All Forum Posts by: David Zheng

@Jim Kennedy Thanks Jim, I definitely think this is going to be a rough road. I will definitely be on the lookout for a mentor or professional now that everyone advises it. Appreciate the feedback very much!

@Jenny Bayless That was also perfect thank you! I would like as many responses as possible, because everything is knowledge and contribute a different point of view.

In your experience and for what I'm looking for, which do you think is more helpful and cost efficient?
an accountant

a tax attorney
CPA

or enrolled agent?

@Steven Hamilton II That was a perfect answer! Thank you so much! Hopefully you don't mind if I jot down your contact info!

Almost all the properties are turnkey and rented within a couple days of purchase so I assume that the minute I closed, they would start the depreciation clock.

So in my first year of investing, I've bought 8 properties from condos to sfh, to multifamilies. All are rentals. 7 are in my personal name and the eighth property is under my solely owned LLC

I am literally leading myself to the slaughter because I want to learn the ins and outs of real estate taxes by doing these myself. I have a couple questions before I go through this pain though.

1. Do I need to prepare a separate statement for my individual tax returns and my business one?
2. Besides knowing all current rents, Mortgage insurance/interest, HOA fees, expenses, rents, property taxes, what else should I have ready? Everything I track in Excel
3. Do I just use the appraised value of the property for depreciation? So if I bought a house for 275k (lets say it appraised for 275k) and closed Aug 1, is the depreciation just 275/27.5*(5/12) I read somewhere I needed to separate the building appraised value and the land?
4. Recommendations for the most user friendly software? I used TurboTax and I like it a lot.
5. whats the hardest part about doing rental taxes? Is it just locating the numbers or am I missing something?

Hopefully questions answered here will help with other first year investors with these questions!

Thanks!

Depends on your clients too. I deal with all students so I prefer year long leases. If tenants break from a m2m in college area, its so hard to find people to fill that vacancy mid semester

@Chinmay J.
I literally background/review check everything even $10 items haha.

Literally out of 7 contractors from 7 different companies (plumbing, electrical, Soffit, painting, flooring, general building, HVAC) only two of them have been ok (still late on their projected finish times by over 7 days). what baffles me is that I reviewed all of them and they were either BBB accredited, on angie's list, had good google ratings, personal friends of mine recommended, etc.

From now on, I'm only 5% up front and no pay until project is officially completed. I'm also going to make them stick to their finish date or else they get docked a percentage of the costs per day the project is late.

Unfortunately I have no punishments for them not sticking to the finish date stated on the contract, but still....6 weeks late on projects is absolutely ridiculous.

And the city inspectors are a whole nother load of monsters I could get into. Messing up inspection dates. Not closing permits they had signed off on. Inspectors walking ino my building at uninvited times.

This is an angry post. More for venting than for anything else.

But how do you deal with horrible contractors, inspectors, and city officials. I mean these guys have messed up my rehabs and cost me thousands and weeks of lost time.

I want to just tell them to leave and not pay them. I want to just flame them all over social media and reviews. I want to sue them.

BUT. I also don't want these lowlifes who know where my properties are to come in and vandalize anything or steal stuff, or break exterior windows and walls. Cause lets be honest, a lot of people these days will do horrible things to you or your stuff if you piss them off.

Do you guys just take the hit, suck up your losses, and let them off easy where they can potentially rip off other people?

Or do you fight with them and take the risk something bad happens to your place.

Rant over...kind of

Someone claiming to be a private lender messaged me on here when I was new to the site and investing. I almost took his bait and sent some "appraisal" money

I could have lost a couple thousand. not really BP's fault but something to contribute hahah

Had a couple international students living in one of my places. After the lease, a large 12" x12" part of the wall by the bathtub was completely messed up from water damage. I literally charged them $10 a piece for me to fix it.

They argued with me from 5am for 3 hours over $20 saying

"the wall is bad, it is not from us"
the wall is soaking water from the tub"

Um this never happened with the previous tenants and yeah you were the only ones living here.

I would just say get that walk-through as soon as possible. Title Company should make sure there are not liens or anything so get on this quick!