Emergency!
There is a word that grabs your attention! Boy..has it been a part of our life for the first few weeks of the new year. Starting in the final days of 2017, our Indianapolis office saw the highest amount of emergency calls ever received in over 20 years! With the holiday season timing, it created a double whammy of problems. More tenants at home and less contractors working. The ones working, and those who suited up for duty, stayed busy to the point of exhaustion.
The Big Freeze
I'm sure you are aware that most of the eastern part of the US incurred some brutal freezing temps combined with mixtures of ice and snow...for weeks! As this is being written the snow is just now melting and temps are slightly above normal. The emergency calls have scaled back to normal and people are getting some sleep again. Those 10 days starting about December 28 offerred little time off. If you escaped emergency repairs caused by the extreme weather, consider yourself fortunate.
After-Hours Emergency Service Managed The Volume
The really great news is that our emergency systems worked! Some of our staff had holiday vacations scheduled and we were operating on a skeleton in-office staff. With the combination of our after-hours emergency service, and access through cell phones and our on-line portal, we all worked a little more than expected. The great news- there were no hiccups!
You try to build a business to endure moments of stress. Sometimes there is no way to know until it is actually presented. The combination of very severe weather, with a holiday period, was the perfect storm for testing our systems. The systems worked!
The Final Analysis
Only a couple of tenants were without heat or water for longer than about 12 hours. In those situations we had to make some alternative living arrangements that inconvenienced the tenants. Overall, a very small percentage of our residents were affected.
I share this because many of your investments were impacted by these extreme conditions. I am confident that we have systems in place to protect your investments and tenants. In this situation those systems worked smoothly. Thank you to everyone who was a part of this success!
Now, lets move on to spring!
One Quick Word On 1099's
You should have received, or will any day now, your 1099 for rental income we collected on your behalf in 2017. These are information forms required by the IRS. Every year they create questions.
Almost every question we receive on an owner's 1099 revolves around the amount reported not matching what the owner believes should be reported. Most of us believe if we collect $1000 a month in rent, and we have no vacancies, we should receive a 1099 for $12,000. That is correct if all of those rent payments are received within the calendar year of 2017.
The confusion occurs with the great tenants that occasionally pay their rent prior to the due date of the first of the month. So, if a tenant pays December rent December 1, and January rent December 29, there is an extra rent payment we must report for 2017.
The IRS mandates that reporting of income for 1099 purposes is based on receipts and the date received (not earned). Check with your accountant if you still have questions. If you believe your 1099 is not correct, it is most likely due to the way we must report the receipt of the income within the calendar year it occurs.
Of course, feel free to check in with us if you have any questions.
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