Newbie Needs Advice On Maintenance

[John Mossaad]

Hello, I'm a Newbie.  I've actually been investing for three years (thinking and dreaming about it for 20 years) and I only have two properties under my belt and looking for a third. 

Our first deal was not a great one.  We make about $100 a month after our property management fee.

Our recent tenant has left,  and I'm glad to see him go because he never paid on time and didn't even pay his last month.  He used his security for his last month's rent. 

We're preparing for a new tenant,  and our property manager has asked us to do about $9000 in repairs, including carpet replacement (3 years old,  but it's got some filthy spots), replacing polybutelene plumbing,  and of course repainting and patch work. I lean towards providing my tenants with the best possible experience,  but the economics just don't make sense.  I'm considering selling and cutting my losses.

Brandon likes to use the term "hell house."  This is definitely my "hell house."

I need input from folks who are smarter and more experienced than I.

Thanks,  in advance.

Regards,

John

[James DeRoest]

I will guarantee you it's not $9000 of repairs. This seems to be fairly standard by property managers when they are giving up on your property; stuff the landlord with some ridiculous quite and hope they go away.

Find out what the problems are and start getting real quotes.

Carpet, you were onto a loser in the first place, but don't underestimate how good a professional carpet cleaning company can be. It could be $150 well spent just to see what they can do, see if you can get one more tenant out of them.

As for plumbing being replaced though, see what a plumber will charge you. What's the harm? Our plumber ripped out an entire galvanized system and replaced with Pex for just over $2k. I had one tenant who happened to be a plumber, do exactly same job for $900! (And it was a good job as well). The standard price I've seen is around $3-4K for that job.

I know a friend recently got a bill for $10k for repairs from their PM. They did it themselves in the end, took a day and $323 in parts fromLowes.

What do you have to lose?