He calles them "poor people" "economically disadvantaged" He threatened to evict them if they don't rent his appliances like used ceiling fans.

There is no shower and the appliances were trash.

It's Dec. 2024 and, while the house is built, septic still needs to be installed, exterior grounds, and internal trim and appliances are yet to be completed. 

Namely, appliances, flooring, furnishings and updates. 

She said she has had to pay out-of-pocket for exterminators and plumbers after getting no response to pest and leaky-pipe complaints to RAD’s property managers.Another tenant of a Mendenhall-led fund, Terry Golden, 41, said he has been dealing for about a year with a flooded basement that his property managers have neglected to repair at his 880-square-foot home in West Philadelphia’s Haddington section.His living and dining rooms are piled high with belongings he’d previously been storing in the basement: furniture, appliances, trophies from his days coaching little-league football.

One or two appliances or a new roof can wipe out years of cash flow. 

If one or more units are vacant, the remaining units often don’t provide enough cash flow to cover expenses, making it harder to meet operating costs.Maintenance costs: A fourplex comes with four times the appliances, plumbing, HVAC systems, and other components to maintain, leading to significantly higher repair and maintenance expenses than single-family homes.If you want to see the detailed calculation, read this BP blog - More Units Doesn’t Mean More Money—Why a Single-Family Home Can Beat a Fourplex.Resale value: Multi-family properties have a limited buyer pool—mainly investors—who base their offers on CAP rates.

Provide appliances like a washer/dryer that other landlords may not.

After a rough first year where I lost money for 8 months followed by another 4 months of learning how to self manage remotely, I had a great 13th-25th months where we have kept the placed booked, kept it profitable, and largely reinvested into the property.Here is the question though-  to buy the first property, my wife and I used a HELOC on our primary and used that for the downpayment on a new property,  for the furniture, appliances, etc, and all of the other little costs that go into getting going.  

Bonus depreciation is just a special part of the US tax code.It allows you to take accelerated depreciation on portions of your property depending on when an asset is put into service.At the time of this writing, you can write off a huge portion (60% in 2024) of many qualified components that have a useful lifespan of 15 years or less.That means a certain percentage of things like landscaping, sidewalks, latches, appliances, fences, certain flooring, etc is depreciable in year 1.The bonus depreciation rate percentage changes yearly depending on the administration and the tax code.For years 2015 through 2017 first-year depreciation for all the items on a 15-year schedule or less was set to 50%.It was scheduled to go down to 40% in 2018 and 30% in 2019 and then 0% in 2020.But then Trump got elected, and he enacted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.That moved the bonus depreciation percentage to 100% from 2017 to 2022.In 2023 it went down to 80% and it’s currently at 60%.Depending on who gets elected again, 100% may be back on the table.Only time will tell.We know that the US government wants to incentivize more development and ownership of RE.They want Americans to continue to build and maintain our physical world.That’s why real estate is one of the most tax-advantaged assets in the US.Depreciation and bonus depreciation for RE are very positive and will likely continue in the years ahead.