All Forum Posts by: Sophia Wang

@Travis West @Rick Baggenstoss I finally heard back from the listing agent. The owner left the house vacant, but a pipe busted in the crawl space (I would have to guess it was last winter). So there were some water in crawl space, and the mold started. They have since turn off the water, and cleared out the standing water in crawl space.

Do you think if this was the reason, then there would be mold inside the wall potentially? And that might cost a lot more to fix than what I originally thought.

Called another mold remediation company. Nobody picks up the phone these days!

For a worst case scenario, for a 1700 sqft house, 4bd/2.5ba, how much it could cost to remediate the mold issue?

Sophia

Thank you so very much @Travis West ! Your expert opinion and very detailed explanation is greatly appreciated. I agree @Rick Baggenstoss , it would be wise to have an expert mold remediation company handle the work for this project, and I could learn and ask questions while they work on it.

I have got a few names from local investors and Realtors, what questions would you suggest me asking while interviewing them?

Do you suggest us getting the company in for the remediation before work starts, or wait till we demo the house, and remove most all things that won't stay anyway, such as carpets, vinyls, kitchen cabinets, wood paneling?

@Bryan L. you said it well that most people get scared at the sight of mold. But I have to say I was a bit scared after the fact that I might have inhaled a heavy dose of mold. @Travis West , what do you suggest for investors to walk through houses that have obvious mold issues, such as this?

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply and give your suggestions!

Sophia

I went to look at a potential flip this afternoon. The house is in great shape other than the fact that the whole house is covered in a layer of mold! At first when I step in, I thought it was just dirty, so the floor is covered by dust. Upon further examination, the 'dust' is actually a light layer of mold, and the same mold is on literally every surface, from door, to furniture, to floor...

I am thinking of getting a professional mold mediation company to come by and give a quote. But just want to see if any rehabber here has experience dealing with this kind of mold issue. It doesn't look like it has reached behind the walls, rather, just growing on the surface.

A picture of the door and jamb to show the mold:

Great job, bp team! Love the look and feel so far. Would be great to see brief info about the member in the post as the web version.

Thanks Steven Hamilton II, Steve Babiak, and Will Barnard! I finally learned how to get the mentions work. :p

Thanks Steve Babiak for the explanation of 'get ready' cost should go to the cost base. How would the miles driven for showing the properties and such be counted?

Also, I have read things like putting down carpet should be depreciated over 5 years, and painting should be maintenance item, which gets deducted right away. Do these details matter anymore if I am to count it into cost basis?

I know I need to find a professional, but even when I do find one, I still would like to know and that would help me in putting down more details in my miles log, which I am not real diligent so far. :p

We started last year in RE investment and talked with a lawyer, who suggested us to hold the first few rentals in our personal name, and form entity to hold more properties after 3 or 4 houses. Will be looking into having the entity holding properties this year.

I know I do need to find a good RE accountant. Have talked with a few in town recommended by the local REIA, but haven't found one who really knows RE and Accounting. Will have to try harder!

I am scratching my head trying to figure out how best to report the auto expenses we incurred for two of our properties in 2012.

One property (A) is out of state, so we had to drive some ten hours one way to clean up, get ready, show the property, and have it rented.

The other property (B) is in state, but we had to go to the property daily to check on the progress, sometimes spent some time onsite to fix small things. After the rehab is done, we had to go show the house till it is rented.

We also use it occasionally for personal purpose (C), or to commute (D) if it is on the way to the 2nd property.

Say we have following number of miles:
A=1500
B=4000
C=1000
D=2500

total mileage for the year 9000.

When reporting Depreciation and Amortization (form 4562) for each property, it only asks for totally miles driven (line 30), commuting (line 31), personal miles (line 32), and total for the year is line 30 through 32.

so when reporting to property A: business use of auto percentage is A/A+C+D =1500/5000 instead of A/A+B+C+D=1500/9000. which is wrong. same issue for B.

But if I report both A and B on line 30 of one property, then we deduct the expenses twice, which is even worse.

What is the best way to report this?

Also, is there a limit of how much travel/auto expense we should report? We are new investors, so tend to go over all too often, which accumulates a lot of miles. Should we reduce the number of miles reported?

Sorry for the long post. I couldn't find anything similar posted in the forum in the past.

Can someone from Seattle area recommend a good insurance agent or broker, who offers investor friendly pricing? Got a few, but keeps giving me retail quotes.

Appreciate any help!