All Forum Posts by: Rick Bradd

Welcome Fred, BP is a great site with a lot of information and expert advise.

I propose a test, send me the cash in one envelope, and the gift card in another.

I will then do a scientific evaluation on which one makes me more appreciative.

Need my address?

Just had an interesting conversation with my CPA, he says he has never had as many audits ordered this month, and he has been doing taxes for over 20 years. Basically, the IRS is interested in how filers with low earnings are showing such high mortgage interest write offs.

A lot of his clients are investors, who may have had a great income year in 2011, or a large capital gain, and then they sat on the sidelines in 2012. Thus they may show an income of 50k, yet 15k in mortgage interest deductions, for example.

I asked him if it was a regional thing or only in Southern California and he said no, the IRS let it be known they are just intensifying examination of interest deductions versus income to see if there is a trend or some such thing. I forgot to ask him if these was a certain ratio that triggered it.

Alas, it does not affect me in any way, I only wish I had that problem. But I thought I would share just in case anyone might find it interesting....................
Rick

Congratulations Karen, I always look forward to your posts and insight. Good move BiggerPockets!

Incredible house, can not wait to see the finished product.

Interesting, just last month at my place of business SCE came in and updated all of our florescent bulbs, ballasts and installed motion activated switches through out the building. They put in bulbs that I really like that seem like natural daylight.

No charge, part of an energy saving program. You may be looking for a more modern updated lighting scheme, but for the money this was really awesome. You may want to contact them????

Good luck.
Rick

Booze, lots of booze. Rented to two young military stationed at the local SeeBee base and they moved out to deploy. Pretty much left the place a wreck, but since they were going to be in a dangerous place I cut them a lot of slack. The day before our scheduled walk through they had new orders and left RIGHT THEN. The garage had at least three cases of beer, various makers, even some nice micro brews. And many bottles of hard liqueur too, most unopened.

I doubt they were leaving them for me, probably had arranged for a friend to come over and since they had there orders changed I ended up with it. I won over a lot of neighbors when I met them in the parking lot and handed out full bottles.

I can not remember the brand I bought last time, but I am of the opinion that you should not use the whisper quiet fans, in fact I always find the loudest most annoying one I can get!

I don't want anyone in the next room hearing what I am doing in there, and I sure do not want to hear what they are doing......................

But that is just my opinion.

Mold can be a serious health issue, I had a slab leak in a rental behind the kitchen cabinets and you could smell the mold, and my tenant was "sensitive" to it. I offered to put him in a hotel while I fixed it and to his credit he stayed. I had the insurance underwriter come out and by coincidence the mold remediation contractor who was bidding was there, those two really went at it, the underwriter felt like the guy was scamming me and the bid was out of line, since it was not covered he had nothing to lose. His bid was 8 grand.

I did the remediation demo myself legally and then hired a cabinet builder to redo the boxes, I was able to save the facing and all but one kick panel on the cabinets but I ruined the counter tops and had to replace them, ended up spending nearly 5k with the plumbing bypass and cabinet work. Water is my enemy.

My point is be careful with the health issue, insurance will not cover you and it's the right thing to do for your tenants to keep them safe, sounds like a cheap way to put them at ease.

Good luck, chances are its nothing and you will be better off knowing if it is a problem in the long run.

Rick