All Forum Posts by: Brandon Smith

Hello all, looking for suggestions. I have 4 rental properties I want eyes on without having to pay for someone to monitor it every month or to have wifi connected with it. I'm looking into purchasing I think what is called an NVR box to keep in a shed outside for hard wired cameras. As long as I have a power source I believe I'll be okay, but this is all new to me so I'm most likely missing something. When it's set up, at that point about once a month I'll come by to collect the footage to bring home from an SD card, fast forward it say 10x speed for the month and just look for anything suspicious. Peeping into windows, auto theft attempts, unknown parties at my property, that sort. Maybe (hopeful) for a discount on home insurance too. I believe keeping the NVR box in a shed will be difficult with lawn mowers and equipment at each property so I'll have to protect it but my main concern is the extreme weather Virginia has both hot and cold pending on the day. I know for certain that my box will have to be either external from the house itself but on the premise or in a basement. I'm all ears for any suggestions on how to go about this, which brand of NVR/camera that are ideal for my situation, just anything and everything. It's all appreciated thank you! 

I've recently bought a larger second duplex, the current tenant has been there for 15 years. She smokes inside, pays a very low monthly rent, and doesn't use most of the space. Sucks on my end especially since I don't allow smoking and she underpays on her old month to month lease. Issue is that she's elderly, has many health issues including cancer, lacks financially, etc. so it puts me in a hard ethical decision since she's also basically on her death bed. 

I've recently thought that maybe sticking her in my other duplex soon would be a decent thought since my other tenant will move out soon. It is a smaller duplex so she could keep her same monthly rent, there's no stairs there making it easier on her, just overall a better situation, the only issue is the smoking. This makes it hard on me in general on what to do with this tenant exactly so I just simply don't throw her on the street knowing how hard her life already is making it that much harder. 

Regarding the smoking, I think it would be best to invest in an ozone generator already in general getting into the landlord business. If I would put her in the other duplex would it be as simple as using that ozone generator, then re-painting, and replacing the carpet? Between tenants you already paint and replace carpet so I'm thinking it wouldn't be a big deal.  Just in a bind and looking for opinions, I'd appreciate any suggestions, thanks! 

Great advice! I appreciate you also sharing that story of letting him paint because I'd probably do the same if I have that rule. I'll want every tenant to be happy and feel like at home but if people will just make it more of a hassle down the road then it's not worth it!

I've bought my first investment home/duplex to rent off. My thought is to paint the walls a good neutral color but not leave it plain white. I'm very new to this but my thought is, it is hard to rent off something if everything is just white...seems boring and I'm coming from sales and a lot has to do with perception. My leases will be year to year so what I was thinking is I will paint the walls, your first year you can not paint over what is existing. If you want to sign another lease come the next year to allow the tenants to paint if they would like since they may be a long term tenant and I want them to feel more at home. Any thoughts, suggestions, concerns about this idea?