All Forum Posts by: Paul Ewing

Trying to figure start date for IRS depreciation.

Purchased late July 2014 but work needed before renting

Prospective tenant stops by while I am working on it in mid August, likes it and, puts down a deposit in mid August.

Work almost complete in mid September and tenant signs a lease to begin occupancy on October 1, 2014.

When was this home Placed in Service for depreciation start date?  From what I am reading in the Nolo guide it would be September, but may be August on the initial showing and deposit?  Any opinions?

I wish one of the features of being a Pro member was the ability to turn off the stupid noisy ads on every bloody page in the forums.  This is getting annoying this morning since I was trying to catch up on things and still need to keep my sound on the laptop for notification messages and such.  I don't mind a static ad, the bouncy moving graphic stuff is annoying but can be ignored and just put down to companies I don't want to do business with, but the ones with the noise make me immediately close the tab unless it is something I REALLY want to read and I mute the speakers for.  If you try to stop it on the ad it opens the ad.  These are tactics of scammer sites and I thought above BP.

The law actually requires you pay the tenants 3% interest in this sub 1% environment?  Wow!

I am looking at a similar situation in Texas.  My parents and aunt want me to take over the management of their rentals.  I am in the process of getting my RE License for other reasons, but even then it will take five years before I can get a brokers license to do legal third party property management.  One thing I thought of is looking into the ownership exemption.  In Texas it reads "an owner or the owner's employee who leases the owner's improved or unimproved real estate;".  Is there a minimum percentage of ownership?  Can they deed me 1% ownership in each of the properties and I would then fall under the exemption?  I dread trying to find out anything from TREC.  Last time I called them with a question on licensing I was on hold for 45 minutes and got one of the nastiest state employees I have had the displeasure of dealing with.  That includes the people at the Manufactured Homes office and the State Health Department.

I agree with @Hattie Dizmond even though I am also a Texan and think that everyone should have their CHL.  The people in many of those neighborhoods have more firepower than I could conveniently carry and have less to lose by getting in a gunfight than I do so I wouldn't really want to do cash pickups in a war zone or even D grade neighborhood.  Now stopping to help the disabled guy in a wreck a couple miles from my house and finding out that the other car abandoned when we called the cops had a meth lab stashed in the trunk means you can't only be worried about war zone neighborhoods.

I would love to find some deals like that in my area.  We are rural and have a bit smaller local population but a lot of commuters into Ft Worth.  Similar units to those are renting for $1100-$1200 as fast as they are being built.

And you never know when they might pop up in the future even if they try to change jobs to avoid garnishment.  I had my deadbeat pop up a couple weeks ago.  Facebook recommended that I Friend him for some reason and I saw he had moved back into the area.

Welcome to Bigger Pockets.  I am also from North Texas, but I don't like to go East of Denton or the Mid Cities if I can avoid it somehow. 

I deal exclusively with MHs on land as buy and hold investor.  This is very different from the fast flipping in parks people.  Even then it is very hard to get bank loans on MHs even if you are an owner occupant and almost impossible for investors.  I currently going with a combination of savings and very short term private money loans from my parents.  Once the two loans are paid off I will use the cash flow from my four properties to purchase more.  The good thing is that in most cases you are talking about $20,000 to $40,000 in total investments so it isn't too difficult to scrape together some cash.  You can even play the credit card cash advance game to get a quick $5,000 to $10,000 or so for a 3% transaction fee as long as you pay it off in the 12-18 months no interest period.

I think in most states it is illegal.  I know in Texas it is.  Look up your states rules for activities requiring a real estate license.  Many you have to have a full Brokers license not just a Sales license.