All Forum Posts by: Billy Linn

How exciting! I felt the first few years were like a rollercoaster. Some times we were sitting back amazed that we brought in some income without putting in any hours that month. Other times we were cursing and wondering what the hell we got ourselves into. Like anybody we made a lot of mistakes, but when a problem comes up you address it, learn from it and be better prepared for the future. 

Having a place like BiggerPockets to ask advice would have been really handy when we were starting out. Best of luck to you!

I've been a huge windows fan (mostly because of the hardware freedom) until recently when I had to start using a Macbook pro for work. I thought the trackpad on my thinkpad worked pretty well but the trackpad on the Macbook is much better. Took me a long time to get used to the different keyboard / hotkeys.

Macbook pros have PCI SSD drives so they are faster working with photos and movies than most desktop machines with SATA SSDs. They boot up quick and battery life is amazing.

The upfront cost was really hard for me to overcome because most windows laptops were cheaper and had better specs but so far I'm really happy with the Macbook pro. 

@Forrest Martinson Now that I think about it, I haven't seen any books that focus on the people aspect of rentals. Some people are just naturally good at it. Check out books like Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Also I'd say anything that talks about how to manage people's expectations would be good.

If you're not going to have A/C, make sure your windows and screens are in good order (meaning they open and close easily). Your tenants will appreciate that. 

Google tools have been really useful for us. Sheets for keeping track of finances, Docs for creating documents, Drive for storing documents, and Photos for keeping track of photos. They do the job pretty well for being free but I'd really like to have something more unified and that has better organizing capabilities. I almost have a system that's good enough to replace them all. 

Read up on how to manage people too. I think that's the harder part.

I agree with @Stacey Paulin, better to start on a system now than to end up with multiple rentals and have a mess to clean up. A spreadsheet can go a long ways to helping you keep track of things (and you can do all kinds of fun math). We found it wanting when we started trying to also keep track of related documents and photos. 

I'd make sure to know what to do if the property manager doesn't provide the service you're hoping for. We weren't happy with our property manager on our first property, but we were stuck with them until our contract was up.

Are there problems it's not solving for you?

I agree with @Andrew B.: "tell him that washers and dryers are provided as a courtesy on a first come, first served basis". I have one set of coin-ops in an 8 unit and don't have any problems. So far the tenants have worked it out on their own (because they have to). Some tenants use them, some prefer to go to the laundromat and use the bigger machines, and some take their clothes to family. 

I wouldn't want free ones unless only tenants could access them. Where I'm at it wouldn't take long before friends, family, and ex-tenants would be using them.