All Forum Posts by: Benjamin Richards

The arrest did NOT show up on his background check. I got the background check through Cozy.co.

Well, you all are right. I spoke with an attorney and he says there's nothing I can do. Even if he's convicted, I can't do anything unless he violates the terms of the contract.

So this is great. I just accepted a family in our condo with great income and credit. Credit and background checks passed. But now my wife found stories in the news that the guy is facing felony charges surrounding his use of computers to solicit sexual contact with a minor. I confirmed with our County Superior Court that the court proceedings will start in August.

But they have not moved in yet. The move-in date was July 1, so I still have runway to find a new tenant. But I have their security deposit, first month's rent, and a signed lease agreement already. Can I just send it back? Do I need a lawyer to break the lease agreement?

A friend and I who are both somewhat experienced investors are interested in doing a deal together on a duplex in Arizona. We need to find a way to finance it that won't show up as a conventional mortgage on BOTH of our credit files. Here in NH he knows a credit union that would do a portfolio loan on one or multiple properties with a fixed credit line, but they only lend in the area. Does anyone know of any similar options in Arizona?

I've used TurboTax to do my taxes for several years now. Once the property basis is entered it's very easy.

I have six rental properties, and two of them showed a loss on paper for 2018. The portfolio is net profitable for the year. But in the two net loss properties, when I enter an expense it is actually DECREASING my total refund. So right now (haven't submitted it yet) I'm not claiming insurance or PMI on them because it lowers my refund.

This doesn't pass the sanity check. We have too high an earned income to write off losses but it makes no sense to pay MORE tax for losing money. Has anyone else encountered this?

Hi Brett, Thanks for your response. What furnaces and AC units do you prefer for long term reliability? This will be about a 14-16 seer system. Thanks, Ben

This is a followup to my post a couple weeks ago about my tenant wanting the A/C set to 65. I had a technician come and look at the system, and he said there is a severe kink in the line that could have been caused by ice falling off of the roof. Since we never set the A/C lower than 74 or 75 when we lived there, we probably never noticed, but it is restricting the flow and causing pressure well outside of the specified range on both the high and the low pressure side of the system. To repair it, he will have to replace that section of the copper line, possibly put in new refrigerant of the old, expensive type, etc., and the estimate is about $1300. The condo is 15 years old, he said the unit is 17 years old.

So, I'm pretty sure I should go ahead and replace the A/C unit because there's no telling how long it will last and $1300 is a lot to spend considering the age. Plus, I don't want my tenant without A/C for a month and a half if I can fix it now, while it's still (mostly) working.

My main question is, should I replace the furnace at the same time? My mentor who has owned and managed a ton of properties in his career always replaces the A/C and the furnace together because they're typically the same age and he doesn't like to have them mismatched. But would you others leave the furnace while it's still working or go ahead and replace them together?  I can afford to pay cash to replace the whole system, but obviously don't want to throw away money if there's no need.

I have the weirdest situation right now. The tenant I have in our nice condo where we used to live signed the lease late last year. He is in a surgery office and makes well over $100k. So far he has been the perfect tenant. He’s in his early fifties. But today he texted me and said that he had set the AC to 65 and it ran all day continuously but never got below 68 so he wonders if something’s wrong with it. I told him that we never ran it below 74 or 75 and I didn’t know if it can sustain lower temps. He said he “can’t survive in the seventies”. I said I would get someone to do routine maintenance on it and check it out (since I don’t know if that’s ever been done). But I’m not very keen about him running the AC on 65 all the time even if the system is capable of it. I guess there’s not much I can do, but what would you guys do in such a situation?

You could refi it at <4% as your primary residence and then use that money to buy rentals with 20% down. Then you could rent out your condo in a year and buy another residence with 5% down. That's what I would do, but I would be nervous right now in Denver with the market so hot.

Thanks everyone! I think I will get one now.