All Forum Posts by: Raquel Baranow

I spent a lot of time fixing up a rental, did all the work myself (with a friend), I considered the paint-job a work of art, apparently the tenant didn't think so, he not only primed the walls but also the trim now I'm worried about the colors and if he will do a good job.

Thing about it is: I specifically said in the lease, "no painting"! But his aunt is the one on the lease. I never met him until I had to go there to winterize the house, clean up etc.

I don't want to make a bad situation worse. Here's a pic of the room. If I had to do it over again, I would have painted one or two shades lighter.

Wow, amazing risk, a lot of work -- more than I could have ever done. 

How much were your labor costs?

I did a job like that with a friend who I let live in the house and paid $10/hr. 

I live in the area and would love to have found that house!

Sale took two days. Large liens above $1000 often went for 3% or 2%. 

Turns out I had enough $$$ for all the liens I wanted . . . many of them were paid and hence, "not available".

Now I have to wait three years to see if I get the property.

Every tax lien sale and several times a year I think about the guy who got hit by a car --every time I pass that intersection too, he was a really good friend, confident. 

Those days we didn't buy as many liens and didn't need a contract.

So far I have not found any nuggets. 

Thanks, Jerry, I won some and lost some and was hit really hard by the crash in 2007 but I figured I might find a diamond in the junk, like I have before . . . still doing a little more research . . . may have to do a drive-by.

My best score was a drive-by inspection; the mailbox was packed with letters like the owner abandoned the place or died inside. That was one I didn't have enough money for and I gave the tip to a friend, who subsequently was hit by a car and killed. His wife knew about the oral agreement but she ended up dying too . . . this happened almost 10-years ago and I never asked the daughter if she knew about the agreement. Her name was on the foreclosure lawsuit.

I've been doing a lot of research filtering out bad properties and probably have more liens than I have money to purchase. I'm pretty good at it, I use a computer algorithm and the Assessor's data. Maybe I could bird dog some good, too-expensive-for-me liens to you for some kind of profit if you successfully foreclose the property. Not sure how low people are going to bid down the interest rates . . . last year I heard someone bid all of them down to 3% but isn't coming back this year -- probably because they found out they did not make much profit. Usually it's 6% and I'll go as low as 5% on good ones I researched. I've done this before. Been in the tax lien business for almost 20-years. I'll update this post as the sale progresses and I've finished my research.

thanks Brandon, i think i'm going to amend my 1040. the legal fees will practically zero out the settlement and "sale" of the land . . . horrible lesson learned. it's like the lawyers were churning legal motions they knew had contested issues of fact so they could charge fees.

Last year I had about $60k in legal fees, which I classified as a business expense. Should I have capitalized the $60k (or a part of the $60k)?

I sold the land related to the legal-fees/lawsuit and am now going to have to pay capital gains.

Should I amend my 1040 and capitalize the fees?

thanks Dave and everyone, I'm going out there tomorrow morning to take pictures and put up a for sale / for rent sign

thanks, yes, it's a deed of trust, seller carryback (I'm the seller/beneficiary), buyer died (actually he was killed). it's in pima county AZ. there is not going to be any executor or probate. the niece of the deceased abandoned the property to me. the buyer owes $21k. the property is a mess (lots of junk and a mobile home), I'll probably be lucky to get $25k as is. Dirt alone is probably worth $25k. I'm going out to look at it tomorrow, it's about 30-miles away. :(