All Forum Posts by: Steve Chenoweth

Thanks guys!

Flight? Hotel? Rental car? I would think that some of this cost can be deducted.

Let's say I want to take a vacation to San Diego (or wherever), but I also intend on looking for cashflow properties and meeting with agents, mortgage brokers, property managers and other RE professionals.

How much of the trip can I legitimately deduct from my taxes? And do I need a business entity in order to do this? Any input would be appreciated, thanks!

First time home buyer. I want to consider myself owner occupied in order to qualify for an OO mortgage, and to have more RE deals open to me. However, I intend on moving out of the house after a year and leasing out to tenants.

If I moved out of this house before a year, would I run into problems with agents and/or mortgage brokers in considering me a "liability" to their operations? If so, what is a safe "ballpark" timeframe for owner occupancy?

Very quick response, many thanks!

Hey, just posted about business entities for CRE, here's another topic.

With this house I'm looking at, while its being rehabbed, I would want to rezone it from SF to commercial. It's a 5/2 SF house, 3 full stories, 100x200. The whole block has businesses in which were once SF houses, so its clearly been done before in this area.

In the topic of rezoning, would I have to go through the municipal government and file my claim? I hear going through this process is a real pain in the @$$, so how long does something like this usually take and what is involved on my end? What other steps would I have to take?

Thanks,
Steve

I'm looking at a property in the Philadelphia area, I'm looking to rehab it, rezone it (it's SF and its location on a main road denotes commercial), and find tenants. I will probably have a few posts in here regarding this, but here is my first.

I've heard that in order to even be considered for financing (when dealing with CRE), you have to be doing business through a separate entity. I've heard both LLC and LP are good for this. What's the best one? I live in PA, if that helps at all. Anybody have any advice/experience on this topic?

Thanks,
Steve

I don’t know much at all about insurance for investment properties. So I feel I should break this down into a series of questions.

Can the quality of insurance you get for an investment house depend on the tenant’s background information (criminal record, credit report, history with property damage, etc.)?

Does house insurance normally have a high or low deductible? Is that dependent at all on the tenant and their history of renting? If so, can I legally run a background check on the tenant?

Are their instances where you can choose to add deductible in the insurance policy if you find out more information about the tenant (criminal background, history with damaging property, or lack thereof, etc.)?

In the lease, can you reserve the right to sue the tenant for any loss it seems that they have caused, like fire or other damage, something that goes past the amount of the security deposit?

Any information on these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Are there any resources out there that bring motivated sellers together to one website/forum?

nevermind, i found the house value comps section, ill look at that

but i would still like some further info if possible, to make the process more thorough

- steve