All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Ned Carey We always take our shoes off if the tenant requests it or if it is muddy outside and we think we will track mud into a unit.

Just not a big deal. Usually the ones requesting it have the cleanest, neatest units of all and I’m thankful they’re taking such good care of them.

@Reilly Casey My spouse is still not fully on board after 6 years of investing. She appreciates the extra income from our house hack duplex and the fact that we can do upgrades to the property with no out of pocket expenses. Yet every time I mention any minor setbacks with my other properties she’s quick to point out that she still thinks I shouldn’t have invested in the property.

I’m at the point where the real estate allows me to work part time at my W-2 so I can spend more time on the real estate. And she does say she’s happy that I’m able to work part time.

I think you need to follow your passion for real estate and move forward with the duplex. You shouldn't have any trouble also being able to buy a SFH in a year or two and if your bank gives you problems with this simply look for additional lenders until you find the right one.

@Stephen Jones I have a portfolio 1/5 the size of yours but have a handyman to deal with the maintenance issues. This frees me up to do the parts I enjoy including leasing, tenant relations and buying new deals.

I strongly recommend you figure out how to focus more on the parts you enjoy and spend less time on the parts that you’re “over”.

Yes, your cash flow will be affected if you hire someone to help, but if it allows you to stay in the game another 5-10 years or indefinitely you will reap the benefits of mortgage pay down and appreciation.

@Dakota Workman terminate the partnership and move on with a different contractor.

My first and only real estate partner embezzled over $20,000 from our account in terms of personal gas, personal purchases, and personal draws.

We did not have a formal partnership agreement and ended up in court. Cost me the $20,000 to get it resolved but was able to force the partner to buy me out.

Today 25 years later I walked past one of the two properties to find it fairly dilapidated and the yard overgrown with 1.5’ tall weeds.

Sad state of affairs.

But 25 years ago I didn’t know enough about real estate to buy him out.

Know your value, know your worth. Kick him out and find a new contractor who can finish the projects.

@Ezekiel Trevino I lived in a 1908 mansion that was haunted. It was a B&B. We had all types of odd things happen to us and over the years had at least 10 guests that stayed in one room say they had seen a lady in Victorian clothing. Then we would show them a picture of the woman who originally owned the house and they all said it was her.

So fast forward and we list the house to sell and dozens of people look at it but we get no offers.

So we had a local lady who was psychic come in to help us move the spirit along. According to her there were actually 4 ghosts. The lady everyone saw, a gentleman who had passed away there, a young boy, and another man. She said she was able to help 3 off them cross over into the light but the lady, the original owner would not leave because she loved the house too much.

The next person who looked at the property made a fantastic offer and bought the place for his daughter to run the B&B.

We remain friends with her 15 years later and she did not believe in ghosts. But did say her guests continued to see the woman in the one room.

@Isaiah Hall Over the years I’ve built a really strong relationship with my bank which is also my primary lender.

I’ve had accounts with them for 30 years and 3 iterations of owners of the bank.

I started out with small 1-4 unit deals on their residential lending side and that was great.

Now I’m more focused on 5+ deals that are commercial.

I quickly discovered that the VP in charge of my commercial loans was not as good at following through to get things done as fast as they need to for a 30 day closing period. So now I stay on TOP of the communication with him to make sure everything gets done in a timely manner.

The first 5+ deal almost fell through because of the VP. But now with some experience in his method of doing things I stay right on him and everything goes smoothly.

I know there’s a lot to be said for shopping around rates and loans but it’s super nice to work with a bank that keeps their loans in house. And to know I can call and get a real person at any time I need something is just peace of mind for me.

@Ranga Lewis Personally I like having a separate checking account for each individual rental property.

It’s a bit tedious at times but since I’ve got all my bookkeeping separated this way it makes it super simple at any given point to see exactly where each property stands.

I keep all my accounts at the same bank so I can just use one App to look at things.

For years I did all my own bookkeeping and when I hit 7 properties my CPA said it was time to hire a professional bookkeeper. So for the past 2 tax seasons things have gone much smoother.

If I was smaller I would look into some of the property management softwares to deal with my bookkeeping.

@Andre Brock I realized after years of working that I was never going to be able to retire without some big financial improvement.

So after much thought I said to myself “My parents made millions in real estate. Why can’t I do the same?”

And the rest is history. Shortly after I bought my first rental, then a few months later my second.

I’m still adding to my portfolio but it’s more difficult in this market so weeding out all the terrible deals and finding the great ones takes more time than it did some years ago.

@Sarah Buchanan has have a few tenants that pay multiple times per month. It’s a bit of a pain but in the long run I’m still getting paid by otherwise good tenants. I do try to discourage it.

@Schola Eburuoh Hey Schola. I’ve found most of my tenants just disable chirping smoke alarms so I sent a letter to them all stating we would be enforcing a $250 fine if we discovered any disabled smoke detectors. In the letter we stated that we were happy to come out immediately and fix/repair any currently disabled smoke detectors. And that we’d be happy to replace batteries as needed. All of ours are hard wired but they will chirp from time to time if the back up battery dies.

Also I’m a relative newbie with only about 5 years under my belt. I’ve probably had about 60 sets of tenants thus far and I’ve only had 1 that’s been an issue. For months I fielded dozens of weekly texts and multiple weekly phone calls from this tenant. I finally told her I was done and to not contact me further unless there was an actual problem with her unit or the building. This has mostly worked and now I only receive 8-10 texts a month and maybe 1 phone call every 2-3 months. Just today she had an actual maintenance issue and my handyman joked afterwards that she must spend her time wandering around the unit looking for things to complain about.

I don’t have a reliable system for reporting issues, the tenants just text or call me or my handyman directly. This could definitely be improved upon in my business.