All Forum Posts by: Mike S

Glad that everything worked out ok. My full time job is a firefighter/paramedic and dryer fires are pretty common, especially the vent.

I tell my tenants to get out in case of fire and call 911 immediately. If they must, I tell them to do the minimal amount of fire suppression before leaving. Most people just freak out and make it worse.

It comes down to delivery and take away. If I save 1-200 on the appliance but then have to waste 2 or three hours handling them it's not worth it.

Some of the other problems were just laughable. The furnaces only had the intakes and exhausts stubbed out, not elbowed up and down with separation. What kind of "professional" does that. Took me maybe 4 minutes to fix including cutting pipe.

Some real half effort work and the tenants seemed to really appreciate the right fix.

I got leases, expenses, and estoppel letters but the place was so poorly managed that it didn't matter. For example, 1 out of 6 lights in the common areas worked. Just needed new bulbs. He tried to not fix anything from the sound of it. There are refrigerators only getting to 50 degrees. If course nobody said anything until now.

But it's all good. We'll be under 1k of expected but unknown at the time expenses. 

Leases are 12 months that are up in the fall. I think I have them straightened out and there won't be many issues going forward but we'll see. I would rather everyone stay and get $25/month increases each year until I reach market. A month vacant with improvements is expensive.

Our company sold our first SFH rental for about 16k profit and reinvested that into a 3 family of 2 bed/1 baths. Each floor is about 1,000sqft with separate utilities other than water and sewer. Building was fully occupied and in good shape when we closed. Very cool, NYC feeling building.

Purchase price: 80k

Down payment: 20k

Closing costs: 2k with 2k in prepaids

Gross rent: 1600

However the 5th came and went with no rent and I feared three evictions. Posted the notices and with some calls now have all the rent. I think the old landlord wasn't very strict  and the tenants need to be trained. 

I see this building renting for 1800 to 2000 at market rent and with some sprucing up value could be increased to 100 to 110,000.

If they balk at the fee they aren't potential tenants for me. Every step of advertising to move in is screening. I only advertise online to get computer savy tenants. Those people tend to have jobs. Then I list my minimum requirements right in the ad, black and white so there is no excuse not to know. I require online rent payment because they have to have a bank account and again be computer savy. Bank account usually means job. I then have anyone still interested fill out an app and I send them a link to Smartmove. I tell them it's $25 per adult and leave it up to them to pay. From there I select and you have to have the money for deposit and prorated rent.

If they can't afford the screening fee, I probably don't want them.

Get it this year and have depreciation to write off for 2015!

If you're at your max price tell him that's your best and highest and walk away.

I will be now.

I am having the worst time finding reasonable insurance for a three family built in the early 1900s. It's a nice building with new roof, hvac, electic, etc. Everyone says it's too old and quotes me an ACV policy of 350 to 700k for a building purchased for 80k.

So far my lowest quote is 2300 and highest is 3300. I'd like to close on this but I'd be making money for the insurance company and not me! Any suggestions?