All Forum Posts by: Natalie Schanne

Bret Blackburn - more than 5 deals a year. You are OK if you're under that (and the terms of the contract are legal.)

Jason Strebe - I'm very impressed that you were ready to go into property 2 so quickly after your first fire! I'm also impressed that the firefighters got there fast enough that you didn't need a new roof. How high was your deductible? (5k? if > all your fire expenses?) How much are your annual insurance premium? Best of luck. Let us know how #2 goes!

Dwayne Ravello - if you'll be living in Georgia, why do you want to be licensed in New Jersey? You said you just moved to Georgia, right? Why not retake your 60-75 hour licensing class in Georgia over a 2 week bootcamp (since NJ education won't transfer) and get licensed there? You'll know all the answers to the National part, so you can focus on state specific info and you should definitely pass your GA exam. You should schedule to take the exam the moment you can after the class ends. Interview with all the different brokers so you know where you'll apply after you pass. It took me about 2 weeks to officially have my NJ license after I handed in all my paperwork to my brokerage. Are you going to be in New Jersey often? If not, I don't recommend completing your license here. It'll cost you at least $200 with psi and morphos and the state. Then you'll have to sign up with a NJ brokerage to maintain your license, for which you'll pay a minimum of $200/year in errors and omissions insurance. If you join a franchise brokerage, you'll also expect to pay $1000/yr between the property listings database TrendMLS and NJ NAR. I don't see you getting much of a return on your investment if you live in Georgia. As a cheaper option, you can put your Nj license into referral status. You still will need a brokerage though.

Matthew Dunn - 500 business cards will cost you $10 at staples or vistaprint. Design costs about $5-10 on Fiverr. Why not do both? I recommend 1 set of cards with Matthew Dunn, Property Manager at ABC Residential LLC with your google voice (it rings through to your phone), website and tenant application/maintenance email address (live@abc). Make another set for REIA / potential partners with Matthew Dunn, Founder/Developer/Investor with ABC and list your direct cell (the number you call back with) and professional logo, website and professional email like matthew.dunn@abc.

Kris Ashili - Define your rental criteria and apply evenly across all applicants. Example: - Credit score > 650, else cosigner needed - Proven income > 3x rent - No violent/sexual crime records - Good references from job & 2-3 previous landlords (this could let you legally deny them all if you found bad prior history) - No evictions Additionally: - Upfront payment (1st/last/1 month sec dep or whatever is max allowed by law) - All tenants must be named on lease To avoid any perception of discrimination, apply the standards and send rejection letter highlighting (use check box form letter?) the 1 or more reasons the application was denied.

Chris Lucas - Welcome to BiggerPockets. An LLC for your rentals is advised for asset protection. You may also choose blanket insurance. Make sure to set up a business bank account and have all the $$ flow through it for accounting and maintaining the corporate veil. Moving properties with loans in your name to an LLC later will trigger the mortgage due on sale clause, but I have never heard of a bank enforcing it. Try to buy initially as your LLC. Banks will initially loan on your W2 income / personal guarantee. Consult a good lender like Upen Patel to get the right product. He will factor in expected rental income from the properties. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Jeremy Lee - My brother had a sweet deal like this with my parents and I resented him for it. Haha. Why would you want to give up a good thing for something uncertain? Keep what you have. Use money you save to invest in the stock market or property and/or to prepare to buy the home from your parents/siblings in the future. My parents financed the purchase of a $650k home for my brother and his pregnant wife. When my brother paid towards the monthly 'mortgage', he got a greater % of the house, but according to the contract he could pay nothing and effectively live rent free for 20-30 years. If he did, he would accumulate 0% equity. (It wasn't clear to me, but I assumed he would still inherit 50% of the house.) They lived there for 9 years and are raising two grandchildren for my parents. Unfortunately they're divorced now. Ultimately, I'm sure my parents didn't mind at all to subsidize their child raising. The home did not appreciate in value. When my brother and sister in law moved out, they cashed out his accumulated stake. I think he paid less than half of the mortgage payments over the period. Ultimately, be so thankful for your parents generosity and help. They sound like wonderful people.

Matthew Sutton - see various YouTube videos on the subject. It depends on the seller. The goal is to create immediate rapport and trust. One lawyer investor doesn't recommend acting like a company. He said he starts with: I heard you've been having trouble with your bank. (Commiserate) Can I help? Has anyone explained to you what's going to happen and when? (Flashes a laminated foreclosure process timeline sheet then puts it away). . . . (Then you segue into 'are you the owner? I buy properties as-is for cash.') Same guy also recommends bright stickie notes on the front door with vague messages like Call Me! - phone number - Bob

Brent Langlois - CPAs provide great advice. Hire one immediately and for next year if anything below doesn't make sense to you. You can deduct the business expense of tax prep. I'm a civil engineer. If you are comfortable reading IRS rules, you can submit compliant returns using Turbotax Premier / Rental Property (roughly $100-120). I've used it for 7 years with no audits. I don't think I've overpaid/underpaid taxes either because I read the rules and deduct repairs as repairs, capitalize improvements, deduct business mileage as permitted, etc. Your Scottrade or whatever account will send you a form to tell you how to fill out your stock gains reporting. Really the only thing you can mess up is your schedule E for your rental property, and that's not that hard. Turbotax will auto calculate your schedule E from your numbers. Use your bank statements and credit card receipts to itemize your true rental income and expenses. If you have a question on if something is deductible, read the rule. It's usually clear enough to have a justifiable position for deducting it or not. The tricky thing on your 2016 return is changing your former primary residence to a depreciable asset. (You can use purchase price plus cap ex (your $$ into home improvements like new deck) or fair market value (your home's expected sale price), whichever is lower. You can only depreciate the building portion of that. Read the rules. Ex. $300k house is 50% land 50% building, you can depreciate $150k over 27.5 years). You can use % land from your tax assessment without question - document it. If you do something else, justify it. I'm a RE agent so I can do fair market value comps accurately. If you don't know how, hire an appraiser for $300 and save the report in your property file. My properties after deducting EVERYTHING don't have negative profits/cash flow. If yours do, understand that's an audit risk. If anything I've said is wrong. Feel free to correct my knowledge.

Nathan S. - I'm not a CPA. IRS rules on page 65 here say you can deduct it all plus mileage & travel. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf#page65 You can deduct the costs of qualifying work-related education as business expenses. This is education that meets at least one of the following two tests. The education is required by your employer or the law to keep your present salary, status, or job. The re- quired education must serve a bona fide business pur- pose of your employer. The education maintains or improves skills needed in your present work.