All Forum Posts by: Alan Pederson

Most people want to see the inside of a house before they make up their minds if they want to rent it. I started marketing one of my rentals a couple of weeks before my tenants moved out. I had pictures listed online so they could see what it looked like but no one would move forward. I just wrote down their information and waited for the tenants to move out. As soon as that happened, I called everyone up and told them the place was available. We lost a month's rent but we ended up with a good tenant. It turned out that I needed the extra time because I found several things that needed to be repaired.

You could simply tell him that you are responsible for health and safety issues. Things like leaking roofs, sewage backing up, A/C not working, etc... Everything else is done when and if you choose to. Have him turn in repair requests and you will get to it when you deem it appropriate. If he would like to pay for the things he wants fixed you could get those things done right now.

I won't pay for a home warranty again! If it comes free with the house, I'll take it but that's it. I had a hot water issue at one house and after 3 visits they told me the water heater needed to be replaced. $800 dollars later, the water still wasn't coming out hot. The real problem wasn't the water heater at all and the tech didn't troubleshoot things properly. We ended up getting the money back for this one. On Another house, the ac compressor went out on a 30 year old unit. Our cost was going to be $1,200 even though we had a warranty. I told them it didn't make sense to spend that to repair a 30 year old system and asked if they would work some type of deal with me if I bought a new unit. They said they don't reimburse people that replace things that can be repaired. The tech that came out quoted us $8,000 for a new unit. I thought this seemed pretty high for a 1300 sf house so i called my normal AC guy. We spent $5,000 on a new unit and received $0 from the warranty company. We spent $1,500 to have that warranty for 3 years on this house and I wish I would have kept that money so I could have put it towards the new system.

I just put LVP flooring in a house a couple of weeks ago. I bought it from Floor & Décor.

It took me years to convince my wife to invest in real estate. It was obvious that we wouldn't be able to retire before 67 if we didn't do something to bring in money from something other than our regular jobs. She had no solutions and the only thing I wanted to do was to buy rentals. She finally allowed me to buy the first rental but I would be 100% on my own. I bought a house, did some repairs, and got some really good tenants. Things went smooth and it changed her thinking. A year later, she was actually pushing me to get the next house.

What helped was her realizing that $40,000 sitting in a savings account was earning us $2 a month. That same money could buy us a house and make us $400 a month, someone else would be paying off the mortgage, and the value of the house would go up 3-5% a year (it's been going up 10%). If things went bad, we could always sell the house. We might lose some money but if you never take a chance you will never get far in life. We started in 2015 and have 3 rentals so far and are working towards #4. I've always been good with money. If the rental thing wasn't working out I would be the first one to sell everything and look for something else. My wife is retiring next month (she's 57) and part of the reason is because of the extra income we make. If things don't go as planned, i'm the one who will have to work more years at a regular job before I can retire. All the pressure is on me so it's not like i'm asking her to follow me off a cliff. I only asked her to have a little faith that I can make this work. We agreed to buy the first one then wait a year to see how things go. If things went well we would consider buying another one. If it wasn't going well, we would sell it and move on. Luckily things went well but it's a lot of work.

I self manage and do all the repairs myself. We just had tenants move out and new tenants move in at one house. The house needed some work. Between working my regular job, planning a vacation, getting taxes done, doing repairs, showing the house, etc... I've worn myself out the past couple of weeks. I got 5 hours sleep yesterday and 5 more today. It isn't like this all the time but be prepared to put in some real work from time to time.

Save up a bunch of money.

Find the right deal.

Get good tenants.

Learn how to make repairs.

My son thinks it's all about collecting checks but I keep telling him how much work it really is. For the past few weeks I have been a little overwhelmed. With trying to work my regular job, getting taxes done, making repairs to two houses, and looking for our next rental to purchase i'm worn out and it's only Tuesday. My schedule is already full for the rest of the week.

I might wait a month or two to see which tenants I wanted to keep.

I'm averaging a little over $200 a door after taking out all expenses. These are all 30 year financed properties with 20% down. 

@Alejandro Aguilar

I live in Kennedale and spent most of my life living in Arlington. Welcome to the group.