All Forum Posts by: Mike Wilson

thanks to all that chimed in with a reply. Ricky A, thank you very much for the updated amount and potential upcoming changes!

I know that as a landlord manager of my properties I can deduct at a rate of $0.56/mile the cost to drive to my rentals as long as I keep good records and for certain approved activities such as collecting rent; going to make repairs, etc. However, I'm looking a purchasing a fixer-upper that will take lots of trips and is about an hour away. Would be about $40/round trip in expenses if allowed. I am thinking that I can only expense after the place is being rented and expenses against rental income. Can someone tell me if I have a valid expense I can collect during the rehab period?

I replaced a 50 Ga unit in the Tulsa area recently and the turn-key cost was $1800. I thought that as a bit high, but renter needed this fixed sooner rather than later and I prefer using a plumber that I know will do a good job and will be around and accountable if there are any issues after the work.

I am looking for input from folks that use Series LLC's for their rental properties or attorneys that have legal experience with the concept.

I attended a local REA meeting where an attorney discussed asset protection. I had an LLC created and all of my several properties were rolled in to a single LLC, so I was familiar with that but wanted a better way to segment properties in multiple entities, without putting each in an expensive individual LLC. I was introduced to the concept of using a 'Series LLC'. It sounded like a great way to cost effectively segment my properties into individual entities. I followed the attorney's steps to have my rentals set up in a separate 'series' as how a series LLC is designed. Each 'Series' is managed by another management LLC. I am told lots of folks with multiple single family rental properties in Oklahoma do this - I just don't know any of them.

My concern is how the banking is handled. while I have opened up checking accounts for each of the 'series', I use a single management account to collect rents, pay expenses. I never distribute money to the single back accounts set up for the 'series' properties, it was my understanding I did not need to. However, with the issue of intermingling of funds is always in the back of my mind and I am concerned that I am not using or understanding how to properly use these accounts. Should I have retained earnings from each property moved to these accounts at the end of the year? That would be a real pain and create some issues with depleting my management reserves. Not sure of the proper way to manage this.

Long story short, can anyone that utilizes series LLC's for there properties tell me how they manage the checking account issue. What are other's attorney's telling them?

Thanks,

Mike

I have several buy & hold properties. I am not a professional in any real estate area, learning as I go. I have enough properties that I need to become more organized on records keeping and overall management. I started with Quicken Rental Property manager and soon realized this is a toy of limited value for me. I downloaded and I am trying to set up QuickBooks Online. I purchased the 'How to use QuickBooks for Rental Properties' for about $100 from Jonathan Wolter, but found that this was not written for QBO. Does anyone know of any good documentation to help a non-accountant setting this up.... Yes, I am aware I can hire an accountant; yes I am aware that I could switch to the older version of Quickbooks. Neither are what I am asking. I need to understand this process and want to learn but need some better reference material. I would consider hiring someone if I found someone that has set this up for rental property managers and come with some level of appropriate accounting qualifications....Thanks