All Forum Posts by: Ashley Langeliers

Hi all - I'm pretty sure we will be walking away from this deal but looking for any similar experiences? We are in contract for a triplex - have already paid the appraisal, inspection, et cetera. The appraiser reached out today and said the conversion of the single family house was actually never permitted / approved through the city. Learning experience here as I never thought to check for these permits Myself... is it me who dropped the ball here? Very bummer because we've been looking for a multi familY in this area (by family) for a few years. property is in Michigan. 

Thank you everyone for the great advice. I appreciate every comment and person who took time to respond. We have decided, per the vast consensus, to stay out of it and not respond at this time.

Hi all - We own a duplex (we used to live in half but now both sides are rented). The tenant (our old neighbor) has been there for 2 years and are great tenants - always pay on time and keep the house looking great. Always inform us of any issues. About a month before we moved, the house next to the duplex was sold and we had nice interactions with the new owners.

Since then, the new neighbors (not our tenants) continue to call to complain about the tenants. Specifically, that the tenants park their trailer (a hitch carry on trailer they use to transport bikes for their business) in front of the neighbors house. Notable that most homes on the street only have single car garages so street parking is common and unassigned. I get that this is annoying, but they don’t own the street and neither do I, and it’s outlined nowhere in the lease that street parking is assigned. We’ve told the neighbor this - at one point they asked if we could mediate between them and the tenant and we said no, because they are not violating any lease terms. When the tenants dad died, the trailer was unmoved for about 10 days. Neighbor called the cops and when tenant talked to the cops, cops just said make sure you move the trailer every 3 days which they do.

Fast forward to today , we receive this text above from the neighbor. Thoughts? This is the first time I’m hearing about deflated tires, et cetera. We’re in California. I want to respond responsibly but I’m unaware of what our role is here. Should we contact an attorney as well? We’ve never heard complaints from any of the other neighbors, and the neighbor who shares the other half of the duplex praises them as great neighbors.

Thank you!!!

Okay, that makes sense. We just need to wait -- I guess I'm just being impatient!

My apologies, forgot one thing! He did mention that we could "carry forward" the losses; however, I'm wondering how this will work for us as it makes the difference between our properties being cash flow positive to breaking even. Best, Ashley

Thanks so much for the reply. We had a CPA do our taxes, and then called two others CPAs to confirm. They all stated a $150K income limit for "passive income" if real estate investor isn't your profession. One mentioned getting real estate license as a possibility?

Hi everyone!  Last year, my husband and I became landlords by default when we moved out of our primary home on the Central Coast of California to the Bay Area for job relocation.  It worked out nicely however as we have been increasingly interested in real estate investing.  Our incomes have both risen steadily over the past year so we are actually hoping to move out of our current home in the Bay Area into more of a long term home in the same area in next 12 months, which would leave us with 2 rental properties, after which we would hopefully start saving to build our real estate portfolio further.

However, having just finished our 2016 taxes, we learned that we are unable to claim any of the standard deductions including maintenance, depreciation, et cetera as we exceed the income limit, leaving us with a huge tax bill.  Currently, our annual income is around $250K.  Has anyone had experience with this?  Are there any creative solutions?  We both need to keep our full time jobs.  

Thank you so much in advance!!