All Forum Posts by: Michael Clark

Hello all,

To give a brief backstory- My cousins aunt had just passed away (a few months ago) and she lived in a house with her husband who was the owner, he had passed away about 20 years ago but never created an estate and never had any children. It was presumed ownership was passed to his wife who had lived there but when boiled down legally, his siblings and their heirs are also entitled to a fraction. So my cousin is now executor of the estate of his aunt but only owns 1/8, all of the other 7/8 owners are deceased as well as some of their children. So there are now 20+ people to connect with in order to get a clean marketable title, (none of these existing family members have any idea of the property even existing). So I contacted an attorney who said we can do a quiet title but since there are so many people geographically displaced I'd have to post about it in the national newspaper and all in all the cost would be roughly $40,000 just to get marketable title. I can however purchase the house cash for $30,000 without having any title work but of course take the risk on of someone potentially claiming their stake (the odds of this seem very low). I'd appreciate any advice, thanks in advance.

Hello all! I’m looking for a CPA to do my taxes that is knowledgeable about all things real estate. I’m a realtor and was asking my current accountant about depreciating my residential property and writing that off against my real estate income. Since I am a “Real Estate Professional” I thought I was able to do this. He told me that if I were to do that I’d be taxed extra-heavily if I ever wanted to sell my property down the road. Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks in advance!

Pennsylvania has some great markets for this. Specifically Scranton which has a 400 bed hospital (Geisinger) as well as 2 additional hospitals within a 10 minute drive. There are several colleges in Scranton as well (Most notably the U of Scranton). I'm an agent here and my clients have been getting 15-20%+ COC returns when putting down 20% on properties.

@Kevin Cespedes DM me I have a recommendation for you!

Hi Jimmy. I recently purchased my first house hack here in Scranton, PA. In my house hack, all utilities are separated in the house. So the upstairs tenant has all utilities in their name and I have all of mine in my name. I do however pay for trash and sewer but that's just because of how my borough is set up. I would definitely ask the agent to find out what the avg cost of utilities are on the property for the unit you'll be occupying and then count it as a monthly expense. 

As the title says, I'm looking for your guy's recommendation on the best software to use in order to collect rent and manage rentals. I've heard of buildium but not sure of what else is out there. 

Thank you all!

Hello all, I'm looking into buying my first investment property. Ill be using an FHA loan, which means ill need to live in it for a whole year. What are my options for buying a triplex with all month-to-month leases? Could I purchase it and just let the bank know I won't be occupying it until the 30-day non-lease renewal period is up and the tenant is gone? Thanks so much!

I recently found a duplex that I'd love to buy but it's currently off-market. The home is vacant but I found the owner's name through the local assessment office. Any tips on what I should include in the letter inquiring if he'd be interested in selling? I've never done this before, thanks for your help in advance!

It seems like going to the local auction is almost too good to be true. I sat through one about a year ago and so many of these properties were selling at such a heavy discount. Forgive me if the answer is obvious, I'm only just starting my investment journey and trying to learn as much as I can.