Some Bookkeeping Advise Please

In the past I never really broke down expense between my properties – it really did not matter to me much, I was mostly a one man shop, I knew what was going on and things ran well enough.

But now I have grown bigger and have new properties and I want to do things right. I’ve set up a set of accounts for each property so that is all fine, but how do you handle things that are split between all your properties like office supplies and what about things that really don’t belong to any of your properties but are part of your business such as the expenses of looking at new properties?

Randy -

I have a LLC that absorbs all my general expenses - like travel to look at a new property. This LLC also receives my consulting revenue.

Having separate books is a very good idea. They are the ‘map’ by which you fly your business and make investment decisions. We keep separate books for the land vs. the homes in all of our properties. We do financial analysis to track profitability by size of home (2BR v. 3BR v. 4BR). Now we know what to invest in in our markets, and you will too by following the path you are on.

To your continued expansion,

-jl-

I agree to keep expenses for each park separate. If you are financing any appraiser with good sense will ask for your income and expenses for the individual park. If you can’t provide those, it’s up to us to estimate.

For all the parks I have appraised, I’ve never been asked to include POH. Most lenders don’t want the homes on their books. So keep any home rental or home sale income separate from lot rental.

“Price is what you pay, value is what you get”