All Forum Posts by: Carlos Lez

All great comments and thanks Jim K for a very detailed exposition on the mechanics of running a C class rental. These are discussions on the maintenance and upkeep side of the business. It is even more challenging dealing with different personality types and  managing their interactions in a co-living housing situation aka several students renting rooms in a house. One has to end up donning the hat of a hostel warden!

While I agree some of this can be reduced but still there are daily items like refrigerator is leaking. Who goes and resolves that? Do you all have people lined up to attend to these kinds of items? 

Do you have pointers to any websites that indicate the exclusion?

I have been doing student rentals for a long time. I have single family homes with students renting by the room. With students there is bound to be maintenance issues perpetually. I have been handling these myself as it will cost an arm and leg to hire someone to come out and fix trivial things. But I am getting older and find that this is getting impractical. 

I am opening this discussion to seek your feedback on how you address small issues. Like just this evening a student tenant wrote to me that the fridge is leaking water all over the floor. Obviously this need immediate addressing to save from bigger issues down the line but who to call if one cannot go out there themselves. Next will be a clogged toilet, followed by the modem needing a reset and the list continues.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I have been receiving Pandemic Unemployment assistance (PUA) due to reduced rental income and high number of vacancies. Rental income is my only source of income hence my tax returns generate only the Schedule E (passive income). I don't claim a home office or other business expenses and no payroll so no Schedule C. 

The problem is that EDD is now requesting filed tax returns with schedule C etc with would be typical of 1099 workers etc. I am concerned that is they don't accept schedule E as my income then I may have to payback all that has been received as PUA. This is kind of absurd because the PUA is to help out those whole otherwise don't qualify for UI.

Any tax experts out there that can advise/clarify. If you want to take this offline please PM me.

Does anyone have student rentals on this forum?

That helps a lot. Mine on the contrary are mostly students or frontline workers like cashiers, store managers etc. Nearly every college in the country has gone online so in addition, everyone wants out the lease. Who knows if universities will even open for in person classes in the Fall. The government stimulus is not helping landlords in anyway. On the contrary there are bills all over the table for rent forgiveness. There is no mortgage forgiveness, and even it that happens, who covers the rest of the expenses?

Student rentals bring along with them different challenges a whole different crisis during this pandemic. Nearly all academic institutions have gone online and therefore students who had signed one year leases have returned home and want out of their leases. I have not seen any discussion on this particular rental market niche. It would be nice to hear of peoples opinion on how they are handling this situation and collecting rents. It would be impossible to fill vacancies during this time.