All Forum Posts by: Derek Smith

Hi Everyone,

I've got a couple of rentals, but one in particular is on the radar of marketers.

I've owned it for 15 years but just last last 2-3 years I've noticed a significant uptick in marketers emailing/ texting/ calling/ and sending letters.

The letters are fine as they are self limiting due to cost.

Emails are easily moved to SPAM.

Calls and texts are making me crazy, I get at least 1 call/ text every day.

I respond to texts to take me off their call list, and when I answer phone calls I do the same. (I never answer my phone for numbers I don't recognize anymore).

But now I'm seeing the same numbers come up again and again in texts, even when I previously asked them to stop.

I know my phone number is on the county PVA, and they won't remove it. The county also charges access to these records. So, I'm surprised that hundreds of people have paid and are calling me constantly.

Are there other companies selling lists that I can contact to get them to stop distributing my information?

Thanks,

Derek

Update for everyone,

I wanted to respond to each comment, but I can't figure out how to @ each person in 1 reply and don't want to spam 10 replies/

My lease states something along the lines of "On this day July 16 2021, Derek S. and ABC tenant enter in an agreement for..." So I think I'm covered as far as when the lease is valid even though the lease start in Aug.

I am generally too nice and have been taken advantage of in the past. I now have certain written policies that I will under no circumstances budge on. Canceling the lease with no repercussions is one of those as I was already too nice and let a tenant out of a 3 yr lease after 1.5 years, with no loss of security deposit. Thinking he was a fair and honest person I asked him what he thought was fair in the situation. Wont do that again.

I have already relisted it and am getting slow interest this time around. I had 93 inquiries in the first 4 days I had it posted, 6 in the last 2 since I reposted it.

None of the people who I canceled with to show on Saturday have returned my phone calls or messages. So I do think there is some skepticism now that it has been reposted.

I can't just tear up the check, they paid with a cashiers check, so I have to cash it in order to return any money at all. Hence my hesitation to return any until I'm sure it clears the bank. My bank said after 7 days I should call the issuing bank and make sure there is no hold or return request on the check prior to sending any money back to them.

I did have a discussion with the tenant, and told them that I will be holding the money until it is fully cleared with the banks.

I also informed them that if I get it rented by Aug 1st I will return their money minus any costs associated with releasing it including my time. Rent will be prorated through August until I find a tenant minus costs until sept 1st at which time I will return the remaining deposit minus costs.

She seemed satisfied with that and happy to be let out of the lease.

One change I made as a result of the comments here is to start asking if they have pets or are smokers, I mention No Pets, No Smoking, twice in my listing but still have people apply who have pets. Now I'm screening them out earlier and don't have to spend time showing to people I will never rent to.

Thanks for the feedback.

@Theresa Harris

I have it posted again as of this morning, and I reached out to those I had cancelled the Saturday showing.

Of the people who I showed already, the ones who signed the lease were the only ones who had the credit and income / no pets to qualify.

But because I thought I had it rented I stopped responding to all the emails/ phone calls for the last 3 days.

I want to be fair, to both of us.

I get a large response because its a really nice house in a really nice area, so I spent considerable amount of time talking, emailing, showing, reviewing, screening, etc.

That and now that it’s been listed, delisted, and listed again I fear I’ll have a more difficult time because people will assume either there is something wrong with the house, or it’s a scam.

To be honest, I’m a little worried these people are scamming me, we will be holding funds until the check is completely cleared and will be following up with the bank.

Hello,

What would you do in this situation?

I listed a property for rent found a tenant with excellent credit and income, signed a lease and got 1st month rent with security deposit yesterday.

They were due to move in August first, but just tonight called and they want out of the lease with some story about the father getting sick and needing to move there instead.

My lease is specific about needing 60 days notice and losing security deposit if you don’t complete the lease term. (12 months)

I should be able to rent the house easily, but probably not for Aug 1st so I’ll be losing a months rent. And I already took the listing down and cancelled a couple people I had booked to show it for today.

Would you keep the security deposit only?

All?

None?

Thank you,

I am both a W2 employee, as well as a S-corp owner with W2 income. So the home office deduction is not available to me.

$140k was revenue, not net.

I will look into the QBI deduction, I don't remember that from last year. 

I will look into a tax adviser, I've met with CPA's and gone over plans in the past. But they've never been able to recommend doing much different than I already do.

 Right, you don’t have to be super wealthy to own your own business and rent space to it. 

What I thought was, people were using this strategy when they owned multiple homes, where none were rented to other people. They were somehow owned in a separate entity and paid rent from the individual for the purpose of minimizing taxes.

I haven’t been able to find much about it so far. What’s so different if you only have 1 primary residence you live in?

 Where in the tax code would I find this? 26 CFR XX?

I get that this is solely for tax purposes, but what makes that different than any other strategy for minimizing taxes? 

How is it decided what is substantive vs not?

The one issue I’ve read about but haven’t actually read in the tax code yet is, you can’t deduct passive losses from active income. I may have enough passive income to make it worth it but I haven’t run all the numbers and I’m not sure. Still just spitballing the issues around it.

Well, I paid about 60k in taxes last year. Which was more than 2017, without making proportionally more in 2018.

So no, I didn’t gain.

If you familiar, the tax rules changed last year making the standard deduction larger, but also removing things like home office deductions. (I run a small business from my house, ~140k/ year, plus my W2 job, plus my wife’s W2 job, plus rentals)

Overall itemizing puts me just under the standard deduction, because of the changes that were made.

So simply put, I appreciate the criticism. I would appreciate it more if it were constructive.

Hello everyone, 

Ever since the new tax laws went into place where you have to be uber rich in order to write off your mortgage interest. I've been trying to think of ways to move my mortgage to my investment properties so I can continue to write it off.

All options I've come up with either 1) drain my savings, and or 2) increase cash out every month. neither is a really good investment considering my 3.75% 30yr mortgage.

BUT....

This morning I had an idea that I could turn my primary residence into a rental, and just rent it to myself.

Yes, this would mean I would incur additional income from the rent, but I think that would be more than offset by depreciation, interest, taxes, repairs, etc. Showing a net loss and reducing my taxable income.

What are the legal/ ethical dilemmas of doing this? i did some research and it looks like the uber rich already employ this strategy.

Would I need to form a LLC and transfer ownership? (I don't have my other rentals in an LLC) Or can I just draw up a lease and voila?

What am I missing/ not thinking about here?

Thanks everyone,

I have it rented now, it only took about 2.5 weeks after it was finally listed on Zillow/ Trulia/ Hotpads.

All those are owned by Zillow, and it took them a week to finally get back to me and turn my listing back on.

I tried Realtor.com as well but only ever got a few leads from it.

I think CL brings in too many tire kickers who waste my time or never show up to the showing, that's my experience in the past.

However this time I had the same issue with Zillow, I think it was my wording in my email responses.

I had a lot of confirmations that never showed, I guess I made it seem like I was going to be there anyway.

After a week or so of that I changed to responding with a phone number and a couple of days that were available, asking them to call and set up a time. That eliminated the no-shows.

Thanks for everyone's help