Just a Landlord

There is a revision to the 1099 link:

Kim here from Best Accounting Software.

I noticed a broken link on this page – http://justalandlord.com/2011-irs-form-1099-revisions/

The IRS now has a section for self-employed individuals with all sorts of tax guidance, perhaps you’d like to update your page to point people to – https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employed-individuals-tax-center

In 2010 two laws revised the 1099 requirements  effective for payments made after 1/1/11 ( 2012 tax year)

The 2010 Small Business Act extends the 1099 requirement to all rental property owners. Prior to 1/1/2011 small rental property owners were exempted from the aw.  It appears very unlikely that this provision will be reverted.

The 2010 National Health Care Reform Act P.L. 111-148 (a.k.a. Obamacare) extended the 1099 requirement to all purchases of GOODS (previously the requirement applied only to services.) This bill also eliminates the exemption for if the party you paid was a corporation. An attempt to reverse this portion of the Health Care Bill in December failed, but now that evenPresident Obama is considering fixing parts of it, so it may change.

Perhaps excluding the likes of Amazon, Google, and Tesla, most well run, and effective businesses can achieve 10, 15, 20% or more sustainable improvement every couple of years by applying “Fresh Eyes” to their procedures and processes.

Your business is doing well, at least you think so. But you know it would do better if only you could just … [put your challenges and opportunities here] You say ‘I’ll jump on doing that next week, or after the vacation, or after Labor Day or by the end of the year.’ Sorry, buddy. Ain’t happenin’. You said the same last year and the year before and…

Let’s be honest you can’t see the opportunities and obstacles, and if you do, you cannot act on them. The excuses your staff and you have created to avoid doing what must be done have been internalized and are no longer even noticed. Processes that were in place and working have fallen by the wayside. You step over great opportunities sitting on your front step every morning, without even noticing them anymore or worse, curse them for being in your way.

We are blind to missed opportunities and obstacles because we are too close. In the past twenty-five years, I went from 175 to 200 pounds. I did not see even one of those pounds sneak up on me, but they are here today. Your business is the same, slowly getting fat, but not noticed.

‘Well, I’ll just have my staff take a look and make changes.’ Sorry, they have worse baggage than you.

What we’ve done at my company for many years now is to hire a temporary set of “Fresh Eyes.” This person must be a potential superstar, who is available to work for a couple of, or a few months. They are never hired to fill a current role.

Rather the “Fresh Eyes” position is to question everything we do. You know how it is easier to tell someone how they should run their business or their life than to do the same yourself. That is what we are looking for in a “Fresh Eyes” person.

Typically we hire people outside of the rental industry, so they have a different perspective than us. We’ve had a former Health Department inspector, a former Alderman, a couple of former community leaders, a former manager of a temp service. I lean towards people different than us, but who have proven themselves as leaders and producers.

The goal is to hit a sustainable 15% improvement with a two to four-month commitment to work with the “Fresh Eyes” employee.

To get value full value from this experience, you must remember that “Ego is the Enemy”* and do not allow yourself to feel insulted or defensive of your soon to be former bad ways.
——
*Ego is the Enemy is the title of a book on Stoicism by Ryan Holiday – It is worth the read. Find it on Amazon.

“MY OPPONENT IS MY TEACHER. MY EGO IS MY ENEMY.”
— RENZO GRACIE

If your business model relies on using workers that you classify as “independent contractors” the latest interpretation from the US Department of Labor should be of extreme concern you.

Hat tip to Attorney Tristan Pettit for alerting me to this.

I have written a number of post about the dangers of calling a worker an independent contractor when they met the definition of employee.   Well that bar was just raised substantially.

Rather than the old tests, the new ones are fairly bright line:

Ultimately, the goal is not simply to tally which factors are met, but to determine whether the worker is economically dependent on the employer (and thus its employee) or is really in business for him or herself (and thus its independent contractor).

But the ruling goes even further than is the worker dependent on the pay they receive from you.  Below are a few paragraphs of the Department of Labor document worth noting.

If the work performed by a worker is integral to the employer’s business, it is more likely that the worker is economically dependent on the employer.

In sum, in order to inform the determination of whether the worker is in business for him or herself, this factor should not focus on the worker’s ability to work more hours, but rather on whether the worker exercises managerial skills and whether those skills affect the worker’s opportunity for both profit and loss.

The worker should make some investment (and therefore undertake at least some risk for a loss) in order for there to be an indication that he or she is an independent business.

For example, investing in tools and equipment is not necessarily a business investment or a capital expenditure that indicates that the worker is an independent contractor.

