big high-margin solutions. It's hard to decide what's a reasonable solution.  

Thanks Chris, that's really helpful! It's in the main area of the home, and the intention is to keep it as a long-term rental, so I agree that addressing the issue might be the best course of action. 

We plan to turn our current house hack into a long term rental. We just discovered a crack in the concrete slab foundation that is a borderline major problem:
- It is a vertical crack about 1/8 inch wide that is at least 9ft long, which is causing a 3/4 inch drop in the flooring and some evidence of old (luckily) limited moisture and termite intrusion. 
- BUT, it also appears old and probably a symptom of the original house settling. It has not caused any noticeable structural issues. We know that some settling is inevitable on all slabs. 

The options we have are: 
- Do nothing and keep monitoring the crack.
- Seal the crack only from above and hope it stays static.
- Stabilize the foundation with helical piers on the exterior. 

The helical piers system would cost $25k but is a permanent solution. Is it overkill for a potential non-problem? Would the fact that our house is in the ~ $850k valuation range influence your advice? 

Even if you don't feel you have enough info to give me directional advice, how would you go about deciding whether to address the problem? 

@Cory Vitale @Max Emory Thank you both for your detailed replies and all the great advice! 

Thanks Ben and Diyan. That's really helpful! 

Hi All. Thank you everyone  for engaging on my posts as I ramp up towards my first deal!

My next question is a simple one: through circumstance, we will almost certainly have real estate holdings in two states (Georgia and likely Pennsylvania). Is it advisable to have different CPAs in each state, or should one take care of our entire national portfolio?

I understand that state tax and regulatory conditions can vary quite a bit.  Do the advantages of state-specific expertise offset the added complexity of having multiple CPAs? 
  

Thanks everyone for your great feedback. It looks like the consensus now is to hold of until we have our first investment. 

That said, there are advantages to engaging a CPA early for the purposes of long-term relationship building and tax strategy planning. 

If I'm understanding correctly, there are also additional tax benefits to fixing up/renovating our primary residence after we have converted it to a rental?

That way we could either claim expenses as deductions or through depreciation, rather than just as an increase in basis for capital gains if it was our primary residence? 

Thanks @Joshua Thompson! I really appreciate your honest advice.

Hi all. My wife and I are still in the 'learning phase' as real estate investors, but we know for sure that in the next year (a) we will be converting our primary residence in to a rental, and (b) buying another house that will be our primary residence for 1-2 years so that we can qualify for an owner occupied mortgage. In the meantime, we may also want to renovate our current home to increase its overall and/or rental value.

The plan is to scale our real estate investment portfolio pretty aggressively after our next purchase.

We're still a ways off doing any transactions, and when we do I can probably figure out the basic financials on my own. But should I?  We will inevitably work with a CPA in the future, but are there benefits to starting that relationship now?