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All Forum Posts by: Ben Lukes

Ben Lukes has started 11 posts and replied 89 times.

Post: Property Manager in south King County / Federal Way?

Ben LukesPosted
  • Investor
  • Seattle, WA
  • Posts 90
  • Votes 13

@Tom G. Thanks for the recommendation Tom.  I'll definitely give them a call if my offer goes through.

Post: Property Manager in south King County / Federal Way?

Ben LukesPosted
  • Investor
  • Seattle, WA
  • Posts 90
  • Votes 13

@Enrique Jevons I'd love advice and setting up Quickbooks...a sample COA would be really helpful.  I imagine when working with an accountant I would do the actual bookkeeping and they would do the true accounting.

By the way, if any of your owners are looking to off-load a 2-4 unit property I am all ears.

Post: Property Manager in south King County / Federal Way?

Ben LukesPosted
  • Investor
  • Seattle, WA
  • Posts 90
  • Votes 13

@Troy Fisher I'm guessing you must be referring to yourself for the home inspector?  Do you inspect small multifamily properties?  What would an inspection for a quadraplex run?

Are you going to manage the Spokane property yourself?

Another thing occurred to me as I walked into work a couple days ago...downtown office high-rises, buildings that are 50+ stories tall, don't individually meter tenants (at least not typically).  The office downtown where I work pays a share of expenses based on square footage.  Tenants are still paying all the utilities, but they aren't individually metered.  It is managed by Unico, a company that "owns and operates over 13 million square feet of premier office properties" (from their website) across many states, and was rated the #1 office manager in the United States.  They manage over 10 acres of land (covered in office towers, apartments, retail, etc.) literally smack dab in the middle of downtown Seattle.  I would consider them pretty darn professional.

Anyway, I agree with @Pete Perez: more than one way to skin a cat.

Forgot to mention that the distinction between meters costing thousands of dollars vs. about a hundred may be whether or not the meters are installed by the utility... where I'm based the public utilities charge an arm and a leg for meter installation, but we are installing our own cold water submeters (upstream of the utility meter) in each unit for somewhere around $200 each I believe (don't have the numbers in front of me), which includes the cost of the wireless transmitters, repeaters, and receiver.

@Account Closed Hi Ryan, your basic premise here is false.  In many places you can prorate the overall utility bills to tenants based on, for example, the number of occupants in each unit.  In this case you don't have submeters, but the tenants still pay 100% of the utilities...how would the landlord be making more money with individual meters in this case?  Another method mentioned above is the RUBS system for allocating utilities, which has the same basic result.

I can say from experience that very sophisticated, very professional teams are building institutional-grade apartment buildings with 100+ units in Seattle that do not have individual meters for all utilities.

Post: Property Manager in south King County / Federal Way?

Ben LukesPosted
  • Investor
  • Seattle, WA
  • Posts 90
  • Votes 13

I'm also looking for an accountant and inspector that has experience with multiunit properties.  I'm considering giving Brandon Turner's accountant a call, but I'd rather have someone local I could sit down with.

Any suggestions appreciated!

Post: Getting a property manager to tour a prospect with me?

Ben LukesPosted
  • Investor
  • Seattle, WA
  • Posts 90
  • Votes 13

Yeah, I would just look at rents on Craigslist, but there aren't a lot of similar properties with listings nearby...the good thing about this is that it probably means that vacancy is low.

Post: Getting a property manager to tour a prospect with me?

Ben LukesPosted
  • Investor
  • Seattle, WA
  • Posts 90
  • Votes 13

@Account Closed I see you are a property manager...mostly in Everett?  You don't manage properties in/around Federal Way do you?  What do you typically charge to manage units?

Congrats on getting to 28 units (or maybe more now?).  I'm also a former Viking.

Post: Getting a property manager to tour a prospect with me?

Ben LukesPosted
  • Investor
  • Seattle, WA
  • Posts 90
  • Votes 13

Thanks @Account Closed, will do.  I'm planning to post more details on the deal soon if the seller and I can agree on a price.