All Forum Posts by: Raquel Baranow

Thanks, Karen, I suppose I'm overly sensitive . . . like I said, I don't want to make things worse so I guess I'll just chill and get over it. 

I do know to do a good job would take at me least three or four days. There's six windows! I'm a good painter but I don't want to have to do the work.

I spent a lot of time fixing up a rental, did all the work myself (with a friend), I considered the paint-job a work of art, apparently the tenant didn't think so, he not only primed the walls but also the trim now I'm worried about the colors and if he will do a good job.

Thing about it is: I specifically said in the lease, "no painting"! But his aunt is the one on the lease. I never met him until I had to go there to winterize the house, clean up etc.

I don't want to make a bad situation worse. Here's a pic of the room. If I had to do it over again, I would have painted one or two shades lighter.

Wow, amazing risk, a lot of work -- more than I could have ever done. 

How much were your labor costs?

I did a job like that with a friend who I let live in the house and paid $10/hr. 

I live in the area and would love to have found that house!

Sale took two days. Large liens above $1000 often went for 3% or 2%. 

Turns out I had enough $$$ for all the liens I wanted . . . many of them were paid and hence, "not available".

Now I have to wait three years to see if I get the property.

Every tax lien sale and several times a year I think about the guy who got hit by a car --every time I pass that intersection too, he was a really good friend, confident. 

Those days we didn't buy as many liens and didn't need a contract.

So far I have not found any nuggets. 

Thanks, Jerry, I won some and lost some and was hit really hard by the crash in 2007 but I figured I might find a diamond in the junk, like I have before . . . still doing a little more research . . . may have to do a drive-by.

My best score was a drive-by inspection; the mailbox was packed with letters like the owner abandoned the place or died inside. That was one I didn't have enough money for and I gave the tip to a friend, who subsequently was hit by a car and killed. His wife knew about the oral agreement but she ended up dying too . . . this happened almost 10-years ago and I never asked the daughter if she knew about the agreement. Her name was on the foreclosure lawsuit.

I've been doing a lot of research filtering out bad properties and probably have more liens than I have money to purchase. I'm pretty good at it, I use a computer algorithm and the Assessor's data. Maybe I could bird dog some good, too-expensive-for-me liens to you for some kind of profit if you successfully foreclose the property. Not sure how low people are going to bid down the interest rates . . . last year I heard someone bid all of them down to 3% but isn't coming back this year -- probably because they found out they did not make much profit. Usually it's 6% and I'll go as low as 5% on good ones I researched. I've done this before. Been in the tax lien business for almost 20-years. I'll update this post as the sale progresses and I've finished my research.

thanks Brandon, i think i'm going to amend my 1040. the legal fees will practically zero out the settlement and "sale" of the land . . . horrible lesson learned. it's like the lawyers were churning legal motions they knew had contested issues of fact so they could charge fees.

Last year I had about $60k in legal fees, which I classified as a business expense. Should I have capitalized the $60k (or a part of the $60k)?

I sold the land related to the legal-fees/lawsuit and am now going to have to pay capital gains.

Should I amend my 1040 and capitalize the fees?

thanks Dave and everyone, I'm going out there tomorrow morning to take pictures and put up a for sale / for rent sign