All Forum Posts by: Ted Lanzaro

I am looking for 10 charitable people who would like to get my home study course "The Tax Smart Landlord toolkit" free.  Connect with me to find out how and why!  Don't worry - its for a great cause!

Thanks, 

Ted

So, here's the story.  My wife is a teacher at an urban elementary school and the kids are raising money to build a well to provide water for children in South Sudan, Africa.  The kids need $5,000 and the class has raised $4,000 so far.  They have until Friday to come up with another $1,000.

The Tax Smart Landlord toolkit is my flagship product of 39 tax strategies to help real estate investors save thousands of dollars a year on their taxes.  It is a text, audio program and disc of all the spreadsheets, checklists and other information I use to save my clients thousands.

I will give you a copy of this toolkit FREE if you make a $100 donation to the Iron Giraffe Challenge.  Just email your receipt to [email protected] and I will send you access to the toolkit.  You can make your donation here -- https://www.crowdrise.com/donate/project/spring-glen-schools-iron-giraffe-challenge/marynelson27

Thank you, Steven.  I already added a new post correcting my original post.  I was typing on my phone in a busy restaurant trying to help a fellow investor with kids screaming all around me and I typed Section 179 instead of bonus depreciation.

Sorry for the typo.  

Call Phil Zimbardi at Top End Properties. He knows the New Haven/West Haven market and is an investor himself. You can find him on this site. I have purchased flips from him in the past.

Hi Jason, Welcome to Bigger Pockets. I am a CPA and experienced real estate investor in Cheshire. Always happy to assist fellow investors. If you want to chat about investing and/or tax advantages of investing, you can connect with me anytime. Have a great weekend, Ted

Natalie Kolodij is correct about the section 179 on rental property. I meant bonus depreciation. Using cost segregation is not super aggressive. It is totally legal but like all tax strategy, it must be tailored to your specific situation so it may or may not be the right strategy depending on your situation and exit strategy. For smaller properties, the quasi correct method described by Paul Caputo is fine assuming you document it correctly and consult with a CPA to make sure it makes sense for your situation and goals. Hope that helps! Ted

The Tax Smart Landlord is a great book on tax strategy for investors. It is available free. I should know, I wrote it! Send me a request on this site and I will tell you how to get it. Hope that helps, Ted

Your situation does sound like you made improvements but some of the bathroom stuff can be five year property instead of 27.5 year property. I would break out the cost of the toilet, vanity, mirrors, shelving, sinks, etc as these are 5 year assets. Then, you can take bonus depreciation or section 179 depreciation and get a similar expensing as it you called it a repair. Plus, you should allocate a portion of the original purchase price of the house to this bathroom then take a write off for the assets you abandoned. If you have pictures of the original bathroom, this strategy might work as long as you can document it. Send me a message if you want more info. Hope that helps, Ted

Hi, When you over improve a flip for a neighborhood, the dangers are two-fold. It may not appraise for financing forcing you to sell at a lower price. Buyers might not come look at it because it is a 300k house in a 240k neighborhood. I am not saying this will happen but I have done dozens of flips, never lost money and I never want the best house on the block. Good luck and I hope you do very well with this! Ted

I personally did this coaching about 10 years ago when it was 10k. It paid for itself on my first few rehabs after that. I still use the systems. With that being said, the cost of the mastery program is substantially more expensive now. If I had 1 million dollars to invest and wanted to learn to do it, I would take the program. If I had to put it on a credit card and hope to use the info to make the money back, I would not. Truth is that it helped me refine a business that was already successful. Not a program for beginners to try to get started. Most students who do this end up doing nothing and end up with big credit card debt which hurts your ability to invest.