All Forum Posts by: Rebecca Cramer

Hi! We are real-estate investors that own 3 vacation rental properties. We are currently maxed out on being able to get a mortgage because of our other mortgages. We currently live full time in a town house and of course would love to buy our dream home as our primary residence. We have our eye on one particular home. It has a separate 2 bedroom cottage that is detached from the regular larger home. I see they are trying to rent out that cottage currently as a long term rental. My thought was to create a deal that would include a rent to buy option and an owner financing option, allowing the current owner to continue to live the larger home for so many agreed upon years and we would buy it from them and they could continue to live in the larger home for so many years. We would live in the cottage. How to I set up this deal so it would benefit the current owners and ourselves. We could easily live in the cottage for 5 years or so and then move into the larger home later. The entire property (larger home and cottage) is on zillow for almost 1 million. They are asking $2,000/month for the lease for the cottage. Any help would be appreciated. 

Best Regards, Rebecca

Hi! We have three short term rentals and right now want to upgrade 6, count them....SIX full bathrooms! Right now they either have tile that easily gets moldy or outdated inserts from the 90's. I LOVE the inserts at the one rental because they dont get moldy and are easy to clean but they are UGLY! I was looking to see if they made the inserts that LOOK like luxury modern tile. I found this website: https://www.luxurybath.com/ . I am a very skeptical person and dont want to get scammed into pay 10xs more for a product. Does anyone have experience with any kind of these kind of inserts? Who did you use? Why did you use them? How much was it to replace a bath tub/shower or just a stand alone tub or walk in shower? Any help would be appreciated! One of our properties is in Ocean City, Maryland and the other property is in Kissimmee Florida.  Thank you!

Rebecca

We were interested in some land to build a vacation home. We found the land we wanted on the MLS asked a seller if they were interested in seller financing. We already have two other rental properties and cant get another mortgage at this point traditionally. They sellers said they were open to seller financing. Using a realtor we sent them an offer and then they came back and said "no seller financing" after they "talked to their financial advisor". We sweetened the deal upping the down payment and the interest. They continued to say "no seller financing".

Its been about 5 months and they still have not sold the land. I want to go back to them and see if they are interested again in seller financing. Im wondering:

1. Is it Kosher to try to contact them directly and talk about doing a deal outside of realtors? We found them on facebook. 

2. Is there a way I can sweeten the seller financing deal to them? They asked 300,000k. We offered 7% interest, 15% down, one year and a balloon payment due, and 279,000K.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Rebecca

Hi friends! 

I am finally getting to my 2018 taxes and we bought our first short term vacation rental property in 2018. We have receipts galore and trying to fill out our "schedule E" and I have a lot of questions. Our CPA wants us to pay him $100/hour just to answer a few questions...so Im here asking you. Here we go:

1. Im so confused what category to put things like all the decor we bough for the house, pillows, plates, kayaks, paintings, coffee and tea,furniture, sheets, mattress, couch, everything we bought and continue to buy to make the property a vacation rental....there is the "supplies" category but I also heard some things go into the the depreciation category like furniture. But just confused where to put what...HELP!

2.Also, when we came up to stay in the location (Ocean City, Maryland) to look for houses and stayed in hotels and ate out can we deduct that as well in "travel" category? Is it 50% of food costs? Does that include the grocery store food we bought during those trips?

3.Also when we go to the property to do improvements. Can we deduct all the food costs 50%? Grocery store food?

4.Can we deduct loss of income when we stayed at the property to do improvements since we blocked time off and couldn't get rentals?

Any help would be so much appreciated! Thanks!!

Best Regards, Rebecca

I know I need to read @jscott book and others ..I just ordered it! And I need a good contractor. Just trying to find a ballpark. My first rehab was just appliances, light fixtures and a few odds and ends. This next one is a complete gut job, an 100 year old auto shop I want to turn into a duplex. Any idea what it will cost me, Im sure all new electrical is needed. Outside is all brick and looks good. Just new shutters and trim painted...Throw some numbers out there for a girl! Im hoping a contractor can come look at it with me next week but just want to know a little before then...Thanks y'all!

Rebecca

Hi! Im interested in rehabbing a old historic home in downtown Fredrick, MD. Im looking to see if there are any off market properties I can look at? I would like it in the historical district. Im not interested in seeing any lists I have to pay for..Also, does anyone have any recommendations for a great contractor so I can get some estimates on the rehab costs for the properties Im interested in? Thanks for any help!

Rebecca

Hi Daniel! Well the problem with Ocean City is I've been looking fervently for another house to make sense and all the houses on the market are just too overpriced. I would love to find a foreclosure or Or something that could use a little work and people are desperate to sell but we've been looking for a few months now and everything we have tried people are just wanting way too much. We don't have the capital to Buy houses for cash so I don't know if knocking on doors and writing letters in Ocean City would even work. So I am still hoping that something in Ocean City will work out but in the meantime I don't want to overlook Deepcreek because it seems there are some houses there that could make sense for us. I wish there's a way to find more houses than on the MLS in Ocean City… Any suggestions?