All Forum Posts by: Leonard Holmes

Thanks all for the replies. We are an LLC treated as a partnership. I am still looking for a good accountant around Williamsburg VA. I do have a couple of leads. These replies help me look at how to classify the expense for now as I keep track of things and await more professional guidance.

Did you get an answer? How do people account for expenses that are not connected with a particular property? I don't want to reinvent the wheel here.

How do I account for expenses that are related to my LLC and not to any particular property? Most of the software I've seen organizes everything by property. So far I like Simplify-em, but I can't figure out how to categorize a new scanner I bought, the monthly cost of the software itself, and a newsletter I'm considering buying.

Any help would be appreciated.

An approach that I used for an LLC in a different field was to start with a business bank account and debit card. Use the debit card at Lowes for now. Pretty soon your bank will want you to get a credit card from them too. Once you have a major credit card in the business name Lowes will probably fall in line as well.

I like the strikeouts. Why 2011? Is that a typo or are you really looking a year ahead? I'd think that what you do in 2011 depends a lot on what you do in 2010.

He didn't really write it. It is an edited book by a bunch of different people. His chapter was by far the weakest. I listened to the audiobook from Audible and learned a little. A lot of it was about commercial real estate.

Like most edited books some chapters are stronger than others. I wouldn't recommend paying full price for it, but it was not a total waste of time.

We finally settled on a vent fan with an added grease filter on the wall above the stove. There was not even room for a range hood with just a 24 inch wide cabinet too low over the stove. This is an oddball solution to an oddball problem in this particular house that has a small kitchen. I appreciate the advise about avoiding the microwave too. I'll learn - hopefully not the hard way.

I appreciate all the feedback! There are a lot of different ideas out there. We'll have to install a shorter cabinet above the stove to make this work, but I do think we will install something. I am leaning toward an above-the-stove microwave because the kitchen is very small and has little counter space. I think that investing a little more now will help rental income a bit down the road too and make it easier to rent.

It's for a rental and it's against an outside wall. I think we could vent it straight outside.

We recently closed on our first investment house - an REO that had the HVAC stripped out at some point. We got a pretty good deal, and we are beginning renovation. It appears that there has never been a range hood for the stove. The house had gas at one point, but more recently had an electric stove. The ceilings in the kitchen and some other rooms have greasy stains that required extra prep work when painting. I think we probably need to bite the bullet and install a vented range hood, but the installation for this is pretty expensive. Is it worth it? Have others done this? If we leave this off (we bought a new electric stove) are we setting ourselves up for problems?

Leonard