I have a few favorite memories:Roach House: Too young to do much around the house, as the brothers and Dad pulled up the carpet, I spent hours sucking up roached in a vacuum as thousands (seriously) crawled up the wall.Dirty toilets: It's amazing what chlorine bleach and elbow grease can do.Palm Springs: Landscaping in 120 degree heat.

If you depreciate that over 5 years you get an extra $2K/year in write offs, if you're in a 25% marginal bracket you would save $500/year in taxes.I only ever did it on new carpet and HVAC systems, because I'm a big believer in "keep it simple, stupid", and extra depreciation schedules complicate your life, and I was always more interested in increasing my revenues than cutting my taxes.My former CPA was pretty conservative, but still I often expensed small dollar items instead of capitalizing and depreciating them.

Not paint and carpet, but any plumbing, electrical or structural work should be permitted and inspected.Keep in mind that zillows estimates are, frankly, crap.

They put in upgraded carpets and appliances and now have piles of kids and dogs and cats in the rentals.

Before that I came very close to purchasing a dry cleaning franchise, a carpet cleaning franchise and a lawn care franchise.

So far (in nearly 6 months), I've invested about $150 in the paint job, (for paint from Walmart) and the rehab consisted of replacing an old fuse box with a circuit breaker box (about $50), installing a new shower valve in one apartment ($94 with sharkbite connectors and pex), having one furnace repaired by a HVAC company (about $165 as I recall), and some carpet for one apartment that is on a slab (about $200) - plus my labor, of course.

Don't you need to get the carpets cleaned, the walls repainted, the bathroom scrubbed?

Half that for a minor componet. 5k to cosmetics (carpet, floor, paint, fixtures & covers, minor landscaping) So a cosmetic fixer that needs a bathroom would be 5k to spruce up and 5k for the bathroom.

I took out 5K for paint and carpet (home is in great condition) and 5K for my fee since I was going to wholesale the property.

Also, what if I charge $500 for 1500sf rubbish removal and 100 for carpet cleaning but the attic at, say 1500 sf also, is packed w/ junk?