All Forum Posts by: Greg Scott

Agree with you. I prefer the forum used for investors with actual questions.

I am not a fan of what you call reverse trolling.

I am not a fan of posts in the forum which have no questions and are basically blog posts. They are essentially the same thing you are describing, but sharing an "expert opinion".

I am also not a fan of how BiggerPockets itself is doing this same thing in the forum by posting blog posts and you don't have the ability to comment on the posting (because some times I disagree with the posting!)

Screwing a 4x4 screen into a roof would probably not show up as an "installation".  This would not be something a roofer would do.

I'd look to see if there were any work orders for cleaning debris off the roof or for clogged downspouts.  It's the guy  cleaning gutters that might do this to make his job easier in the future.

Brody:

Hello from a fellow Michigander.

Prior posts and your profile indicate you are new to RE investing.  I'm hoping to help.

Your question is the kind of question a stock investor asks.  If you live in Macomb County, you already know about as much as you need to know to pick good real estate locations.

When buying a stock, the investor has no control over how well it does and we all pay the same price, so we look for stocks with hot growth prospects.  That is all you can do. In real estate much more money is made by finding great deals and making great deals.

To stick with stocks for a minute, would you be as focused on finding the "hot" location if you could find a way to buy stocks at a 20% discount?  How cool would it be with a little bit of searching and probing if you could buy Microsoft or Chase at 80 cents on the dollar?  We can do that in real estate.

How focused would you be on finding the "hot" location if, with your own efforts, you could make your stock go up in value.  Assume that you could meet with the CEO and give him some direction or write articles about how great the stock was and cause its value to go up.  How great would it be if you KNEW you could make the value of the stock go up?  We can do that in real estate.

So, back to your question.  There are a handful of areas worth avoiding in Macomb County.  Avoid rough parts of town.  Also, it is probably better to avoid the rural areas.  You've now elminted about half of Macomb County.  Everything else is fair game.  Buy where you find the great deals.  Buy the deals that you can improve to raise value.

What your CPA is saying aligns with what I understand to be true.

However, you are just at the start of your journey.  The more you engage in real estate, the more savings you will get.  At first, you won't be able to offset your W2 income with losses, but it is nice when you sell a property at a profit and all the capital gains are wiped out by losses from other properties.

A huge amount of tax savings get unlocked if one of you leaves your W2 job to focus on real estate and you get Real Estate Professional Status (REPS).  Once you have REPS the distinction between passive income (or losses) and active income (W2) disappears and all those tax losses you have been banking can be applied to the W2.

Good luck

I see you are not from Michigan.  Understanding Michigan property tax laws may explain what you are seeing.

In Michigan, property taxes reset upon sale and then are capped at CPI.  If you look at the tax assessment, there will be an assessed value and the taxable value.  Right after a sale, they will be the same.  As time passes, usually assessed value goes up faster than taxable value.  If a property has been owned by the same owner for a long time, the taxable value could be significantly below assessed value.  In short, it is highly possible a much more expensive neighboring home could be paying less property tax.

What is much more relevant is comparing assessed value to assessed value.  If the larger home has a lower assessed value, you may have an argument.  Given the bureacracy and corruption of the city government, I recommend hiring an experienced tax attorney to fight any assessment.

There is no decision to make.

What does your lease say?  That is a legally binding document.

There is nothing in the original post that stated the resident's situation was anything like yours.  My employer never had such a requirement.  Declaring that I did something unethical, with intent, was an poor assumption. 

My son has worked remotely in IT for years, and none of his employers have had that sort of requirement you do.  Your specific job requirements appear to be an outlier.  This resident likely had more options.

My point is residents will make bad decisions and try to blame someone else.  We recently did a sealcoat project at one of our properties and a resident walked across the wet sealcoat.  They called the office asking for us to buy them new shoes.

Kevin:

I still disagree with you.  I've sat in my car for conference calls, using wifi from a local business.

You are not required to reimburse residents for their poor decisions.  

Let's take it to the extreme. Your resident might say they had to fly all over the country to attend meetings in person since their internet was out.  Would you reimburse for that?  No. 

She could have chosen a much cheaper solution, like go to a coffee shop. Or, she could have asked you about it in advance to reimburse hot spot costs.  Realistically, you probably should reimburse her for the value of the internet you owned.  If internet is $60 per month, in a 30 day month, you should reimburse here $2 per day or $8.

If you choose to offer her more as a customer satisfaction olive branch, that is up to you.