All Forum Posts by: Allen Hayes

@Larisa Van Valkenburg Looks good.  It does look like the new one is a hair higher than the old one in the installed picture there. If that's the case I'd get a cheap pack of shims and just shim the lower one so the counter top doesn't have a bouncy spot.  Otherwise congrats, looks like a good job!

@David Faulkner Yeah you're totally right there.  I thought you meant stick to the 5 gallon bucket of blah they keep on the shelf for landlords.  My color is one of the named colors at Lowes and I have all the codes with it so one way or the other I should get pretty close when I reorder! 

Oh another thing that I like is the lock sets from landlord locks. Having a matched set of locks with one master key that takes 10 seconds to rekey is freaking amazing. So much better than keeping peg boards.

@David Faulkner is very right about the storage issue.  Another advantage is that when things start to wear out, it'll be consistent.  When the first sink valve goes bad you'll know to grab a few spares to keep in storage and you'll know they fit and how to install them quickly.  That's the kind of thing that really saves time and frustration. 

Paint is kind of different, it can settle out and require a special attachment to a power drill to mix or it could go bad if left alone too long. If you know you're going to need that extra gallon for the next unit within a month or two, go ahead and get the 5 gallon instead of singles but if it's more than a month or two, just get singles. They cost a little more but you'll have less waste and you get it freshly mixed at the store. 

As for custom colors, this is a real issue for every landlord and it comes down to knowing your market. I personally don't like "renter beige" so I went for a custom beige color that was warmer and richer, that I think contrasts better with the trim and ceiling to make the room feel bigger/more warm.  I just plan to mix the batches thoroughly and I think I'll be able to blend in any small patches from picture nails without it getting too bad.  Every few years the unit will get a full repainting just to keep the paint fresh so I don't think the patching will get too out of hand.

@Rosston Smith / @Joseph Henry---The Due Diligence Period has already ended.

Good luck with your remodeling.  I hope you guesstimated right on your upgrades.  To me the debate would come down to your experience with DIY work.

I've got a 4-plex that is similar to what you described, 4 good sized units with decent layouts, just haven't been updated in 10-15 years with minimum work done on turns by the previous owner. Because I'd done renovations on a single family home of almost the same sqft a year earlier I still knew the ball park for what I'd spend on different rooms.  If you aren't experienced at DIY or have extremely tight margins, probably should get some pretty detailed estimates just to make sure you're not about to go in over your head.

One thing to consider too is bulk purchase of construction materials.  I don't know your situation regarding capital, cash flow or storage but you might consider purchasing some of the required materials all at once.  For instance, if you know you're using the same vanity and ceiling fans and light fixtures, write the list down and submit it to the pro services desk and ask for a discount.  Lowe's has a minimum of $2,500, not sure what Home Depots is. I wouldn't bother with the kitchen cabinets because off the shelf kitchen cabinets are cheap enough and so bulky to store that the discount is going to be hardly worth the storage and capital costs. I've got a 20plex that I'm going to upgrade as they turn and I plan to buy things in 5's to get a decent mix of savings without tying up a stupid amount of capital in inventory that I have to store (and risk damages to).

GFCI's shouldn't be chained together, it causes interference in the ground fault detection.  Whichever one is upstream should be GFCI, the downstream should be connected to the load terminals on the GFCI, this lets it use the GFCI circuit of that plug even though it's not GFCI itself. 

If that's not it, you might have a bad breaker or a short in the line. 

I've heard Dave Ramsey says always raise the rents, falling behind just a little is the same as being empty 1 month out of the year. I tend to go with the "yes, but.."

I'm a part time REI, so I have to do my turn work around my day job. This means that for my apartments I tend to push the price up regularly because I can afford the time to do the turns and get it back on the market as well as do upgrades and fix deferred maintenance from the prior owner. I don't push the price up to full market for current tenants because it'd be quite a shock to them and I don't have the time to turn an excessive number of units at once.

For my big single family home I let it languish below market.  The tenant is great, pays like clockwork and doesn't have many maintenance calls and keeps the yard looking great. It might cost me a months rent not having it at market but that's better than a months rent vacant, another months worth of rent for paint and carpet, 2 weeks vacation to do all of it and then get a new renter who probably can't live up to the current guys standards.

@Yvette M., are they deposit only ATM cards?  That's what I use, they work well for letting people make cash deposits on their own schedule but not learn the account information or have a card tied to an account that they could potentially use to buy things.

Hey @Allie Bloyd, for a pre screen that's about a $100K when in normal condition. Rural area in Oldham, Trimble, Henry, -$10K. If it's a desirable part of Louisville or Oldham, start adding maybe $15-20k.  In your example house the limit is that 1K SQFT, that's a pretty small house by most standards and they usually don't build 1K sqft houses in nicer neighborhoods next to 2-3K sqft houses. 

For HUD and foreclosure (and short sales for that matter) you need a patient agent. The work will be higher than any other house they help you buy and it's going to take a lot longer to close and get paid. Make sure your agent is up for that kind of a job or ask if they know someone who is.

Agent comps can be good but they can really screw up to.  With that ball park in mind if the list price looks reasonableish I'd do a drive by to see the neighborhood and condition of the house in person.  Only by going there do you really get a feel for if there's a bad area or if the neighbors are taking care of their property. It also lets you know the quality of the comps (were they pulled from the right area or from some different neighborhood that's got a very different feel and value?) .

@Jay Leisten is right, but in my experience, most agents treat new investors like a speculative stock. Alright to keep around, but don't put more money into it until it shows promise.  As a new investor you have to do a lot of lead generation yourself and the only way to get quicker turn around is good prescreening so your agent spends less time pulling details on junk that doesn't come close to the criteria.  If you fall in with a good agent that has a steady stream of investment grade properties that they can clue you into quickly it's awesome, but mostly as a rookie, we're stuck doing our own leads and making that effective means good prescreening. 

I did the PO Box and Google Voice way but the apartment building I just bought had a spare box in the mail boxes so I converted one of them to Suite #20 and will be dropping the PO Box.  Google Voice is good for screening and forwarding if you ever need to send the call to someone else, or just share the call duties, but there are better services out there. 

I'm not quite worried about crazies so much as I don't want renters showing up at my house randomly to drop off checks or money. The other thing is that if people think I'm rich or sitting on cash at some point of the month they may think I'm a good target to rob. To keep that from happening I've let everyone know that as soon as they hand me a check it goes straight to the bank for deposit and that I never ever accept cash. If they are the types that will only do cash I got them a deposit only ATM card and make them drop it off themselves.

@Erik Hitzelberger Thanks for the group suggestions! I'll check them out. Thanks everyone for the welcomes!