All Forum Posts by: Alex Corbishley

@John Teachout Here in MN each city regulates.  We have to have annual inspections and a license in some cities and nothing in others.  The MN rules govern all, but the cities enforce differently. 

@Franz Hohmann My partner and I are fairly handy and father is a carpenter.  Believe it or not I’ve learned a lot on YouTube. Every time we do one we learn a couple things; This redo required repositioning the stove and adding 3” to the opening in the cabinets and drawers as it had a built in stove. It also had a tiny recessed medicine cabinet and I wanted to put in a much larger one.  While cutting into the wall I found live electrical lines on each side buried under the sheetrock!

@Dawn P. - yes, two coats of primer!

@Sylvia B. - all original closet doors

Make sure you do it in writing and in person.  Good luck.

Over the past two years and 9 SFRs we have learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t in our market.  We use a single type / color of paint, stainless kitchen appliances, granite counters, white trim, same bathrooms across all doors and digital locks on all properties.  

Here is everything we did for the latest one.  Purchase price of $121k, rehab of $8,200, rents for $1295.  We had many applicants.

Landscaping clean up, patched concrete, installed digital locks front and back, sanded and painted both entry doors, repaired all the panels on back of porch, replaced window screens, fixed garage door and opener, replaced most of the bathroom, painted all interior walls and ceilings, updated the kitchen with new counters, adjusted the cabinets to accommodate 30” stove, installed new appliances, paint4d everything, refinished the hardwood floors, replaced light fixtures and added ceiling fans.  We do 90% of the work ourselves from tiling to wood floor refinishing. The hole in the back of the bathroom was a laundry chute - that was fun to remove!

Now looking for 11 and 12...

All Finished...

We are not in Conn, but here is what I did to get a tenant to pay / move. We provided the tenants with 3 options; 1 - get on a payment plan - we absorb late fees and they pay a portion by Friday, 2 - be named in a lawsuit in small claims court for all of the rent owed plus late fees and served them when discussing options, 3 - move out in 2 weeks and we forgive the outstanding rent. They chose option 3, it is a variant of cash for keys. We tried working with them (5 adults in a 4br SFR) for two months to no avail, they simply chose not to pay. Also note that there is a moratorium on evictions where we operate.

Interesting Scott, I had the same response to the BRRRR post.

We have a mixture of paid with cash and mortgages. No mortgage houses do cash flow better, but ROI is less. It really depends on the tax situation - the mortgage interest is deductible. We try to approach initial purchase with the ability to pay cash and close in 2 weeks. Then later refi to pull $$ out.

We self manage 10 doors.  I don’t think a PM is worth the 8-10%, that would be $1200 a month for us. We have had to handle a couple of involuntary turnovers and one where we had to threaten to sue.  Not fun, but we also have an attorney to advise us.  Venmo, Zelle and other online tools make management and rent collection very easy nowadays.  We use TransUnion to screen and call references.

Just refi’ed my biggest rental mortgage ($200k) from 5.125 to 3.75.  Took a long time, but we will get $30k cash out and the payment remains almost the same.

Sharing this so other landlords may benefit - posted in the how to evict section as well. We had a slow paying tenant here in Minnesota - late 80% of the time from the get go - stop paying rent in June. We tried negotiating, payment plan, nothing worked. They blamed Covid although there were 3 out of 4 working adults in the house (4br) with 2 adult kids. When we sent them a written notice to leave after a month of non-payment the tenant actually called the Atty Generals office. We decided on a variant of cash for keys. Presented them with 3 options on Monday - (1) pay $1,000 by Friday and get on a payment plan (we had already waived all late fees) or (2) continue to refuse to pay and we go after you in small claims court (served them at the same time) or (3) move out in two weeks and we cancel the lawsuit. They chose #3. They played the game well and caused us to lose $$$ - we get to keep their deposit against the rent which helped offset 1/2 of it. I post this here to let you know there are options even when you can’t evict. Had these tenants lost their jobs from Covid we would have worked with them, but they were simply taking advantage of us and blaming the situation.