All Forum Posts by: Nate T.

It just depends what your goals are. Any of these strategies will work, since you bought low. Are you looking for long term cash flow or a chunk of cash now? Do you have time / interest / expertise for doing the rehab?

As mentioned in previous posts, tenants will push your boundaries as far as you let them.

I recommend that you make rent due on the 1st, with no grace period. If you have a grace period until the 5th, then rent is really due on the 5th.

I have a late fee of $100 if rent is not paid on the 1st, and a $50 discount for paying through auto draft. 95% of tenants pay on-time through auto draft, because that's what they're incentivized to do.

I had one tenant that I inherited that was used to paying late and not including the late fee. When it came time to renew their lease, I told them that I wouldn't renew unless they caught up on all their past due late fees. They paid $600 to get current, and haven't paid late since.

I don't really work with a generalized "real estate attorney".  If you find someone good please let me know.

If you have more specialized needs I can refer a good eviction attorney, entity creation guy, estate planning, bankruptcy (of tenants, not your own), etc.

What kind of attorney(s) are you looking for? 

Hi @Jim Dickson, the property is under contract, supposed to close August 9.  If it falls through I can let you know.

This might be a bit of an arcane question, but what better place than BP? :)

I had a fire recently at a house that was sold through an Agreement For Sale (aka land contract, contract for deed, contract for conveyance). We are the sellers and have legal title, the buyer has equitable title through the Agreement For Sale.

I was planning to take the insurance money and fix up the house, but the tenant/buyer mentioned that she might prefer to apply the money to her loan with us, and then take the fire damaged house as-is.

That is an option that we would consider, but I was just wondering what if we don't come to an agreement? If we want to use the insurance money to fix up the house, but she wants us to apply it to her loan, does she have any right to make that decision? I would think since we have legal title, and we made the insurance claim, we would have the right to make the decision. The Agreement For Sale doesn't seem to address this question directly.

@Mitch VanDeveer They aren't great photos but here are a few:

Thanks for the input @Matt Morgan and @Mitch VanDeveer!

I went ahead and hired a company to the do the asbestos test.  Report should be in soon.

I'm also wondering about the demo process.  There are some things that are obvious, such as removing the carpet, the burned drywall, etc.  But other things are not clear.  What should I do with ceramic tile that has a layer of soot on it but does not appear burned?  Is it OK to keep it?  Will it retain a smell?  And I have the same questions about drywall that looks fine but probably smells like smoke.  Can I paint it will kilz and be OK?  Or should it all come out?  

I am dealing with a fire burned house for the first time.  It is a rental in Phoenix.  I've dealt with the insurance claim and about to start on the remodel.  The house was built in 1946 so there may be issues with asbestos.  I'm sure if I call someone out of the phone book to deal with asbestos it will be pretty expensive, so I'm hoping for some referrals from people who have been in this situation before.

Please let me know if you have a referral of someone good and reasonably priced for:

• Asbestos testing
• Demo (if asbestos found)
• Demo (if no asbestos found)
• Other fire restoration needs that I haven't thought of yet :)

Cool calculator, I haven't tried that out. @Justin Owens

Your numbers look reasonable.  I guess the differences would be:

1 - You went with a 20 year loan rather than 30 year, so your cash flow is lower, but your equity pay down is faster.

2 - We self manage so we didn't have that management expense in there.  

By the way, I know a good manager who specializes in 4-plexes in Mesa, and owns a bunch of them himself. He charges 8%, so that would be a slight improvement over the 9% you had estimated.

There is a little deferred maintenance since the units have all been occupied for a long time, but nothing that really needs to be done before the tenants move out.  The major systems all seem good.