So if the guy is a licensed electrician doing work for dozens or hundreds of other owners – pretty much he is a contractor.

However if you are paying a painter $10 an hour, or even $20 for that matter, and he works primarily for you – he is an employee and you would be well served to consider making him a legitimate employee or hire out a company that uses employees.

Remember too that if someone working on your property  is injured your rental property liability policy will not cover them.  Either you or they need to have a worker comp policy.  And this risk is even greater than the DOJ coming after you.

Remember  Your handyman – cheap contractor or $60,000 mistake?

Many of you attended the Apartment Association’s Meeting earlier this month featuring employment law attorney John Murray.

Here is a link to the State of Wisconsin’s guidance on the issue.  Most owners I’ve met that call their workers contractors fail on four or more of the test outlined in the guide.  Failing only one of the nine tests will cost you substantially.  This is why we use employees exclusively, except for licensed trades like electricians.

Under section 102.07(8)1 of the Wisconsin Statutes, a person is required to meet a nine-part test before he or she is considered an independent contractor rather than an employee. A person is not an independent contractor for worker’s compensation purposes just because the person says they are, or because the contractor over them says so, or because they both say so, or even if other regulators (including the federal government and other state agencies) say so. The nine-part statutory test set forth under s. 102.07(8) of the Act, must be met before a person working under another person is considered not to be an employee. To be considered an independent contractor and not an employee, an individual must meet and maintain all nine of the following requirements:

1. Maintain a separate business.

2. Obtain a Federal Employer Identification number from the Federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or have filed business or self-employment income tax returns with the IRS based on the work or service in the previous year. (See note below.)

3. Operate under specific contracts.

4. Be responsible for operating expenses under the contracts.

5. Be responsible for satisfactory performance of the work under the contracts.

6. Be paid per contract, per job, by commission or by competitive bid.

7. Be subject to profit or loss in performing the work under the contracts.

8. Have recurring business liabilities and obligations.

9. Be in a position to succeed or fail if business expense exceeds income.

Note: When requesting a Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) from the IRS, you must inform the IRS that you are required by Wisconsin Worker’s Compensation law to obtain a FEIN. A social security number cannot be substituted for a FEIN and does not meet the legal burden of s. 102.07(8).

A year ago I wrote of my five top ideas for real estate for 2013.

Of those ideas I have implemented .. not much.   Shortly after the first of the year 2013 we found that my wife’s ongoing back pain was being caused by a large benign tumor. She had it surgically removed on Valentine’s day and is fine today, but it upended things for a while

Today as I reflect on the past year and think about this coming year I reread the ideas posted last year. A year later they all hold value.

Two have been implemented as part of an effort to increase the value of membership by the Apartment Association of Southeastern WI’s  board of directors under the leadership of Joe Dahl.

The Association now has quarterly small group meetings as part of the Professional Membership. These meetings are an important element of #3 on the list, improving  how we share our collective knowledge

In a big step towards #1 on the list, reducing maintenance supply costs, the Association has teamed up with Home Depot, Pittsburg Paint, Sherwin Williams, and a number of other organizations to provide discounts to our members.

Home Depot offers a whopping 20% discount on paint and 2% cash back rebate on most purchases to our members. Sherwin Williams offers members discounts on paint equal to the discounts that major contractors receive. Pittsburg has similar discounts.

I would add a sixth and seventh opportunity for 2014, Crowdsourcing/Crowd funding for real estate.  I’ll post my thoughts on these in the next couple of days

The five most important Real Estate Ideas for 2014 remain:

(Clicking on the topic’s title takes you to the full article)

1. Reducing Maintenance Supplies costs
   Pre 1950 buildings in lower income neighborhoods require around $100 per month per unit for repairs, replacement reserves and improvements. Newer buildings in more affluent neighborhoods perhaps $50 – $65. This is all maintenance from leaky faucets and unit turnovers to new cabinets, new roofs, electrical upgrades, replacing parking lots ect. (more)
2. More Effective Maintenance Labor/Contractors
   Maintenance, replacements and improvements to rental housing represents nearly $100 million per year in the city of Milwaukee alone. A savings of even 1% is a lot of money. (more)
3. Become better at sharing our collective knowledge
   The ApartmentAssoc@YahooGroups.com is good beginning. However it does not work real well as a reference tool as the posts are not organized by topics nor apparently easily searchable for many users. (more)
4. Group purchase of a distressed block or two
   There has been this wild idea floating around in my head for years, acquiring a distressed block with a group of active owners and turn it around for fun and profit. (more)
5. Tech Meets Real Estate
   There certainly are huge opportunities for software/web solutions for things that cause frustrations for owners and perhaps tenants. (more)
6. Crowdsourcing for real estate, posting later in the week.
7. Crowdfunding for real estate, posting later in the week.

