All Forum Posts by: Tatyana E.

Thank you! My cousin is not ready to move yet. She is a doctor, works in Russia, her husband runs his successfull business, they just want to plan their retirement here in the future, years from now, if it is possible. If they fail to get a GC in the future, they will just come and visit for a few months a year.

I'm sure that if they sell everything they have they'll be able to come up with 1Mln. But who knows, immigrant laws are unpredictable and may change in the future. Maybe 5 Mln will be required, who knows:)

They want to buy a house now - as an investment for the future. Can they do it now if they come to the US just as guests/visitors?

In other words - do you need to be a US resident to buy RE in the US or it is not required?

Hi,

My cousin lives in Russia and she is thinking of purchasing a house in California. She has no Green Card and she can only visit US as a guest. In the future she plans to either move to the US (there are a number of ways) or just visit me from time to time and stay for a few months in the US.

She wants to take advantage of our low housing prices, purchase a house, rent it out (rental income is not that important to her but it would be nice if it at least covered expenses on property tax, utilities etc.).

Off course, she is going to pay cash, and I am ready to help her as much as I can. Also, she is not in a hurry, obviously housing market is not going anywhere in the nearest future in our area, and we are just researching our opportunities.

How can she do it?

She doesn't mind just to give me the money and let me buy a house and put it in my name but is it necessary? Can she buy a house with her name on it?

How can I rent it out for her (legally) and pay all taxes, utilities etc., get rent in my account (?) - I don't have a license, can I still manage property for my relative and get no financial compensation for it?

I'll be thankful for any ideas/advice etc.

Just wanted to say HUGE THANK YOU to everyone for invaluable advice.

I set up an appointment with a very good and experienced CPA for next Tuesday. I have tons of questions, off course, but I don't want to abuse your generosity and will probably torture CPA:). And off course I'm reading this forum and already learned a lot.

Once again, thank you so very much!

I'm a new landlord and I can't decide whether I have to do my taxes at HR Block or shall I go to CPA.

Last year I brough my mother to the US from abroad (adding dependant), bought 2 houses, paid cash for both but took the money from HELOC on my place to buy a rental one (means I have payments like mortgage but not mortgage - ?), got a property manager (and paid her), got tenants (and 1st month rent and deposit), went through eviction process (eviction attorney fees etc.), fixed the house (expenses), put it back to the market (expenses).

In the meantime I pay property tax, water, sewer, garbage, HOA etc. for 3 houses - my mother has no income but she lives separately, so it's my place, my mother's place (I'm the legal owner) and rental.

Off course, I have full time job.

Is it something complicated that CPA should handle or is there nothing complicated and HR Block can handle it?

Thank you so much in advance!

Hi all,

A few months ago I came to this forum and begged for help. Back then I got a rental house, hired a professional property manager and she got me professional tenants.

You guys helped me A LOT with tons of invaluable advice, both on forum and in private, and if it wasn't about you I don't know where I could be today.

Here is a quick update on my situation.

October 20th - meeting with eviction attorney
November 23rd - tenants got evicted from the house
November 24rd - cleaned the house and left for Thanksgiving and shortly after that for Hawaii on vacation. Everything was planned long before, I couldn't change dates
December 11th - back from Hawaii, quick cleaning of the house, put the house on the market
Lots of interest, lots of showings, 4 applications
December 17th - signed a lease starting Januarty 1st with a couple who in my opinion are ideal tenants and way exceed all my expectations - very nice people in mid 40s, making 7 times rent (and the rent is $1700), short saling their mansion, no other debts other than mortgage, excellent credit history, children are in college out of area and will only visit on holidays, clean freaks in the best meaning of this word - we signed lease at their place and it was spotless.

Lesson learned, no more property management, I can do everything myself

Once again, thank you very much, guys, I don't have enough words to tell you how much I appreciate all your help and support

Joe, I do see your point, and it makes sense what you say.
Maybe I'm looking for excuses now but I hired K. to manage the property in the first place.
She wasn't good in marketing obviously but my thoughts were "Well, maybe she is not good in catching fish but if she is excellent in cooking it, it's fine with me. No problem, I'll catch a fish for her and let her cook it".

I discovered that K. is not good in "cooking the fish" when I wasn't getting any money on 12th - this was the set up date when I had to get rent according to my agreement with K. I fired K. next day, on 13th.

Sure I can come with tons of other excuses why it happened but I won't. Like I said in my earlier post, "Predicting disaster and achieving it is no accomplishment" :mrgreen:

So far I have been always very successfull in whatever I decided to do. I really do not see why this time it should be an exception and I will fail just because under huge pressure at the time (I know, I know, it's all poor excuses :D )I made a mistake in trusting the wrong person.

Time will tell.

I'm not selling it, why? Just because I got a problem? Come on, I'm not the only one who got problems, am I?

Trust me, I'll manage the house just fine. I hired property manager because I was too busy and needed time to figure out my game plan. Now I learned landlording in no time, LOL. Thanks to you, guys :mrgreen:

IMHO,it's important to learn from mistakes, and I'm sure I did.

LOL, Chad, this whole thing is happening in North Natomas, and my wonderful tenants have been living in North Natomas for quite a while moving from one house to another and being evicted.
I'm afraid that their next destination will be another house in North Natomas. Do you have anything for them? :mrgreen:

I don't know whether D. knew the whole thing or a part of it or there was something else like he initiatored the whole scam, I just have no idea and probably will never know.

Some good news of today.I found out that attorney for the previous eviction (a month ago, when they moved into my house) was the same attorney I have appointment with. I hope he knows how to deliver papers to them in shortest time, which tricks to expect etc.

And another good news is that they didn't trash the previous house when they were leaving it, so I have some hope they may not trash mine. Fingers crossed.

As for K., I'll try to prove fraud and see what happens.

I want to say huge thank you once again to all of you and Ibraghim in particularly, I can't even imagine what would happen if I followed my own plan and didn't fire K. back then and let her handle eviction...

Thank you very much!

At this point I would much appreciate if you guys could give me some insight on the report for the RE fraud unit.

My bf says it has to be very short, nobody wants too much information and nobody is going to read it. But he is definitely no expert in this.

From what I read with criminal cases the proof should be "beyond reasonable doubt" or something like that, and it differs them from civil cases.

Since I don't have any direct proof against K. (like dead body and a person with a knife next to it :mrgreen: ) I'll probably have to base my report on tons of small details, each of which may be explained by negligence and poor performance but 100 of them can make a statement.

Like when putting ad on CL K. first "forgot" to put square footage, then she accidently put the worst zip code in the city, then she put laundry picture - with 20+ pictures I e-mailed you it was definitely the worst.

I believe you got the point - I just don't know how "short" I can make the report. Also, since I'm not experienced in writing those I'd very much appreciate advice on whether I have to give them only facts or shall I try to at least give short explanations.

Any idea/advice will help me at this point, including how to start - D. was recommended to me by our customer, then we worked for 8 months and he was awesome, then we took D. and his wife K. to a nice restaurant to celebrate - this is where I met K. - it already seems long, and I haven't even started...