Checklist for New Landlord of 14 Unit Apartment

[Bill Smith]

Does anyone know where I can find a checklist of all the things I need to do before taking ownership of a 14 unit apartment building?  I will get the keys in about 60 days.  I have never been a landlord before. Thank you!

[Account Closed]

You are not going to find a canned checklist.

The first thing you need is a bank account with the business name you are going to use e.g. XYZ Apartments. All you need is to file a Fictitious Business Statement and then have your CPA get a Tax Identification Number from the IRS. 

For 14 units don't even consider starting an LLC. You don't need an LLC to protect your asset because property insurance will cover any losses and if you are worried then increase your insurance by another $2 million.

You need some sort of accounting system e.g. Quickbooks. I hate Qickbooks with a passion and develop my own software. 

Many or all the the units may already have signed leases, but every time we purchase an apartment building we give every tenant a copy of our lease even if they don't sign it so the tenants know our House Rules, how we start the eviction process when their rent is late, who to contact when they have any issues, etc.

When we purchase a property we always write a letter introducing ourselves. In the letter, we tell the tenant who to make checks payable to, where to deliver the payments to, the date the rents are due and date the rent is late.

In the introduction letter we tell tenants we intend to improve the property and we tell tenants that we want them to contact us and report every maintenance issue asap.

As for taking over any property, there are always a hundred improvements that can be done within the first few months. The first thing we do is go through every unit, inspect everything and make the repairs. We always find faucets dripping, toilets running, doors that have lock problems, missing screens, broken screen doors, etc.

The next thing is we remove every garbage disposer and dishwasher and our tenants never complain. Most tenants like the space where the dishwashers are removed and they could care less about the disposers because they stink and there is a lot of food they cannot grind in them, anyway. We save a lot of service calls, a lot of money and that money ends up being in the thousands of dollars over a 10-year period.

The next thing we do when we take over an apartment building is we remove every plant, tree and blade of grass on the property and we put rock in place of the grass. Of course, I am in California, but I save tens of thousands of dollars over a 10-year period because now I don't have to pay for water, pay a gardener, or pay thousands of dollars to remove trees.

The next thing we do is we usually paint the entire outside of the apartment building to make the place look fresh and then you won't have to paint it again for 20+ years.