A reader of the ApartmentAssoc Yahoo Group asks:

I am about to hire someone to cut some trees around houses. I told him that I would like him sign something to knowledge that I will not be responsible of his personal injury from this job if it happens. What kind of form and where I can find it? and is it enough or something else I have to do to insure that I will be absolutely OK if his personal injury from work actually happens

It is not possible to have someone sign away their rights or your liability under Wisconsin worker comp laws.  The only safe options are to have a minimum worker comp policy of your own or only hire companies that are insured.

Remember that a dwelling liability policy will not cover injuries to those working on the property.  This is an area that a lot of owners of small multi families run into problems with when they assign a tenant to do lawn work or snow removal for a discount in rent.

There is really a great risk in not having the coverage or in hiring people without coverage. I had an employee that was making a minor repair to a small first floor porch overhang. He made a wrong move, fell and the worker comp carrier had to pay out $140,000.  If we would have been uninsured that would have been me paying out the $140k, and probably more as insurers get discounts from the medical providers.

If you have employees, or non employees deemed to be statutory employees,  then the law requires coverage.

I think the minimum worker comp policies are around a grand a year, but am not positive.

Real Estate For Ideas 2013 Part Two

What can be done collectively to improve our businesses, save costs or generate additional revenue?

On January 1st I posted a list of ideas that I had that some of us could consider to collaboratively work on.  I intend to pursue one or two of the ideas presented and may entertain partnering with the right person or persons.

This post is the second of my more in depth notes on the ideas.  I will post others over the next week or so as time permits me to clean my notes into coherent sentences. If any of the topics interest you comment either on the list or directly to me at:Tim@ApartmentsMilwaukee.com

Part Two:

More Effective Maintenance Labor/Contractors/Service Providers

As mentioned in part one, maintenance, replacements and improvements to rental housing represents nearly $100 million per year in the city of Milwaukee alone. A savings of even 1% is a lot of money

More Effective Maintenance Labor/Contractors/Service Providers

The ability to have skilled, cost effective maintenance available on demand is typically a missing element for small owners.

If all of your unit preps are done two days after move out you will have far less vacancy income loss. If you can respond quickly to emergency repairs less tenants will move.

Even larger owners such as our company can’t do this efficiently with typical staffing. Either you have too few workers the first week of the month or too many the rest of the month.

The million dollar question is ‘How do can you have an on demand workforce without the risk of uninsured “contractors” who may later be deemed employees by taxing authorities or injured and not covered by your property insurance?’

A couple of years ago Affordable Rentals rolled out Rental A Worker, where we ‘rent’ other owners our maintenance people by the hour for small or large jobs. We benefit as we can have a larger workforce to meet the up and down demands of maintenance, while being able to share them when our workload is lighter.  We can also justify having highly skilled people on staff full time, such as certified heating techs.

The big advantage this offers other owners over hiring Joe off the street is our people are insured and have taxes withheld. There is a real danger and expensive otherwise. For the longer version read: Your Handyman-Cheap Contractor or $60000 Mistake?

The real vision for Rent-A-Worker is to expand it to a temp like service where there is an on demand workforce that can ramp up when there are a lot of preps etc and then can work for another temp agency on slow times.  This would hold an advantage for our company as well as other owners who participate.

Such a system would have a worker rating system, whereby the owners would grade them and their opportunity to work and future pay rate would be based on those grades.  So the best workers would achieve full time employment at a decent wage.

All the workers, whether they are laborers or small uninsured contractors would be treated as employees with the temp agency withholding taxes, maintaining worker’s comp etc., thereby eliminating a potential career ending risk for owners who were hiring “handymen” for cash.  The guy in the Cheap Contractor or $60,000 mistake went under.  I assume this was the cause

I pursued the temp angle a bit a year a half ago.  We hired a college grad who was formerly a manager a temp agency that moved out of the area. Excellent resume and references. I held a lot of hope for him to do well at this, but in the end it did not work out. By that time I was distracted with the purchase of a commercial property in Hollywood FL to house my wife’s businesses.  The basic software framework exits as well as some operating procedures.

I still believe an available,  flexible workforce  is the brass ring for our industry; seeing so much benefit for my company as well as many other owners. This may be the top new project to aggressively pursue this in 2013. The open question on this is does Obamacare make this in anyway less practical today if the number of temps exceeds 50.

What can be done collectively to improve our businesses, save costs or generate additional revenue?

