All Forum Posts by: Serena Halterman

@Christopher J Driscoll great! Thank you for reaching out

@Nabil Suleiman Thank you I appreciate your help!

Hello everyone! I have been a real estate investor for about 5 years and have done small multifamily deals. I recently have had the opportunity of potentially purchasing four parcels of land in Los Angeles. I want to look into the best way of developing this land and am planning on presenting options to the city. This is way over my head since I have never built a property from the ground up and there are some issues with this land that I also need to evaluate. I wanted to know if anyone knew the best way to start. I want to work with an experienced developer to partner on the deal, but do not currently know of any. Any contact recommendations or advice on where to start would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you @Rhonda Willock and @Ashish Acharya for all of your help! 

Hello everyone,

I rent out three bedrooms in my four bedroom home. They are fully rented all year. Can I depreciate the percentage of my house that is used as a rental property even though it is my primary residence? I have heard the argument on both sides. Where can I find the actual IRS publication with this information??

Thank you in advance!

I used Voepel for a year and they were absolutely horrible. My vacancies went up dramatically. I finally flew out there to try and get to the bottom of the problem and the units were disgusting. Completely neglected. I paid for weekly lawn care and cleaners and it was clear that this was never done. They would leave my units vacant for weeks without even completing the move out inspection. Very disappointed in their service.

@Miguel G., @Chris Benson @Tom Albares, @Andrew Syrios @Leo Bleier @Charles Biter @Brent Coombs

Thank you all for your responses. My agent said it wasn't a "great" area but she never portrayed how dangerous it was. She also said there is a big commercial development  that is being done that will improve the area. Because of everyone's responses, I decided to cancel my inspection tomorrow because it doesn't sound like this is a good deal and the inspection costs are over $1000. I am still flying out to Kansas City tonight to check out the different areas of the city. I won't make a decision on this property until I check out the area for myself.

If any of you have any suggestions of areas I should go look at while I am in Kansas City this weekend, please let me know. I really appreciate all the help. I will definitely drive around the 64128 area to see how rough it is and how far along they are in the commercial development.

Hi everyone,

I just recently had an offer accepted on a property 2912 E Linwood Blvd, Kansas City. It is a sixplex. Three out of the six units are rented because the building has just been completely renovated. The rents are $650, $650, $695 ($1995 total). My offer was $250,000. No bank seems willing to finance me because of the vacancies and the fact that I am an out of state investor. I barely have enough for the down payment/closing so I think that one issue is that I don't have much cash reserves. I do have a real good income so I can afford the mortgage even with half the units not rented. I really don't know what the issue is. Is this a bad deal or should I keep calling small banks? Thank you!

I think you are just thinking of it differently than everyone else. The point of putting money aside every month for vacancy is so that when your tenant moves out, you will already have money to cover for that month that you are not receiving rent. When we are doing the math for an investment property, usually we add up the 12 months of rent minus all of the expenses for that year like you were saying (HOA mortgage etc). The vacancy is just to account for the month of vacancy you will have if you don't get the full 12 months of rent. It would be the same if you assumed you were only getting 10 or 11 months of rent a year and subtract expenses for the whole year. It is just meant to give you a more realistic number of your profit since you will never have a property filled 12 months of every year. You don't physically give the money to anyone. Let me know if I am not being clear maybe I will try explaining it differently.

@Chris Brust Do you still have any of these properties left? PM me if you do. Thank you!