All Forum Posts by: Raquel D.

Wow, what a beautiful home -- and an incredible result!  Congratulations and thank you for sharing this!

When you apply for an EIN online, there is going to be a question about how many LLC members there are. If you enter 2, the follow up question will be confirming whether the 2 members are spouses, and some more information about tax treatment.

I understand you do your taxes yourself, but if you're investing it may be work it to start seeing a CPA who has a lot of real estate investor clients -- there are so many tax benefits you can get (and miss out on) with real estate. The CPA could also really quickly weigh in on this. I think it is pretty common for a single-member (or spouse-owned) LLC to be reported on your individual 1040s, since it'd would be a pass through entity, but I would say confirm that with an actual tax professional, whether it's an experienced CPA or a tax attorney.

I agree with the suggestions to include it as part of the rent.  I've known many people who consider "utilities included!" to be a perk of renting, so your potential tenants hopefully will as well.  

It would depend on what you were charging for rents, the neighborhood, etc.  If you wanted to charge the same rent for similar 3 bedroom homes in the area, but all of the other houses had larger rooms/more floor space, then the property with small bedrooms would be less desirable.  But if your rent would be lower -- that could make it competitive.  Particularly  neighborhoods that may have a lot of tenants with lower incomes -- a lot of families are more concerned with having that many bedrooms than with how much actual floor space the property has.

Yeah, it's a good idea to get familiar with how property taxes are assessed in the state you invest in -- like checking the property tax rate and how the fair market/assessed value is determined (such as the purchase price).  Fair value x property tax rate percentage = property taxes.

For example, say you determine the county's property tax rate is the purchase  price.  If you buy a house for $100,000 and the property tax rate is 1%, then property taxes would be $1,000.  (This is a pretty basic estimate though -- check the county website.)

It looks amazing, thanks for sharing!  Truly inspiring :D 

Thanks for the link @Johnson H., I just signed up!  I'm usually between Hayward and Burlingame so I'll be close to both of those and I'd love to start attending some locate meetings.

Congrats!  That looks like it will be fun to polish into a shiny new unit for rent.  Thanks for sharing the story -- that (and the reply) is definitely something to keep in mind for future reference.  Wow.

I'd be wary of doing anything that triggers a due-on-sale clause, which is what can happen when a property in someone's individual name is transferred to an LLC. Would you have cash to pay off the loan if it got called? If not -- maybe not worth the risk.

Hi, Al!  Hope you don't mind if I connect with you -- I haven't bought my first investment property yet, but the St. Louis area is where I plan to buy (and relocate to, most likely!)