All Forum Posts by: Brian Mathews

Push it to the street and call the cops about an abandoned bike  

Refurbished units?  No such thing.  There is no way to refurbish them.   Maybe they slap a new contactor in them and wash them.   The main issue in a condenser is the compressor, which costs as much as a new unit to buy.  All brands have the same parts in them, as long as somebody competent installs them, they are all the same in terms of reliability.  Don't hire some guy off craigslist working for $10/hr.  

 As hvac company owner and many years of experience doing service on people's homes.  I've been into literally thousands of them.    I would say there are about 10% of peoples homes that own cats that do not have some level of smell of cats.    I can usually tell if a person has a cat right as they open the front door.   I'd say around 40% of them have a heavy smell of cat piss.  We have a cat and our house doesn't wreak of it.    However, he does not use a litterbox, he's potty trained to go outside.  If he used a box, I'd get rid of him.  

 No pets, no smokers and do quarterly inspections.   Its cheaper to take an extra month to find a person than have to spend thousands of dollars to get the smell of piss or smoke out of a house.  

I might look into hiring temporary labor from a company if the work is unskilled type carrying rocks.   They will have them covered on insurance and workmens comp in case they get hurt.   We even have some specializing in construction locally.   

Look long and hard and have cash in hand.   A realtor in our networking group said houses in Round Rock are selling for $10-$20K more than asking price with multiple offers.  

@Ray Slack  I don't know in other areas about Home Depot.   But as you said, that is the last place to go to get contractors.    In Austin that is where all the illegals hang out with no skills other than carrying rocks and digging ditches.   Good contractors are out working and don't need to beg for work.    Of course, that is the issue with a lot of investors, they want the cheapest work available.   Then can't figure out why they can't get a job completed by their contractors or it's a crappy quality of work.  I'm fairly particular about who I work for.    I try to avoid the bottom feeding investors.   I have a good group of investors I work with.     They value what I do and I take care of them in return.   

 There's a lot of good information on here, but like anything else on the internet, lots of bad advice.   There are probably only a few people on here I would take advice from in real estate and other matters associated with it.  You want quality contractors, never hire the cheapest guy as there is a reason why.   All bids should be pretty close in nature for any job.   If there are any that are way out there, those should be tossed.  

 If I as a contractor found out somebody was getting 10 bids for a job, I'd politely decline to bid.   The people that do that are bottom feeders and their only concern is how cheap can I get it.   I don't play the price game.   I do quality work and guarantee what I do.   I'm not a chuck in a truck off craigslist.   If you want to find quality contractors,  you ask friends and family who they have used.   Then you do as somebody above recommended.   Do the Angieslist or Thumbtack route.   Stay away from Craigslist.   Those are free ads people can place and you never know what to expect.   That would be the last place I'd look for a contractor.   

 That's the best thing to do.   People try to get overly sophisticated when investing.  Those people usually end up broke.   Take your time, save up some money and buy something.   Make sure you have a few thousand in reserves when something breaks.   I guarantee something will break such as a water heater, a furnace, the roof will leak, etc.....    As a tenant you never had to worry about that, as  a landlord, you will have to fix it just as quickly as you expected your landlord to fix for you.   Don't rush into anything  or you'll end  up worse off than you are now and take you years to climb out of .