All Forum Posts by: Harry Campbell

Right, I understand the liability portion completely and agree that that's where insurance is most important.  But if I have a $300k policy on the house for liability and $1 m umbrella policy, that seems like plenty to me since you really just want someone else's lawyer (the ins. company's) working for you in case of a claim right?

I'm more thinking about the building insurance - how much should I get there since that's really what drives the cost..

I'm buying a rental property in MS and looking at insurance quotes. It seems like the driving factor for the cost is how much building coverage one gets so how much should I get? The property I'm looking at is a SFR with a purchase price of $182,000.

I think a lot of people mis-use/don't understand insurance - my personal mantra is to only insure against the catastrophic or the unknown. But how does/should this change when you're looking at a rental property?

I could afford to replace the whole cost but it would be painful so does that mean I should get insurance?

And thoughts on deductible?

I'm Harry, 30 years old, live in Pico-Robertson area, looking to meet up with some like-minded real estate investors. One on one for a beer or coffee would be cool.

I currently own a condo in San Diego that I purchased in '09 and have been renting out for the past 4 years, so accidental landlord but it's worked out well. I'm self-employed with an online business but interested in bulking up the RE portion of my portfolio.  

I've been looking at turnkeys in the midwest, bit slow going, but would love to chat more about RE in general, see how other people from SoCal are investing their money, etc.

 Around 5 years old but last I checked it was still in decent condition.  Maybe touch up the cabinets and figure out a better long term solution when I renew the lease?  I guess my worry is that I spend a bunch of money now on something that is relatively cosmetic and then when the lease is up, the tenants leave.

I've been pretty good about fixing/replacing everything else up until this point including a few big ticket items like A/C and dishwasher

 Hmm the tile/carpet guy who originally tucked in the carpet said he can't and my handyman said he can't.  I guess I could get a third opinion?

The cabinets were not sanded or primed first, I could touch up the paint and that would probably be good for a year or so but then this problem will come up again.  Maybe try to negotiate when lease expires and do cabinet re-facing then?

I have a tenant 1.5 years into a 2 year lease.  So far so good, had a few issues came up but handled them and everything has been fine.

He recently brought up two issues with me though and I'm not sure exactly how to handle them:

1.  Near the front door, where the carpet meets the tile, the tack strip is starting to get exposed (maybe half an inch or less wide, a few inches long).  My handyman (who's very good/smart dude) looked at it, nothing he could really do though since you can't add carpet.  Best course of action?

2.  The cabinets in kitchen/bathrooms were painted right before the tenant moved in.  I had a guy paint over the old laminate cabinets.  Not the most elegant solution but looks pretty decent when painted (rest of kitchen is pretty nice with ss appliances and granite counters - bathrooms are just regular white tiles).  My tenant sent me pics that the paint is chipping around the handles/knobs but again, not sure what I can really do here.  I could have someone re-paint but it will be costly and more of a temporary solution since it will likely chip again.  Or I could re-face cabinets which would obviously be a huge/expensive project?  Thoughts?

80%

@Steven Hamilton II National Building Cost Manual - which is used by this site:

http://www.building-cost.net/

Thanks @Steven Hamilton II , 50/50 was based off prop tax records. But what if you realized 5 years later that you could have used another method(like calculating the building cost on your own) to get you a much higher depreciation value.

@Thomas Williamson @Ali Boone I'm in the OC and met with 3 CPA's this year. Keystone by far seemed the most knowledgeable about RE taxes and the likes but they quoted me at $1k for my tax return plus another $1.5k?? for planning(optional obviously). I don't make much and only have one property so that's too much for me, I want someone in the $500 range.

Ended up doing my taxes myself but still on the hunt for a good CPA mainly to bounce some ideas around and make sure I'm taking full advantage of everything I'm entitled to.

@Nick Grieco Do you have a website?