property management: Landlords An Even Bigger Target for the IRS This Year
- 02/20/12 08:52 AM
The IRS recently did an audit of previous years tax returns and found out that landlords are cheating their taxes, whether they know it or not. This audit was conducted because in August 2008, the Government Accountability Office stated that “at least 53 percent of individual taxpayers with rental real estate activity for Tax Year 2001 misreported their rental real estate activity, resulting in an estimated $12.4 billion of net misreported income.” The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued a report in December 2010 recommending increased scrutiny of tax returns with rental real estate activity, estimating that the change could recover … (5 comments)
property management: Listings That Attract Bad Tenants
- 01/24/12 07:18 AM
I have numerous friends and family in the area that I regularly have property management conversations with. The most popular recurring topics are usually around how long X property has been vacant, or how bad X person’s last tenant was. The bad stories are always far more fun to tell, or at least more entertaining to listen to, it seems. It got me thinking though, I rarely have bad tenant stories to talk about, and I never have vacancies longer than a couple weeks. As such, my fellow landlord’s stories are always far more interesting than mine. My friends and family … (7 comments)
property management: More Landlord Friendly Laws in 2012?
- 01/14/12 05:11 AM
I was pleased to read about Wisconsin proposing new rules which are actually in favor of landlords. It's an increasing problem across the country where cities and counties are passing laws which could harm the very fabric that landlords rely upon to run their business. Some examples of laws some localities have passed or plan to pass: Prohibits or limits the landlord from obtaining or using various types of information about a tenant or prospective tenant, such as household income, occupation, court records, rental history, and credit information; Limits how far back in time a prospective tenant’s credit information, conviction record, or … (5 comments)
property management: Freddie Mac to Suspend Evictions From December 19 to January 2, 2012
- 12/13/11 03:58 AM
Was just reading this this morning. Really makes me wonder if it's a Christmas "gift" to tenants during the Christmas season, or a political maneuver of some sort. Has anyone experienced them doing this in the past? Is Fannie going to join in too? --- Freddie Mac announced it has ordered all evictions involving foreclosed occupied single family and 2-4 unit properties that had Freddie Mac mortgages to be suspended from December 19, 2011 to January 2, 2012. “If the property is occupied, our foreclosure attorneys will suspend the eviction to provide families a greater measure of certainty during the holidays,” said Tracy Mooney, … (3 comments)
property management: A Primer To Property Management Fees
- 10/28/11 01:54 PM
Starting a new property management venture? There's numerous methods property managers calculate their fees, some more popular than others. Working with thousands of property managers, I've accumulated the most popular with their upsides and downsides. Pick your poison or maybe (if regulation allows) create your own. #1 Flat Rate Fees - Regardless the rental amount being charged or collected, the management fee to handle the property is the same every month. Pro: Easy for everyone to understand Pro: Any software or manual method of accounting can do this easily Pro: Easy to budget for the manager and owner Con: May not account … (1 comments)
property management: DOJ Anti-Trust Settlement with VI/MC Benefits Property Managers
- 09/15/11 02:15 AM
I think this is a very positive step for making it practical for property managers to accept rent via all retail means, including credit cards. Previously no discounts or preference could be made by a property manager (merchant) towards any payment method if they accepted VI/MC. With MC and Disc offering a special interchange rate of 1.1% to property managers and AMEX/VI not, it's now perfectly legit to guide tenants through any means necessary (including discounts) to pay using the cheapest method for the merchant which might be the special MC/Disc rate or via ACH which is a small flat rate … (1 comments)
property management: Property Management Documents You Must Keep
- 08/06/11 09:47 AM
As a software distributor catering to the property management industry, we're often asked: "What documents do we need to keep?". This varies state to state of course; however, I've begun compiling a list of documents that landlords and property managers absolutely must keep; not just for the term of the tenancy, but beyond. The basics. Lease Agreements - Perhaps the most important document within your collection, this document defines the landlord / tenant relationship and is an absolute requirement to retain. Management Agreements - If your a property manager and have agreements to maintain properties on behalf of owners, these agreements are … (6 comments)
property management: Investors & Marriage: The IRS's $50,000 Tax Penalty for Getting Married
- 07/14/11 08:23 AM
