All Forum Posts by: Ryan O.

I purchased a duplex in March 2021, 6 months later a large storm overwhelmed the drainage on the street and significant flooding happened occured.  Water of course got into my basement as well as the basements of nearly every other house on the street.  Fortunately, the damage was not too significant for me, I was able to salvage the carpet in one unit and only need to replace the carpet in the other unit.   My neighbors though experienced much more damage.

I was concerned that this may be a pervasive issue and so I began to investigate the issue further.  I spoke with all of the neighbors and they all told me that this street floods like that during torrential storms and one guy who has lived there for the past 40 years said that it was extremely bad in the 1980s and everyone got water.  Odd I thought, I don't recall there being any mention of water intrusion on the seller's disclosure.  So I went back and checked.  The only mention of water intrusion by sellers was "Only ever a tenant caused issue and mitigated in full".  Well, that's not what the neighbors are indicating, and definitely not what I experienced here.  So I dug further and checked the seller disclosure of the neighboring duplex that I also offered on. Again, the same comment on water intrusion was there "Only ever a tenant caused issue and mitigated in full".  So this guy knows there was water in all 4 units he sold but they've all been from the tenants?  This seems peculiar to me but I am quite new to this and don't know how I can prove that there were water issues before if the tenants that are there now claim that this is the first time they've experienced it in the 1 year they lived there.  Is the previous owner responsible for this water damage?

My other thought was that the water probably shouldn't have been pooling in the street in the first place, the drainage here must be insufficent, so I began investigating this with the county.  I call the county drain commission, they tell me they don't have any drains on the road, the road commission owns the only storm drain there.  So I call them and they say, we can put a claim and have the foreman come check it out.  This is just beginning so we will see where this process goes but would you think the drain commission is responsible here?

I hope that this is not a 

Hello,  I was wondering if anyone had any insight on if expenses incurred in obtaining a vehicle for my real estate business would be tax deductible.

Example:  I own property in Michigan and purchased a vehicle for $10,000 in Phoenix Arizona. I anticipate using this vehicle for both business and personal use.  I flew to Phoenix and drove the car back to Michigan where it will be used. 

Can I expense the costs of the trip to Phoenix and the gas/oil change I paid for on the trip back?

I have a question regarding renting out a room in your primary residence.  Say that I want to rent out one of my rooms, and this generates 10,000 in income each year (net of depreciation and other expenses).  Would I be allowed to apply this 20% deduction on this 10,000 and effectively only pay the taxes on the 8,000 remaining?

Hi I was running some numbers on the BiggerPockets Rental Calculator and I kept realizing that the equity for a property after year one was much higher than I would expect and have been having trouble understanding why this may be. I can figure out the Initial Equity alright...ARV - PurchsePrice + Down Payment. But the after 1 year value isn't making any sense to me.

Just logically thinking, the equity after year 1 should be the Initial Equity + Principal Repayment which I am using the Excel Formula PPMT to figure out.

If anyone could provide some help with this I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you

Jeff Dulla Jeff Burdick Crystal Smith Dorothy Wulf Michael Facchini Michelle C. @Perry I appreciate all of your input, and I know it’s been a long time but I’m back with an update on this current plan! I took the advice of my family and refrained from purchasing immediately. I am currently renting a place paying $815 right off of Addison. I really like the area, and honestly my apartment is great. It’ll be hard to leave this place. But I feel I should begin investigating purchasing a place when my lease is up at the end of August. Therefore I would love to get in contact with many of you who have provided input on this and get your take on my current situation and what I am beginning to formulate in my mind. I’ll try to message you all individually sometime this week:)

Hi I recently came across some local programs in the Chicago area (Chicago Home Assistance Program) that offers a grant for up to 7% of the loan value so I was just curious to know if anyone has used any government sponsored programs like this to buy an investment property. If anyone has any experience with this I’d love to hear about it. Thanks!

Hello BP,

I am about to graduate from school this upcoming May and am going to be moving to Chicago for my first ever full-time job. 

While I have rented for the past 3 years in college (been paying on average $600 / mth) I am not looking forward to renting for another couple years especially in Chicago where its almost guaranteed to be at least $1000 / mth. Thus, I was wondering if anyone on here has an opinion on whether it would be wise to look into investing in a house, duplex, triplex, etc. in the Chicago area or renting. I have not done much research as of yet, just looking to get the feelers out there and see what some other investors have to say on the subject. Also, this doesn't necessarily be a home run house. I really would be happy getting enough money to cover the mortgage, so if this is possible that would be great.

As for costs, I will let you guys help me with this a bit as I am sure some of you are very familiar with the average cost of the houses, duplexs, triplexs, etc. in the area. I will say that the salary offer was 75k with 7k signing bonus so that's about all the money I will have. As of now, I have very little money to put down too, but given its a good investment I think I'm confident I could get the money. 

Hey everybody so I recently heard my neighbor is going to be foreclosed on in the next couple of months. His property is listed on Zillow as a pre foreclosure right now. Houses in my neighborhood are selling like hot cakes, hit the market and sell the same day. The house has a zestimate auction value of 230,000 but the condition it's in (outside is all I know, plan on checking out inside next week) I doubt it will fetch that. I know the houses pretty well in my neighborhood, I'd assume with some rehab it could fetch $250,000. As this may be my first deal I'm looking for advice on how to get this house before anyone else and for a good price. I'll have to use private lending to finance the deal and maybe use some college loan money for the repairs if necessary. I don't know anything about approaching a homeowner in pre foreclosure or how to handle this deal so any advice or direction would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

Hey all, I'm interested in purchasing a vacation rental that I can rent out the majority of the year but use a few weeks for my own enjoyment a few weeks a year. Anyone have any suggestions for areas that have proved good for their vacation rentals? I am mainly interested in the south (Florida, Georgia, Texas) or the west (Montana, Washington, Oregon) but would love to hear where others find to be good vacation locations. Also, I am curious how you manage your vacation rentals if you have them out of state!

Hi everyone, My names Ryan and have been reading the 4 hour workweek this for a few days and began to wonder if anyone has ever used a virtual assistant or some freelance worker to do market research for them. For anyone who has read the book I'm sure you are familiar with Ferriss' proclamation of how great virtual assistants are and how they can practically tackle any job for less $5 an hour. I figured a practical use could be to have them analyze markets, find contractors in your area, find comps, and other data intense jobs. If anyone has tried this I would love to hear your opinion and for those of you who have not please tell me what you think of the whole idea!