All Forum Posts by: Arif Siddiqi

@James Ong exactly my point, after reading through many comments over here, I see a definite bias against TK and CA investors as a whole. Some how people think that we, the Californians, are too stupid to analyze properties on our own and dependent on some turn key provider to do it for us. Guys, I have a news for you, we do carry brains too :) along with a lot of imaginary wealth that you guys think we grow out of trees. I was surprised to see a couple of comments claiming that the people buying for CFs will be doomed in few yrs although history tells us that those were the only ones that survived the storm while guys banking on paper appreciation were foreclosing in droves

@Stephen McGinn I am also in the same boat and will definitely be interested to learn from experienced investors over here

@Brian Vog As an out of state investor, I have found marketplace websites like Roofstock and Homeunion to be a good compromise. I just had my 6th out of state rental property under contract, all bought in last 5 months. My experience is that you don’t pay inflated turnkey prices while you have full disclosure through a recent inspection report giving details of what need to be fixed, if any. You also have an opportunity to negotiate down the asking price , instead of fixed ones as in the case of turnkeys

@David Simard I am out of state investor and I have found BestBuy geek squad membership ($199/yr) to be quite useful. I actually got it for my personal use when I had items to be installed at my own residence. However, when I was looking to have appliances installed at my rentals, I was surprised to know that they can do it for me all over the US too through same membership. I just bought appliances for my new AL rental from bestbuy and they installed all of them at a nominal price e.g dishwasher and above-range MW for just $49 each which usually would have cost me at least $100-$150 plus each. They also hauled away older non-functional appliances for free .

@Adriana Diaz Have you tried Section8? usually there is almost 60-70% pool of renters from this category and rents are at least market level or above.

@Krishna Rayudu you have to open self-directed IRA through a custodian who deals with real estate. There are only few companies who do that

@Eric James exactly, in fools market, a savvy investor need to control his emotions and wait for the great deals to come up once correction kicks in

@Basit Siddiqi Thanks Basit for the response, looks like you are my long lost brother :) Appreciate your response. Actually my question was more like if after getting RE license, one doesn’t need to show min 750 hours/year of RE activities as it may be considered as proven without guilt :) but it looks like maintaining those number of hours is a must and having RE license or not may not matter. My case is even tougher and I have to show 50% plus number of hours per year in RE activities as compared to my full time job and min 750 hours doesn’t apply to me.

@Mandar Ambre awesome!! congrats

A question that may have been come up many times before but I will ask it anyway, what’s the best strategy to be considered as RE professional for tax purposes while maintaining a full time W2 income. Just to provide a context, me and wife own 5 rental income properties while sixth one is in closing stages. I work full time as engineer and earns w2 income and my wife is a stay home mom. I want to have the best tax strategy that can maximize our take home income by taking deductions from my salary along with rental income that may not be otherwise possible due to my high w2 income. One possible way I can think off is for my wife and possibly me to get RE license so that we can show 750 hours each year as RE professionals and eventually claim deductions even from my salary. Will really appreciate comments and suggestions even if now you consider me to be a complete idiot :)