Just tied the knot? Uncle sam might be very pleased because he'll have his hooks into $50,000 more of your income this year. How can this be, isn’t marriage and family supposed to reduce tax liability, especially among the middle-class. Not so. Here’s how it works. As a single tax payer you have up to a $25,000 passive activity loss that can be taken against rental properties which can offset your regular income from another job. This passive activity loss can include all the regular repairs, taxes, depreciation, mortgage interest and other allowable losses that most investors rely upon. This passive activity loss … (3 comments)
property management: Rental Vacancy Listing Strategy
- 06/11/11 05:05 AM
To a landlord or property manager, vacancies are generally the worst possible thing since a vacancy is catastrophic to cash flow. It’s important that when a property becomes vacant the term until the next tenant moving in is as short as possible. Aggregating information from many landlords, I’ve put together a solid list of tips which works well for most property managers. Start Early – Some markets handle this better than others; however, when you get your 30 day notice from the existing tenant that is the time to start thinking about marketing your soon to be vacant home. Write (or refresh) your … (4 comments)
property management: Property Management - How To Make the Best Possible Craigslist Ad
- 01/17/11 05:05 AM
Craigslist is an EXCELLENT tool for listing rentals, in fact, it's so excellent I've heard more propery managers say they get more leads from craigslist than from any other source. Managing my own rentals, I can say the very same thing. Craigslist is an excellent medium to get the word out about your vacancy. The solution I want to address today is not to redress how great craigslist is for listings, but I want to show you how to make your listing STAND OUT from the rest. Pictures. The default craigslist layout is text only, formatted in old style times new roman … (31 comments)
property management: Why The Stimulus Avoids Property Investors
- 12/28/09 02:05 AM
I'm somewhat confused by our government's choices in stimulus money. The last homebuyer $8000 tax credit was for first time home-buyers only. Obviously any property investor is out of luck on this one. This new one is a $6500 for a repeat home buyer, as long as it is for their primary residence. Again, unless your willing to move, and your current primary residence would make a good rental, this procludes property investors. Meanwhile.. A huge quantity of vacant forclosed homes continue to sit on the market. Quite literally rotting. Some banks are renting out these foreclosed homes, driving down the rental … (6 comments)
property management: What Makes Property Management Soo Difficult?
- 07/09/09 02:20 AM
I posted a recent blog, and while it didn't get a lot of comments I did receive one about how property management is so crazy difficult. Frankly it surprised me because, while there weren't many comments on this post, the one comment explaining how difficult property management was was a large percentage of overall comments. It makes me think, there must be a lot of people out there with the same opinion. So that leads me to wonder why. We all know the general pitfalls of property management. Dealing with poor tenants Maintenance & repairs Anything "legal" Showing the property when it's … (9 comments)
property management: New Revenue Source - Manage Those Vacant Properties
- 07/06/09 02:04 AM
There are still a lot of areas that haven't recovered and still have 12+ months of inventory sitting around. It truly is a buyer's market, but.. wait.. nobody's buying hardly (at least not at what many sellers want/need to sell for). Inventory continues to grow and sellers continue to compound their frustrations. I'm there myself. I have a house I want to sell, but it's taken such a beating in this downturn that I would just lose too much. I would rather sit on it for a while, but not without making anything. Where I'm going with this, is there may not … (7 comments)
property management: Property Investors, Add 10-15% Margin on Your Bottom Line Today!
- 06/12/09 02:01 AM
Be forewarned, this post isn't a get rich quick idea, or a magical formula to turn straw into gold. Not much comes without some hard work to even the best of us these days, not since at least 2005 that is, when phantom property values topped out. What I am suggessting is that investment realestate owners who are looking at their bottom line closely these days absolutely have a choice to save $100, $200 or more per month right away! To get to the point, I'm talking about property management. Take the following very short quiz: Do you live within 30 minutes … (3 comments)
My blog related to property management challenges for small to mid size property owners and items related to Rentec Direct property management software.
The IRS recently did an audit of previous years tax returns and found out that landlords are cheating their taxes, whether they know it or not. This audit was conducted because in August 2008, the Government Accountability Office stated that “at least 53 percent of individual taxpayers with rental real estate activity for Tax Year 2001 misreported their rental real estate activity, resulting in an estimated $12.4 billion of net misreported income.”;)
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