All Forum Posts by: Melanie P.

Because the tenants will find a million ways to bother you and you'll have a bad relationship with them if they know you are the decision maker that strictly enforced the late fee they had to pay, that told him "no" they can't have new kitchen countertops, who raised their rent, who didn't repair this or that fast enough to their liking. People do not like their landlord. Do you like your landlord? Since they can look up the name say you're showing it for "dad" delivering paperwork for "dad". Dad makes you pay a late fee on the second too and it took him 6 weeks to fix the heat last winter.. such an ahole! Have a PO Box for rent payments, property bills, etc. Google voice or other secondary number for contact. 

Never, ever start up any type of relationship from someone who is your tenant. Wave, comment on sports or the weather, break off and go about your day. No cookouts, weekend trip to the brewery, etc.

Renting the house in Decatur will likely bring you no more than $2400 per month gross. There will be many expenses so that you will net somewhere between $1200 - $1500 per month. You may do slightly better, but as a new landlord with a home that's had 30 years of family living I think you'll be closer to $1200 than $1500. 

Selling the home and utilizing the proceeds to supplement your living expenses is probably a better plan. You might consider consulting with a financial advisor to develop a plan for the sale proceeds to try and make them benefit you for as long as possible. The home's value would be exhausted after 7 years in assisted living, faster if more intensive care services are needed.

Your plan is solid. You'll lose money for a while on the rental, but will make it back in time through appreciation and increased rents. Do the management yourself so you can avoid losing more to manager fees and learn the ropes. Houston has a lot of opportunity to build up a nice portfolio once you're comfortable with the fundamentals. When interest rates come back down you can refinance and pick up some condos or cheap single family to build up your holdings.

This is a good place to start and your plan will be overall successful, although there will be some stressful moments where you'll have to add cash to the equation. A year from now when you're ready to move and do it again the numbers will have improved slightly. In five years you'll wish you bought three or four in 2023. I recommend identifying yourself to your attached neighbors as the landlord's son or friend, do not be the landlord and the neighbor.

The principal you pay toward your mortgage is a profit, not a loss/expense. Your interest would be deductible.

I believe if you run a passive-income loss you can deduct up to $3500 per year from your W2 income and the losses will carry forward to future years when you either have a gain or more room for wage write offs. Check my numbers it's been quite a while since I had W2 income. You can deduct losses from self-employment from your W2 income.

Your plan is a good one. You might also consider purchasing a vacation rental in a place you visit regularly. Doing so would give you additional income and a property you might like to use that would better fit into your current lifestyle.

We have buildings built in the 1800s. It's not the age of the building that's an issue, but the markets might not attract great attention from large lenders. Local community banks and credit unions understand the market and loans on these properties are their bread and butter.

I would not recommend doing AirBNB in an unstable building. You'll invest a lot of money in furniture and making the unit look like an AirBNB and it will either be trashed or get horrible reviews and be delisted. Section 8 tenants are good because they are sticky, but if the screening is bad you can get difficult/hoarder type tenants that are a drag on the building because they can't get along with the normal tenants, cause roaches/rodents, etc. Simply adding that you happily accept housing vouchers to your advertising will bring in Section 8 applications that you can screen like you should be doing with everyone else.

You've got to get rid of the PM immediately. Are they charging lease up fees at each of these turnovers? The suggestion of laundry facilities shows that the PM is way out of their depth on turning around what you've got going there. You might be able to find out a lot about what's going on just by reaching out to your existing tenants. 

 The seller is going to want to get the majority of their equity out of the project at sale. The Deed will record to you at sale, subject still to the existing Deed of Trust for their existing finances. To come up with the money due at sale you might have to combine resources with others or take on a purely financial partner. You'll have to carefully examine all of the numbers to see if putting a deal together is a profitable endeavor. 

I'd suggest that the wholesaler contacting the REALTOR about taking any the REALTOR's listing is not a good move. The person who hired the REALTOR should contact them, explain why they are dissatisfied and looking to make a change, any personal reasons for the urgency and ask the REALTOR to let go of the listing early. 

Because another hurricane **is** coming to Florida. And if it takes out your money making machine and you have no insurance you'll have a plot of land, that you need to clean up, make safe, redevelop, etc. The wrong disaster will wipe out all of your efforts, all of your income from those efforts and create massive liability - in an instant. You've worked tirelessly to build a money making machine, what you're entertaining is not an acceptable method of increasing return on capital. If you want to avoid wind insurance 1031 out of Florida to a market where wind insurance isn't a necessity. Of course you'll have to investigate whether the same environment to make your returns exists there.