So, my question to you other landlords is:Your thoughts on the initial & long term costs vs. durability of a 1-piece fiberglass shower/tub insert vs. tile the shower surround + tub?

So, while the IRS would have this information, unless they audited you, they likely wouldn't do anything with it.Now, if you did get audited (and my pure guess is that having this transaction reported may increase your risk of getting audited), the IRS would want to know what the money was for.

I was comparing someone who got lucky by buying a piece of property without knowing about investing and having it be worth a LOT, and someone who got lucky by taking a job at a unknown startup (for example, Google 10 years ago) and having his stock options be worth a LOT.Both situations are very possible, but are not the norm...What you need to realize about all the situations you described was the fact that all these people bought BEFORE the market run-up and the real estate bubble.No one here is disagreeing that if you bought pretty much ANY property in 70s or 80's, you probably have a lot of equity by now, even with the drop in home prices the past few years.What we're disagreeing with is the fact that buying just ANY property today will result in the same run-up of equity in 30 years time.

The other pieces are usually paid out as you do the work.

I send out about 6,000 mail pieces/mo.  

@Dev Horn When we create our marketing pieces, we always try to make it memorable, maybe a piece they can keep and store away for future references.

Ken Taté in the event of an IRS audit it's up to you to prove your expenses.

You're kind of missing out on a HUGE piece of the profits if you dont self manage.

Its water proof and if a piece were to ever get damaged you can replace just that piece.

Also developing referral relationships is another piece.