All Forum Posts by: David Hedges

I had been reading an article on marketwatch (https://www.marketwatch.com/st...), the part that stood out to me were the possible changes related to real estate that may be put into place. 

- eliminate the $25,000 exemption from passive loss

- eliminate section 1031 like-kind exchanges that allow deferral of capital gains

- eliminate rules that allow faster deprciaion write offs (I assume this is geared toward killing oppertunity zones)

- eliminate qualified business income deductions for profitable real estate activity

- elimination of basis step-up for inheritance 

I wanted to see if anyone is planning to make any changes or take any specific action mitigate any of these?

I've avoided bitcoin ever since Mt. Gox went under. 

Before that I had been mining bitcoin, which in itself is almost like an arms race. As soon as you've recovered the costs of your mining equipment, it is practically obsolete and needs to be replaced. 

I had been storing a large portion of my bitcoin at mt. gox, and had requested they wire a large portion of it to me about a month before they went under. They stalled around and kept telling me they were working on it, right up until they went bankrupt. I never got any of the cash or bitcoin back.

there was that whole bitcoin price manipulation thing that went along with them being hacked. 

After that, I've avoided crypto and looked more to physical gold and silver instead.  

I've done something like this before. It'll likely work out better if you have a property management company in place, as they can be the "bad guy" in the event you have a disagreement. You need to give the same scrutiny you would any other tenant though. 

for me, it went ok, I had rented to my brother and his wife. Overall they complained a lot! to the point I had told them not to call me unless it was something important, and would let most of their calls just go to voicemail. Most of their complaints were just that they didn't get along with a neighboring tenant and seemed to be trying to use their relationship with me as a sort of power move. In the end it didn't work for them. 

I made it clear going in that they would require the same scrutiny I had for other tenants. I had them sign a lease, though knew them well enough that I had skipped the credit and background check. If it had just been my brother, I never would have done it, his wife had been the only reason I was willing to do this because she had straitened up his finances after they had married, without her, his financial life was a disaster. 

@Jen Hoang

hammond is in lake county. A title company would be best bet to go through or you can call the country to find liens.

the county does have a few sites that are useful in researching properties. 

country recorder (you can search for liens here, but if they are very recent they may not show)

http://www.lcrecorder.com/reco...

you can also call or email the recorder, contact info is here:

https://www.lakecountyin.org/p...

there is also the assessor site:

http://counties.xsoftin.com/la...

@Domonick Dangerfield

Unless you really like replacing flooring every couple of years, I’d go with anything other than carpet. Tenant wear, stain, and destroy carpet faster than any other flooring I can think of.

@Kumar Paj

In NW indiana, I've been using real property management.

if this is the only way you have to do it, you're putting yourself into a bad financial position in doing something like this. 

In this scenario, you'd actually be far better off seeking hard money, the interest rate would be lower and odds are if the deal you had was just bad all around, they wouldn't lend to you. 

I've heard of people doing balance transfers, specifically the ones that are 0% for 1-1.5 years, to fund this sort of thing, but most had a plan around how to refinance them or pay them off within the time frame. 

I just don't buy in areas where I don't feel like i'd be safe. 

I you do carry a gun, make sure you have a permit if your state requires it. My feeling on this though is that your apartments should not dictate the fact that you carry. If you think you're risking your life just going to check up on your property, or going to collect rent, maybe you should take some time to rethink your investment strategy. 

@Anthony Testino I also think that some deserve a chance. Though I've never been a fan of people who have a history of things like assault, domestic violence, and other that may be an indicator that they may cause trouble either with their neighbors or with me, particularly if they have multiple convictions in the near past. That being said, I have made exceptions for people in the past. You have to look at what the crime was, and how far in the past it was. People with a 1 time conviction maybe made a mistake, they guy that's been in and out of jail over the past 5-10 years might not be the best guy to rent to. 

Before a had a property manager, I had charged the cost of the background check for each person over 18 who would be living there. If I recall my costs were around $35/person. 

you should also run an eviction record search. 

This accomplishes 2 things. First being, charging the application fee weeds out the people who aren't serious about renting, and saves you from wasting your time and money running the background check on them. Second, The cost of the background check isn't coming out of your profits.

I had always made the application fee non-refundable, though at times had said I would credit it toward the first months rent, assuming they qualified.