All Forum Posts by: Alec Jacobs

I am wrapping up a lot of the rehab of my first rental property and I was wondering how a basement of a rental should look like?

It has a typical unfinished basement with a concrete floor and there shouldn't be any reason to go down there except to do your laundry. 

I know this is a nuanced topic and it is probably market dependent but I can't find any pictures of rentals' basements on listing sites.

Any insight is welcome. Thank you!

I am a newbie real estate investor and I am doing a lot of the rehab myself and I was wondering what type of flooring long term rental investors use?

Initially I wanted to use vinyl snap together flooring since it is pretty durable and I have worked with it before. The downside is it would take a while to install it myself and I think it would be a more expensive option. I have kinda been against installing carpet but it might be an easier and cheaper alternative.

I would love any and all thoughts. Thank you!

@Stuart Udis Thank you so much for your response! I have more window companies lined up to some out. I went on Angie's list and got bombarded with tons of calls so I will do more research and find the companies with the better warranties. Thanks again!

I am in the middle of renovating my first long term rental and I need new windows for the upstairs unit (it is a top bottom duplex). I got a quote from a window company and it was going to cost me around $11k to replace 8 windows which is around $1.4k a window for a mid grade replacement. The windows I am looking for is something in the middle of really cheap and super expensive because it is a rental however I plan on holding onto the property for a long time. 

Would it be better for me to go with cheap windows or is it possible for me to buy windows myself and have somebody install them and just cut out the middle man? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! 

@Lynnette E. Thank you so much!

Do you think it would be better to just make the washer/dryer only available for the unit that has it on their utilities and not allow the other tenant to use it? 

I have a duplex which has gas and electric separate (2 furnaces and 2 electric panels) and while the water is for the whole property.

I was wondering how I would go about setting this up for my lease? I will have to keep the water in my name but I was also just thinking of keeping the electric in my name as well since there is just one dryer and I don't want one of my tenants to have to pay for the other one's dryer usage. 

Should I just keep everything in my name and send them each the bill separately or should I have as many utilities in their name as possible? How do I handle the water being in my name as well? Would I just split it in half and make each tenant pay their share and how would I set that up in the lease?

Any info is appreciated if you need more info to clear things up I'll do my best to provide that. 

Thank you!

@Nathan Gesner Thank you for your reply! My question isn't really direct, I just find myself trying to find things to do/manage and not just twiddling my thumbs. I'll definitely dive deeper into rental management. Thanks again!

I'm a newbie real estate investor and I'm in contract of buying my first rental property. I have turned in all the paperwork that they have requested and I have gone through my inspections and I was wondering what steps can I take to be proactive? 

I feel like I'm just waiting for the process to move along and I want to take action but I am a bit lost as to what I can really do. I am househacking this property so I do plan on moving out for the first time as well.

I know this is a pretty vague question but any insight would be awesome. Thanks! 

Thanks @Justin Loveland! That makes sense!

@Jake Andronico

@Jake AndronicoThank you for your response! 

Another question, what bedroom count do you typically go for? It seems like anything below 4 bedrooms isn't able to cashflow, at least my market. I'm assuming utilities are in your name as well since splitting up that would be strange.