All Forum Posts by: Angela Smith

The rabies shots following such an exposure is standard procedure with a high risk animal such as bats. Bats are a common species for rabies. Rabies is incurable, but preventable with vaccines upon exposure. Plus, you don't have to be bitten. You can be inoculated by exposure to an infected animal's saliva in contact with a break in your skin. So a bat in the bed is a high risk exposure. Rabies shots are not unreasonable in this situation. If it were me or my family member that had the exposure, I would want rabies shots as well. The alternative is death from rabies (if the bat had it...which has a high enough probability to warrant the shots). Also, post exposure rabies shots is not just one shot. It's a very painful multi shot process. When there is a bite, some of it is injected at the site of the bite! Yikes.

The toilet was not functioning at the time of the inspection. You did not do your due diligence to determine the root of the problem. I don't know that the seller is culpable unless you have proof that they intentionally misled you. Was the seller aware of the cause of the toilet back up, or did they honestly think it was just a clog? with the toilet not functioning at the inspection, I don't see that you can legitimately claim that you were unaware that if wasn't functioning. The seller did not hide the fact that the toilet was backed up. Now, I don't know to what lengths a seller is required to diagnose a problem if the buyer doesn't request more info prior to the sale.

I am new to this land lording thing... So, any insight you have is appreciated. What are the most frequent calls you get from your tenants and how do you respond? I want to anticipate how to handle tenant concerns. I want tenants to feel comfortable calling for legitimate problems, but I don't want to end up having high maintenance tenants. I think there are some things a tenant should be expected to resolve independently, however, I also want to be made aware if there's something that they cannot handle.

I have a 1940s property that had a toilet overflow when nobody was home. The water drained through the floor to the basement and there is now standing water in the basement. This house has a drain in the center of the floor. However, this drain was placed during the homes construction and it is not functioning. We augered it and found that it is full of mud. We are assuming the dry well has collapsed. So, what to do? We placed a pump to send the water out the window through a garden hose. This way the current standing water is being evacuated. We also replaced the fill hose and valve on the toilet to prevent another overflow. Now we need to decide what to do about the basement long term. One option seems be digging a pit at the site of the current drain and placing a sump pump. The problem is that this is in the center of the floor, so electric and hose would need to be routed across the basement. It's also going to cost about $1500 to $2k. The other option is to do nothing long term. This is a dry basement (except when the toilet overflowed). The cost to do nothing involves a drive over there to set the temporary pump if this ever happens again. This is our only rental and it's our first rental. We don't yet have much emergency fund in place. So, while we can pay fir the sump pump, it would make a big dent in that emergency fund. What do you think? Is this an emergency? Should we get the pump now, or can it be put off for the three months it would take for the rental income to pay for it?

Started in my late 40's

Hubby and I are putting the finishing touches on our first investment purchase.  We bought it to be a rental.  However, we have learned from our realtor that we may be able to sell it for more than we realized.  Even so, it's a pittance compared to what many on here do, but it's pretty encouraging for us.

We purchased it for $63,500.  We have about $5k in materials and a whole lot of sweat!  Our realtor says it will sell for $85-88k.  We need to subtract 6% realtor fees and our $5k material cost.  That leaves us with a decent profit.

But, how do we know how much to set aside for capital gains taxes?  Will we be saying goodbye to our profit?

Btw, this home will rent for $800/month if we decide to hold it.  This is in Indianapolis. 

Check your insurance policy. In my rental, knob and tube would void the insurance if there was a fire. Thankfully, we found this out prior to closing and required the seller to eliminate it. We didn't have to pay for it.

We are prepping our first investment for rental as well. Ours has hardwood that has previously been painted, however, they were not sanded before painting and there was no poly put down over the paint. So the paint was peeling badly. We had to do something. The floors are not quite level with a slight bowing here, or sagging there. So we didn't think that vinyl plank would work for a diy. So... We are almost done stripping the paint. Unfortunately, the floors are in rough shape and need some patching. We will make the needed repairs. Then we will properly sand, paint and finish the floors. It's not my favorite solution, but we don't want to get caught putting more work into it than is necessary, as it would not bring any more rent even if the floors were perfect. I would post a picture, but I don't know how.

Why not consider learning a trade? You could learn marketable skills that can put a roof over your head and food on your table. It wouldn't cost as much in time or money. Plus you could learn valuable skills that could translate well to real estate investing.

This is a valuable exercise. I will be sitting down with my husband for our "budget meeting" soon. I will talk with him about doing this with our accounts as well. I'm sure it will be eye opening. I expect to discover that we have a lot of wasted spending.