All Forum Posts by: Adam Smith

"Comps" are Comparable sales. In other words, if you are looking at buying a 3bd 2ba home with a one car garage and is 1300 square feet, you would look at other houses nearby with "comparable" attributes. So looking at a 5bd 3ba 2700 square foot home wouldn't help as much as one that looked just like the one you want to buy. Make sure you look at SOLD prices, not the FOR SALE price, which means nothing.

My Realtor has me set up on a system that emails me new listings according to specific criteria I choose. When I click on the address of any of these, I see it on a google map and can choose what other houses to view, ie recently sold, which is what you are looking for. In this way I can do my own comps. It's easy to see what condition the property was in because the photos of the sold property when they were for sale are still available.

See if there is a Realtor in your area who can do this for you. Mine is with Re/Max.

Some more info from the source:

"Purchased in 2005 for $159,950.00
Cash down payment of $48,911.95
After fees, etc. the mortgage amount is $111,965.00

Finance rate was originally an ARM but is now 4.86 fixed for 30 years.

The min payment on the mortgage is $733.85 plus association fees of $180/ month plus a utilities fee of around $80 every other month.  Our property management charges about 7% per month.   YIKES!!!!!

We do most of the maintenances/repairs of this property ourselves except for cleaning when tenants move out.

We collect $724/ month in rent.  We just increased the rent from $699.  This is actually considered a little high for this neighborhood so at least for now, rent is at it's max.

Condos on the same street are selling between $13k and 40k.  There is literally a foreclosure or for sale sign in front of every other building!!

As far as our personal finances, we gross pretty well but after business expenses, our own mortgage, cc payments, groceries, utilities, etc.  we really do live paycheck to paycheck and it's very tight.  We haven't contributed to our IRAs in about 4 years."

Some great insight here. I believe the condo was his primary residence, and he decided to rent it at some point. He never really bought it as a rental, so I believe that after the PITI is paid and the condo fees and management co, he is $250 in the hole per month. Obviously he could self manage, but he already works 12-14 hour days and doesn't have time. I will have to ask about the other details.

Thanks!!

Yes it's in Sac.

Great advice! I guess the next question is about selling it. If he got lucky and sold it for say $60,000, that is still $45,000 short of what he owes. Seems that unless it was a short sale he would still be on the hook for that amount. I don't know if a short sale would be allowed because their income isn't too bad.

My Brother-In-Law bought a condo in Sacramento about 6 years ago when the home prices there were still very high. He initially had a good investment going for him, but now things have radically changed.

He owes $105,000 on the condo still. He has a $250 loss every month. They are going to raise the rent slightly in October, but still a big loss. There are nearly a dozen of these condos in the area in foreclosure, most of them selling for $20-$30K.

What should they do? They are thinking about just letting it go to foreclosure. They are not big-time investors. They have new cars and a nice house, so don't really need credit that much. I told her the value of that property would eventually come back up, but who knows when? I would hesitate to take that kind of hit on my credit, but their situation is different since they don't plan on buying for a while. Any thoughts?

I tried something similar to this but it said I couldn't record a negative invoice.

I also don't see a PM anywhere to message you :(

Howdy all,

I have a small property management company for my own rentals as well as a friend who is out of state for a few years. I'm just getting setup in quickbooks. I'm trying to figure out the best way to itemize everything such as his rent payment, my management fees, and maintenance that I perform on his property, and how to make a receipt for him to use for tax purposes.

Right now I have him set up as both a customer "Joe Customer", and a vendor "Joe Vendor". What I'm trying to do is show that the tenant in his house paid say $1500 in rent, minus a $150 managment fee, minus a $34 part at Lowes, minus a labor fee of $40, for a total payment of $1276. I'm able to do this by entering a bill, but there is no way to print a bill from what I can tell. The issue is making him a detailed receipt that shows an itemized breakdown of money he's owed, and money he owes me.

Hopefully this makes sense. I just can't quite figure this out.

Thank you!