I will post my in-depth thoughts on these topics over the next week or so as time permits me to clean my notes into coherent sentences. If any of the topics interest you comment here or email me at: Tim@ApartmentsMilwaukee.com

• Reduce Maintenance Costs
• Become better at sharing our collective knowledge
• Group purchase of a distressed block or two
• IT meets real estate

Reduce Maintenance Costs

Improve supply sourcing: ‘How can we use our collective shopping experiences and buying power to improve our bottom-line on a daily basis in 2013?’  More thoughts on better material sourcing.

More effective Maintenance Labor/Contractors/Services The ability to have skilled, cost effective maintenance available on demand is typically a missing element for most small to medium sized owners. Read more on  effective maintenance labor solutions that could change our industry.

Become better at sharing our collective knowledge

The ApartmentAssoc@YahooGroups.com is good beginning. But the idea could be greatly expanded upon. Perhaps a Wikipedia style “Best Practices” Guide* for Milwaukee rental owners. It would include everything that a property manager may run into.

Similarly a Mastermind Group could reap benefits if the right people were involved. Here is an overview of the Mastermind concept.

Also look at what groups like StartUpMKE are doing in the tech field.  Read my thoughts on increasing the sharing of knowledge.

Group purchase of a distressed block or two

Choose a very small geo area of Milwaukee. Think something on the terms of both sides of a block or two maybe three at the max. It should be depressed, as in make Detroit look like a nice place to live, depressed.

Apologizes to Detroit, but many people know of Detroit’s challenges and fewer of the challenges of Milwaukee.

Yes, unfortunately, there are many areas like this in Milwaukee and the numbers are increasing as foreclosures work their way through the system.

The plan would be to assemble a group of investors and turn the area for fun and profit. My  expanded thoughts on group purchasing of a distressed block.

Tech meets real estate

There certainly huge opportunities for software/web solutions to things that cause frustrations for owners and perhaps tenants.

Some ideas:

• Setting rents to market. How much are you losing because your rents are too low or how much have you lost due to your rents being too high and your vacancies languish? Me, too. ;-(
• Property acquisition tools Look at what sites like http://www.spotproperty.com/ are doing elsewhere, but not here.
• Vacancy filling Craig’s List used to work, but now there is too much spam and fraud. What about a system where the tenants need to prequalify before actually applying. While pre qualifying by an individual owner may be problematic from a fair housing standpoint, a proper third party system could work.
• Custom Management tools My company’s secret sauce is our highly customized management software. Nearly every task is one or two clicks and the computer makes many mundane management decisions on its own.
• Put your solution here

You can read my thoughts on tech and real estate here

Conclusion

What? This is not enough ideas for one year? Then post yours on the comments!

Shy, then email directly at: Tim@ApartmentsMilwaukee.com either for my review only or to repost anonymously as you direct.

With the Court of Appeals upholding Milwaukee’s paid sick leave ordinance yesterday many of us who have employees will be impacted to some degree, at least until the state legislature enacts a bill to prevent such ordinances.

How will this affect us and what can we do to minimize the impact at a time when many owners are struggling just to survive?

We knew this referendum would pass at the ballot box. Why wouldn’t it pass? The referendum was presented in a way that made is sound like you were voting for free beer or free rent.

On the surface it would appear that it could cost my company $35-45k in direct wages and probably $2-3k in compliance cost such as developing an effective method of tracking the hours earned.

A couple of years ago I was discussing this with another business owner. His reaction was similar to mine; move as much of the company as possible outside the city limits.

But once you read the ordinance it seems the impact can be much less.  We ultimately decided we could integrate the mandate into our business at minimal cost to us.  Two and a half years ago, the day after the referendum passed, we implemented a paid time off policy that complies with the ordinance without negatively impacting our costs nor negatively impacting our employees. Continue reading »

Call your favorite federal representative or senator and tell them to support the following:

On February 17, the House Ways and Means Committee approved H.R. 705, the Comprehensive 1099 Taxpayer Protection and Repayment of Exchange Subsidy Overpayment Act of 2011.

This bill will remove the requirements to give 1099 to suppliers of goods and to corporate service providers.  It also will remove the requirement for SMALL landlords to submit 1099’s

Also on February 17, the Senate voted to pass the FFA bill S 223 that also removes the 1099 requirements for suppliers of goods and to corporate service providers.

What are changes to  the 1099 rules and why they need to be changes?  Read my prior post here:

Much more paperwork for landlords in 2011

With or without changes the issue of having your contractors reclassified as statutory employees is a real risk:

Your handyman – cheap contractor or $60,000 mistake?