Check out this sample of our newsletter! Each week you will receive a landlord tips, early access to our new blogs, links to our podcast episodes, landlord specific articles written by other industry leaders, special products and promotions for your rental property business.
How to Avoid Capital Gains Tax on Real Estate
Tip of the Week Some call this hand holding, we call it communication. Our preference is to make everything clear from the get-go. Since we started doing this, our "I have a question" calls have pretty much diminished. We also find this sets a precedent for what you expect from them and what they can expect from you. If you handle your leases remotely, email the lease to them for their review, asking them to read each page. Here's why: we set up our leases to be signed or initialed on every page. Sign the appropriate pages for the lease and each addendum and initial all other pages without a preset signature line. This acknowledges that they have read and understand the terms of the entire lease and cannot come back to us later and say they did not see a particular term, rule, or responsibility included in our lease. This is why we highly encourage landlords to send your lease to the prospective tenant a couple of days in advance of when you expect to sign in person or send out the lease for E-signing. Give them time to review the lease entirely before they sign. It allows them time to review the lease and time to communicate any questions or concerns they might have BEFORE they show up to sign the lease. This act alone shows new tenants you are conscientious and want to be clear about all fees charged, who is responsible for what, and what your terms are for violations, usage, etc. In this day and age, it is in your best interest to be as transparent as possible. Cover yourself as best you can because you never know what lies ahead with a tenant. You Got This Landlords! This Week On The Podcast! Landlord Q&A: Your Questions Answered!Occasionally, we like to do a landlord Q&A episode because we get a lot of questions from our listeners and followers that are important for all of us rental property owners to know about. This week on the podcast we are answering several follow up questions that came up about renters’ insurance. Specifically, can landlords pay for a policy on behalf of the tenant, can landlords REQUIRE tenants hold renter’s insurance, and how do we handle if the tenant takes out a renter’s insurance policy and then cancels it a few months after moving in? Another question was about what’s better in a rental, gas or electric appliances. And before you go off on how electric is best, listen to what we have to say about tenants’ opinions on gas operated ones. We were also asked about what mistakes we have made and how we corrected them. That was fun to rehash some pretty major errors in judgement! But we do have really solid solutions on how to overcome and avoid some of those mistakes made. With the warm weather, landlords are getting asked permission to have a kiddie pool at their rentals. We have some really important points to consider before just saying yes or no to this request. Lastly, we were asked about the importance of understanding Fair Housing laws as a self-managing landlord. So, we addressed this quickly and confidently, offering very easy solutions on how to handle it. Click HERE to listen to the podcast and view show notes with links to special offers and promotions. Listen to Our Podcast:
Favorite Landlord ProductsProducts we use to make our rental property business more efficient and safe. They make our life easier so we are sharing them with our readers to help you too!Mohawk Fil-StickEngage your inner child and play with these Fil-Stik "crayons"! They come in a HUGE variety of colors. We keep them on hand to do a quick fill on trim, cabinets, and flooring. If you don't want to have to come back after waiting for putty to dry, then sand and touch-up with paint, give theses a try! Recently we had a tenant who left his unit clean but there were some deep scratches in the laminate flooring. We deducted from his security deposit to repair the floor because we anticipated having to replace that one board but found this stick worked PERFECTLY to cover the white scuff and make the markings barely noticeable to us or to the prospective tenants touring the unit. Not bad for a $7 product we can use over and over again! We also have one in white to fill in chips or dents that occur in doors and trim. From the manufacturer:
This post contains an affiliate link. We may earn a very small commission (at no additional cost to you) if you purchase from here. These small commissions are to benefit our business so thank you for your support. What's News?How to Avoid Capital Gains Tax on Real EstateWhen you sell a property for a profit, you owe capital gains taxes on it. Maybe. Sometimes. If you don’t know how to avoid real estate capital taxes. Because real estate investments come with a slew of tax advantages. While you own the property as a rental, you can take nearly two dozen landlord tax deductions. And when it comes time to sell, you can reduce or avoid capital gains taxes on real estate through another half dozen options. Start thinking about your real estate exit strategies now, long before you’re actually ready to sell. By positioning yourself early, you can dodge the bullet of capital gains taxes on investment properties altogether.
The Rental Market for Single-Family Homes Is Set to Soar Morgan Stanley real estate analyst Laurel Durkay appeared on CNBC recently to deliver the financial behemoth’s latest housing outlook. It was great news for property owners and a call to action for potential buyers sitting on the fence, waiting for rates to fall. Such is the shortage of inventory; in the next decade, 2 million homes will need to be built to satisfy demand. This means the rental market is set to soar. It’s an opinion shared among real estate number crunchers at lenders and data-heavy websites. “While inventory this May is much improved compared with the previous three years, it is still down 34.2% compared with typical 2017 to 2019 levels,” said Realtor.com‘s Sabrina Speianu.
Good Landlord Reads Landlord’s Handbook for Effective Rental Property MarketingLandlords strive to ensure their rental properties remain sought after in the competitive rental property market, where demand and supply constantly fluctuate. We have found one of the keys to our success lies in the art of effective marketing. This process goes beyond traditional avenues and embraces innovative strategies that most larger property managers do not take the time to do properly. As independent landlords, we are able to tailor a unique approach to marketing that works well for us. In an era where every click matters, understanding how to find tenants fast is not just a skill, it’s a necessity for landlords seeking to maximize occupancy rates and rental income. In this article, we share actionable tips on how to list a rental property and market it effectively.
Your Landlord Resource: Blogs You Might Have Missed We have now had TWO instances where we have needed and had to file claims for vacancy insurance! First, let me tell you a quick story about how we came to know the who, what, when, and why of residential vacancy/unoccupied home insurance. In late 2020, sadly, my brother passed away suddenly. I advised our family’s insurance broker of the news and he asked if the home was going to be unused for 30 days or more. Because we needed time to grieve before removing his many personal belongings, I responded “yes”. He recommended that we add a vacancy endorsement on the policy and boy, am I glad he did! Here is why:
In 2022, we decided to sell farmland in one state and exchange it for a 4-plex multifamily complex in a different state, neither state of which we resided in. Having never done this before, we thought our readers might like to know what our first experience with a 1031 exchange as rental property owners entailed. Where we gained insight and learned a lot, it certainly was not an easy task. Would we do it again? Keep reading about our experience to find out and determine if a 1031 exchange is right for you.
Other Ways to Connect With Us!Follow Your Landlord Resource on: Join Our Facebook Group! Looking for a community of DIY landlords you can ask questions and bounce ideas off? Join the Your Landlord Resource Facebook Group, a discussion group for support, tips, and guidance to help create successful landlord-tenant relationships. |
Hi! We are Stacie & Kevin of Your Landlord Resource!
Check out this sample of our newsletter! Each week you will receive a landlord tips, early access to our new blogs, links to our podcast episodes, landlord specific articles written by other industry leaders, special products and promotions for your rental property business.
Tip of the Week If there is ONE thing that we want to drill into a landlord’s head, it’s that creating criteria and then procedures on how to maintain those criteria is crucial to the success of your rental property business. Here is one scenario that can happen (and is more common than you think): They may have lost their job or had a severe decline in income. Think about this. Let's say you're the tenant and six weeks before your lease is due to renew, you get laid off. The employer gave...