All Forum Posts by: John K.

I use classes for properties and then also set your properties up as customers and then your tenants as jobs, then you can select the tenant from under your property when you receive rent. I don't think quickbooks is ideal for rental properties but it works for me using it in this unique way. Does anyone else have better software for tracking rental property financials?

I don't think I would personally go near one, but I'm curious if anyone has successfully renovated one into something else. @Daniel DiGiacomo -interesting article where someone turned one into a fitness studio, what a great idea!

@Grant Kemp - awesome! What kinds of properties are you going after?

There are a few church buildings for sale in my area, and the listings have grabbed my attention since many of the buildings are nice and in good condition - for whatever reason the parish has moved into a larger building or closed up. Has anyone ever purchased a physical church building and leased it to a religious organization or done a creative remodel and used it as office space or for something else?

Any good suggest stories with numbers?

@Account Closed - I have a two page basic lease now, and then some additional pages that supplement it with "house rules" or local pages about smoke detectors, etc.

For a lease term, I'd suggest at least a one year lease to start - could convert it to month to month after that, but at least you get someone in for a year. The only reason I have gone over a year is to get a lease into a normal cycle (ie: purchase a property that has a lease that expires in December, do a 18 month lease to get it to expire in June). I'd agree with others that month to month you tend to see tenants stay longer just because month-to-month are hard to find in many areas so it's a great feature you can offer.

@Steven Hamilton II - thanks for the clarification. That was my understanding with carpet too.

@Adam B. - Aaron nailed it. I would suggest 100% avoiding any "secret real estate guru" stuff as usually if it sounds too good to be true it is.

Thanks @Wayne Brooks

So would carpet be thrown into the 27.5 years along with the paint? Or can the carpet be normal at 5 years?

So I'm looking at buying a single family house that has great numbers as a rental property. But needs carpet, paint and kitchen/bathroom remodel.

I know the Bathroom Remodel / Kitchen remodel are depreciated over the 27.5 years.

Since I'm doing a mini-rehab on the house, does carpet still get depreciated as normal over 5 years or would it be wrapped into the whole project?

Can paint (and other small repairs) still be expended like it normally would or does it have to get wrapped into the project and be depreciated?

There are a lot of services out there for processing rent online (ie: sparkrent), however I think the best way is just to get a blank check from the tenant, have them sign an agreement for automatic rent withdrawl and on the 1st (or whatever day you designate) you just debit their checking account using a more commercial solution (like Chase - https://www.chase.com/business-banking/online-banking/ach-collections). Tenants are confused by online portals to log into to pay their rent - it's easier to just handle it for them. I have also seen other landlords offer a slight (like $10 small) discount on rent for tenants that sign up as an incentive. All though sometimes you will have issues with insufficient funds, odds are better that you will always receive your rent income on time.