All Forum Posts by: Jeff Keller

Some tenants respond very well to being offered a little money. You can try offering them $10 every time they respond to a 24 hour notice to show the home, and have the home looking very nice. Give them $50 to go buy lunch and disappear for the rest of the afternoon while you hold the home open.

Many but not all tenants respond well to money. You could give them $10 everytime they have the the home in great shape for a 24 hr notice to show the home. You could give them $50 to go have lunch on Sunday and disappear until after the open house is over.

Removable stainless steel back splash behind stove. Shelves in place of kitchen cabinets where possible. Deep heavy duty drip pan, ideally with a drain, beneath washer, water heater, and even sinks. Ample sized showers rather than bath tubs. Cement patios and porches to reduce mud/dirt brought into house.

@Andrey Y. I don't know about the previous thread but there are a huge number of homeowners in Silicon Valley that will tell you home prices have outpaced inflation for decades. Maybe for the country as a whole that is true but jobs and people move affecting areas dramatically.

@Brian Filmore ... 2012 was when most of California began recovering from a deep downturn. Depending on the area current prices look like they are where you would expect if the valleys and peaks were flattened.

Coastal property is likely to act like recreational property with wild swings driven by the overall economy.

To alter a month to month rental agreement you need to give them a written notice, typically 30 days before it takes effect. There may be local rent control laws which add additional requirements. You might be wise to make certain there aren't any maintenance issues before asking for increased rent. Having the increase loosely associated with better conditions and costs you pay will probably be more acceptable to your tenants.

You can use property that is in an LLC for your own use if all owners of the LLC agree to it. An LLC's only purpose is to limit liability and perhaps hide the owners from being recognized as the owners (public figure who doesn't want people knowing he owns the property).

@Samantha Klein

If the cracks in the slab are only in the floor and not in the thicker portion forming the perimeter foundation, the cost to repair them should be similar to removing an old driveway and installing a new one. It's pretty common to have a slab jack hammered open to add or fix plumbing.

Cracks in sheetrock are quite cheap to fix but there may be a structural issue that should be taken care of. Normally sheetrock is so solidly attached to the studs that cracks will occur anywhere in it. A gap at a joint between sheets might just be sloppy installation where the sheetrock was cut to the wrong size and the hole filled with something which gave out.

I believe the IRS and the county assessor treat an LLC as if it doesn't exist. The owners of the LLC are the owners of the property.

If you were the only owner of the LLC, you would be renting the home from yourself and I believe the IRS would treat it as your own home, not an investment. I don't believe an LLC in itself has any tax advantages.

Talk to a tax planner.

@Phil DuChamp

I don't have experience with an LLC. You might want to think twice about using an IRA to handle real estate investments. Tax deferred money and earnings on it are taxed as ordinary income when the money comes out.

Real Estate is typically held long enough to qualify for the long term capital gains tax rate which is generally lower. As an investment, many real estate expenses are deductible from current income or from the eventual gain.

Talk with a good tax planner.