All Forum Posts by: Brian Moore

Greetings northern Nevada investors! I've finally closed on a property in the area and have received a questionnaire from the local tax assessor with questions about purchase price, property condition, opinion of actual value, etc. I also received a second questionnaire about my projections for rental revenue. It appears the assessor is trying to use this information to better determine accurate property values based on recent sales. Sale price info is public record so I'm not sure why that question is on there.

My question for BP: Obviously I want to keep my tax bill as low as possible, so why would I want to provide information that would indicate the property is worth more than the previously assessed value? It was my understanding that typical property valuation in the Reno Sparks area involves property assessments every 5 years and sometimes longer and that the sale of a property does not immediately alter the assessed value; is this accurate? Has anyone seen these forms in the past? Should I let them get 'lost in the mail'?

Thanks!

Hi @Craig Curelop- Enjoyed your podcast episode last month!

@Joseph Franco, Craig was just on the BP podcast show #350 and also published a new book on house hacking, but is too modest to give himself a plug :) You should check out both to get more info if you decide house hacking is for you.

Hi @Joseph Franco, I think the majority of us would highly recommend a house hack as the best way to get started in RE given your situation; lots of good comments by @Emily Di on this.

For kicks I decided to do a deep dive on some local numbers in San Diego to see what this looks like to provide you with some high level assumptions. I only invest out of state because I can't make the numbers work in SD for a non owner occupied property and house hacking with a family of four is not in the cards for me :) So I'm envious that you can employ this strategy!

The BP podcast has had a lot of guests talk about house hacking and living for free. This is highly unlikely in the current SD market unless you are doing the more exotic approach of rent by the bedroom and live in the living room. A more vanilla basic house hack would involve buying a duplex east of I-5: Clairemont, BayPark, South Park have some listings around $600K. Ideally you can obtain a 3% first time buyer loan at an interest rate of 3.5% and only need $18K down (plus closing costs). After mortgage payment ($2613), property taxes ($563), home insurance ($100) and PMI (Mortgage Insurance) ($250), your monthly nut is about $3500. If you can find a renter for one side of your duplex at $2000/month, your living cost is subsidized and you are only paying $1500 for the other side AND most importantly, you own real estate. This was just a quick run through and ignores some very important expense considerations (maintenance, vacancy, capital expenditures like new water heater every 10 years, etc) and you would need to build up reserves from your subsidized living cost in order to cover these expenses.

Hope this helps provide some real life context of how you can get started locally without a lot of risk or alteration to your current lifestyle in America's Finest City- Good Luck!

Hi @Justin R.- What ended up happening with your 1031 and trust decisions? I found this thread extremely helpful as I am in the exact same boat as you (I even grew up in TO!): 3 properties in TX acquired before marriage, recent 1031 exchanges on 2 of these properties but kept them in my name in order to keep it simple and not upset the QI, my wife and I have setup a trust and retitled our primary residence but the TX properties are still in my name and not in any trust, all that I've found on the subject (outside of this thread) is to wait 2-3 years after the 1031 so that the TX properties are 'old and cold' and then retitle them into the trust. I haven't explored setting up a TX trust, is this a requirement and is my CA trust not able to hold the TX assets? Look forward to hearing the epilogue to your tale!

A lot of good advice here. I thought I'd add my favorite appliance website in case it helps. I've used ajmadison.com out of NY for 4 of my kitchens. They have free delivery, no taxes for out of state orders, and will price match with just about any other vendor.

First I research and determine the SKUs I want (either online or at HD/Lowes), then shop online through Google shopping to find the best prices. Finally I call up ajmadison and ask them to price match the fridge from Amazon, the range from HD, and the DW from Bob's House of Appliances, Fish & Chips and Auto Insurance.

Other than clearance sales or damaged items, this method should provide the lowest price possible. The one drawback is that free delivery generally takes 10-15 days so you must plan your remodel/flip carefully.

@Cameron Tope has a point that I'm probably burning up a couple of hours that could be put to better use rather than trying to save 100-200 bucks. I think a lot of us are into RE investing because we have a passion for finding the best deal, sometimes to a fault! 😆

Thanks for the info Dusty. They're a large organization and hopefully your experience was an outlier; I'll update this thread on my experience going forward.

Hi Andrew and Erika, I just attended a meetup with @David Pere and @David Campbell up in Oceanside. They're both veterans and savvy investors (and really nice guys!). I'm sure they can provide some advice on this subject. Best of luck!

Hi Ben, I've just entered the Reno market and have selected NCS (Nevada Commercial Services) courtesy of a recommendation by fellow BP member @Cooper Marcus. They appear to be one of the bigger organizations in the area, rates were reasonable, and I especially liked the in-house maintenance crew that they have on their payroll which provides economies of scale. Instead of calling a specialist or trying to chase down a handyman, they have a full time maintenance crew as their first line of defense which is sure to save money on basic fix-it calls. I'm just getting started with them so you may want to do some additional digging, but so far I like what I'm hearing. Maybe Cooper can provide some more info? Send me a DM if you'd like contact info.

Hi @Kelly Rastatter, thanks for putting together the event tonight and for all the great local intel! It was great to meet with you and the local Chattanooga investors, and I look forward to further looking into the area for opportunities.

Thanks @Jeffrey Holst! I fly home Thursday night but will try to make it work. Otherwise Wednesday night would be great- I'll send you a message.