Have you ever heard of the utility meter being stolen?

[Skye Anderson]

Myself and a partner have a SFH under contract in St. Louis, MO (this is a long-distance transaction) that we intend to purchase as a buy and hold. We just learned yesterday that they were unable to do the municipal inspection because someone had stolen the meter. Has anyone ever heard of this before?

It seems awfully suspicious to us that it disappeared the day before the municipal inspection. What are your thoughts?

[Randy E.]

Originally posted by @Jay Hinrichs:

and first thing he does and he is extremely good at this is he knocks doors makes friends with the neighbors figures out what he can buy them for little gifts and then the neighbors leave Mr. Troys home alone we have KNOCK on wood not had any thefts.. 

One of the first things I do is talk to the immediate neighbors on either side, then walk the neighborhood.  I usually walk the neighborhood every time I visit, if I have time.

Currently, I'm working on a house I bought in a nearby town and have gotten to know the neighbor across the street very well.  She called a neighbor on one side of my house and he lets us use his driveway occasionally.  And she called friends who came and took away some of the junk furnishings my workers had taken from the house and put on the curb, which reduced by half the amount of stuff that went into the dumpster.  Near the end of this project, I'm going to send my guy over to her house to install a new toilet because she mentioned that it's the only thing in her house of 30 years that is currently giving her a problem.  A $100 toilet is a small price to pay for all the help she's provided over the past few weeks.  My lead guy likes her so much, he's not even charging me to install it -- not even if he has to (likely) repair the subfloor also.

A few days ago, a not-quite-middle-age working-class guy working on the house behind my project house made a loud smart-alec comment while I was nearby.  To his dismay, I approached him and struck up a conversation.  He was peeved about something minor, but it turns out he was doing yardwork for his grandmother, for whom the entire neighborhood is named.  Before long, he's showing me pictures on his phone of his garden, cooking and handyman work, and exchanging numbers with me.  Just maybe, I've located a handyman in a town I'm hoping to buy more houses in.  I could have handled it differently, angered him more, and maybe had him vandalize the house one night.  Instead, we both end up laughing and liking one another.  If I had the funding, I'd buy ten more houses there.

It's easy for an investor to go into a new low-income area and get turned off, or worse, create enemies and put a target on the project property.  It's also easy to go there and develop friendships and partnerships with the neighbors.  It's all about handling the situation the right way.