All Forum Posts by: Jacob P.

nextdoor.com is a great thought! 

Not super familiar with FB marketplace, but definitely can see how that could be a good potential spot for marketing more to people in the local community.

I know there are already a plethora of short term rental threads talking about the impacts of CV. None of them are really talking about strategies for the STR owner. I've been brainstorming, and curious if anyone else has any bright ideas.

We do STR rentals in NYC. Our calendar for the next 3-4 months has *completely* cancelled in the last couple weeks. All cancellations have been refunded. So we're staring at several months that are normally when our busy season start ramping up... and we have no income at all, and some substantial overhead (mostly in terms of mortgage payments)

While we have even discussed turning these properties into LTRs, I fear that in the current climate in NYC, this is not the time period to start a LTR contract.

The only idea that I've come up with so far, is to list the properties at a substantial discount for week-to-month long chunks, and to advertise through alternate sources like Craiglist. My thought is there might be *some* demand for folks living with roomates, etc. who want to just find some peace and quite amidst a lot of panic going on right now. They might not have the budget for a STR on par with our normal rates, but perhaps at a significantly reduced fee, we can at least get some incoming cash flow to go towards the mortgages, and they get a clean, private space that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford.

Any other strategies anyone has been playing with to weather this pandemic?

Thank you @Natalie Kolodij. That definitely makes sense. Between knowing where the deduction is, and your insight, I’ll be sure to lookout to ensure it gets taken this year too!

Yes it's on there! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Matt.

I'm certainly not mad it was taken, but curious that she didn't quiz me on some of the things I've been reading about like 250 hours of work in the business etc.

Doing taxes last year, I brought everything to my accountant very excited about the 20% QBI deduction, and it seemed likely our rental properties would fall within all the "safe harbor" principals.

Over the phone, she explained her take to me. From what I recall, her points were

1. Complying with the new deduction as outlined in TCJA could be a bit complex
2. However, never fear, there is an existing deduction, which applies to "trade or businesses" which can benefit you the same way. 
3. As the owner of several rental properties, you qualify as a "trade or business" and we'll take that deduction.

All seemed good to me, and she told me this deduction was applied to our taxes.

This year I'm in the process of changing accountants, and trying to understand things myself a bit more thoroughly as part of the process. As I do some basic research, I'm having trouble finding what she might have been referring too. Does anyone have any clues as to where In my filed taxes I can see if and how such a deduction was taken (whether TCJA related or not?....)

@Charles Kao I'm not 100 percent certain about the bank. I have a dialogue going with them now. If they won't lend, at the very least that will make the decision for me.

<<sorry for the double post. See my comment below>>

Hi all,

I'm under deposit for a condo in NYC. Things were going smoothly, and we felt that we were getting the place at a bit of a discount under market price... All our numbers were looking good.

We had already reviewed building financials for 2013 and 2014 (2015 wasn't available). The management numbers weren't stellar, but we felt comfortable moving forward based on what we saw.

Our bank required a condo questionnaire to be filled out, and when we got that back we learned that the building took a serious turn for the worse since the last financial statement. Operating reserves are down to $2500. There are more than $50,000 in outstanding HOA fees and 7 out of the 15 units are more than 30 days overdue.

For what it's worth the building was part of a city supported program that helped low income people purchase apartments about 20 years ago. Since then, the neighborhood has definitely changed a lot and property values have come up. However, a tax abatement just ended which could be part of the reason for the sudden upturn in delinquent HOA fees in the building.

I have a feeling that this new information coming to light might be enough to make what we thought was a good deal into a bad one (and indeed, not even sure if the bank will lend on it with this info). But as this is my first condo purchase, I thought it wouldn't hurt to turn to the forum for some perspective.

Thank you!

That's great advice @Wes Brand. I'll see if I can get any info on when the most recent big ticket items were done.

Thank you for the input!

It's a 15 unit building.

Over the 2 year period, they did have repairs totalling to about 7600 one year, and 6000 the next. So one way to look at it would be that without the repairs, they would have essentially broken even over the 2 year period.

One thing perhaps worth noting though, is that this is an apartment building (as opposed to your townhouses), so the HOA covers things like the roof and the heat system.... That's actually what all of the repair expenses were for on the financial statement.

If anyone has comparable figures for apartment buildings (vs townhouses for example) that they invest in, I'd love to hear.

Thank you!