All Forum Posts by: Alexander Kleyman

Thanks for the input Dan & Joe. I usually like to do small repairs myself to save on cost and hassle of hiring out. I'll probably just do this repair myself and clear up with a tenant that this is a one time deal. She is already on thin ice for other reasons.

Looking back I see some red flags of her drama inviting life style that I overlooked initially. During the initial walk thru a year ago, a comment was made regarding the door possibly not being "secure enough" that I ignored. Now mind you this is duplex and there is also another metal outer building door with a deadbolt lock before you get to her apartment door ... may be she had prior experiences with this type of BF drama.

Recently tenant's BF broke the lock & handle on the storm door while trying to get inside after a breakup. Cops were there, drama ... I am handy and will replace the handle myself. I will be billing the cost of repairs to the tenant but I am wondering how everyone handles charging for your labor? I am not trying to profit off this, but my time is valuable (~1hr of work+travel) and all actions have consequences  - I want the tenant to understand this. I already re-keyed her deadbolt lock myself free of charge. How do you guys handle this? What is a reasonable handyman/landlord repair hourly rate?

Granite for long term durability. It hides abuse/damage better then laminate. I recommend going with inexpensive Grade A granite. Many kitchens in rentals do not need large sqft, you can easily get some remnants of a slab to cover you. Call around to a few local granite shops, some sell slab remnants at a discount. I just remodeled a kitchen and got a discontinued whole slab of Grade C for A price. It looks amazing, better then what I have in my personal home in fact!

I use Stessa as well. I find the complexity of its tracking, report generation & free price suitable for me.

Hey BP just just got a 2021 Notice of Assessment for a property I closed on in Nov 2020. The city states that taxable value went from $23126 to $40100. Taxes are now increased by an additional $1585 a year ($132/month) which pretty much doubles the taxes. Needless to say this cuts a good chunk of profit I was counting on. Property is still profitable just not as much obviously.

FYI Previous owner lived there for 26 years & purchase price was $83k. I am shocked that a city can just literally double the assesses value and taxes due in one swoop, is this legal? How do you prevent this kind of a surprise in the future when shopping for investment properties, I mean you run your numbers do all the math and then its all invalid after the purchase? 

I've heard of the same "$50 clause" in leases of other investors but do not have it myself, may be I should. Nothing costs $50 anymore if a contractor repair is involved, so this is a just a "lightbulb clause" the way I see it. Don't bug me for a simple indoor/outdoor bulb - replace it yourself kinda thing.

@Nicholas Ludwiczak I like your Trello workflow idea. I think I will try Trello for this. My process is very similar to yours except I kept a notebook journal, with notes/progress for each interested applicant. However it got difficult to easily tell the status with lots of applicants spanning a few notebook pages.

A few months ago I transitioned to TenantCloud. I used Landlord Studio prior for a year. It was pretty simple and easy to use but I found that I needed features that it was lacking. Mainly digital lease signing & Trouble Ticket management.

@Oleksandr Ivanovskiy check out https://www.rentrecoveryservice.com/

I use a paid version of Google Voice to get multiple users. It costs $10/month. Gets me transcribed VM, I really like that feature as digital copies are easily archived in your email. Also allows to setup “business hours” so I have all calls after 6pm & weekends go straight to VM for screening. I have some tenants who work nights and send me texts without regard for time of day.