All Forum Posts by: Brian Hughes

learn from other people's mistakes (and successes) is pretty high on the list :)    I was lucky with my first house hack (triplex) as both in-place tenants were decent people despite the building being in a "bad" area of seattle at the time. 

I definitely had a few close calls with sob story applicants though which I eventually did say no to but felt like a horrible person doing it the first few times,   until I started to see the patterns.     The best was a woman who had been in a car crash, had a back injury, was being kicked out (illegally of course) by her current landlord and the insurance company,  had a new baby,   was being unfairly harrassed by some govt agency  (forget which one) and whose adult son needed to stay with her but he couldn't be available to meet for viewing the apartment or signing the lease,  amongst a bunch of other things I don't really remember.   By then I was at least smart enough to stick to my script ("you and your son need to apply in writing,  I need proof of income,  prior rental history,  civil/background check and criminal background check;  and please understand I WILL verify this information  (this was before seattle outlawed half of this)  -  we went back and forth for several days after the initial showing with her claiming I had agreed to rent to her, then offering to pay cash in advance and such.   Eventually she claimed she was going to report me for some kind of discrimination but it never happened.

depends on a lot of things.   neighborhood type, "quality".  proximity to arterials,  property layout, etc.

If  you put up a fence to reduce people entering and crossing your property from all directions,  and your building is in an area that has graffiti or street crime issues,  make sure its a chainlink fence,  or a low one,  or otherwise not an "attractive nuisance" that invites tagging or can hide undesirable activity.   Prickly hedges take a while to grow but work great for that.   You cant tag plants.  

Good automatic (combination of motion and night sensing) exterior lighting is worth a lot.   Make sure there are no overgrown trees/bushes people can hide behind.    

Be quick and proactive about cleaning up trash and graffiti/etc if an issue,  the whole "broken windows" theory does have some merit and besides good tenants will appreciate it.

I use a simple security camera system aimed to cover parking area and common accessways to one of my buildings,   but explicitly NOT aimed at individual unit entrances.   Its capable internet connectivity though I'm running it standalone.  The DVR recorder is well hidden in a corner of the crawlspace so unlikely any creeper would find it.  I put a monitor in the laundry room so tenants can see what it sees and confirm its working.   Building is on a low/moderate busy arterial and that cut down car prowls and trespassers probably 60-70%.   Still,  I've got great video of a pair of people walking up to a tenants car,  pointing at the camera,  then taking about 120 seconds to break into and drive away with the car.   No security system is perfect.

Maybe replace coin op laundry machines with card operated or some other cashless type to dissuade breakins and theft there. Social engineering is worth something too. Even if you do have coin op machines, maybe hang a "did you forget your laundry card?" sign on the door. Little lies sometimes are helpful.

If there are common entrances separate from unit entrances they may need to be lockable too,  and make sure they have automatic door closers and tenants don't prop them open.    

Ring cameras or similar for tenants?

Of course you can also have a full blown commercial security system for each unit.   I've never had such a system so I have no opinions on cost
  

@Diana Dorantes    Well for what its worth,   across all the (mostly junky) cars I have ever owned in my life,  the one and only one that (while admittedly having required several field repairs) has never actually left me stranded is...   The 59 year old land rover.

An EV is actually a great machine for rentals -  Fuel cost is cheap - maintenance  (assuming you buy an OEM one I don't expect everybody is going to DIY build one like I did) is basically nonexistent,  but you can still get the whole mileage deduction if you do that,   and near silent operation means its easier to sneak up on the occasional misbehaving tenant.   I've done it :)    The current generation of EVs have 200-300+ mile range so unless your portfolio is really spread out and you want to hit it all in one day the driving disance is a nonissue.

FWIW If I did have to actually buy a "decent" car tomorrow it would probably be a Chevy Bolt.

OK i'm a bit late to the party but 2 vehicles :       first and primary vehicle is 2004 scion xB  (little boxy toyota wagon)  I like it because its the biggest small car out there from the modern era.   plenty of room for four large adults, and with back seat down or out you can get surprisingly large amount of stuff in it.    Mine is also an electric conversion which I did,  so it runs on a mix of hydropower (seattle city light) and sunlight (collected from my roof)   Vehicle 2 is a 1960's land rover which comes out for play or if I need more range/towing capability than the scion can do.    Both vehicles able to tow 5x8 tall boy box trailer when I want to haul supplies/appliances/junk around for rentals work or other stuff;  thats how I get by without a pickup though I'd like to have one sometime in my life.    Other than cars,   garage has fully outfitted workshop and some machine shop capability.

If yours is the last property they would need to make a good continugous parcel and yours is same zoning as the rest,   then it is worth approaching the developer and seeing what they would offer.   Note its a good bet the developer already tried to buy the home from the prior owner if that is the case.   Either they were offering too little,  or the seller refused to for emotional or some other reasons.   Do your research first,  to figure out how much similarly zoned lots have been selling for.   Your 2300sf is pretty small,  but it could still be good for several units depending on the zoning and footprint.

Also depends of course on how you want to use the house.    Primary residence or rental?   Either case sounds like there is going to be a 1-2 year period surrounded by constant construction from 9am to 5pm.

I understand the dilemma,  as a few years ago I decided to sell my primary residence  (also a duplex)  to developers as the townhouses closed in from all directions.

Good luck.

2423 Rucker Ave.   It is a 9 unit.   Very well located,   and not too bad from the outside.   Units mostly on the smaller side for their configuration,  but in that location not a big issue given likely renter  demographics.   However,   4 of 9 units were (IMO) substandard in various ways  including things like bathroom separate from rest of unit,   weird tiny shower stalls,  and one unit with 6 foot ceilings ;  likely a converted storage area;  odd since it was on 2nd floor.    Also both fire escape stairways had issues that I am astounded has not been flagged by EFD,  and all units except the one they had overhauled were due for major rehabs;  the one they redid got cosmetics only.   The building had almost all early 1960's wiring and a mix of galvanized and copper plumbing.   Structurally the building seemed solid overall.  Another issue was there was a simmering legal dispute over parking with the property next door (a masons lodge) that was solveable but was another thing that would need dealing with.  A lawsuit had been brought in 2019-ish on the subject. 

At the right price for somebody who has the resources to give the place the love it needs this could be a really great property;   there is a path to fixing all the substandard issues from what I could see,  at the cost of combining two studios into a 1br and losing the (unused, also low ceiling) garages or maybe converting them to a utiltiy basement and using that change to drop the floors in the low ceiling 1br. But for the condition it was in and what it needs vs. price they wanted and my own circumstances,  not the best move for me.

I inquired with the city clerk's office after I couldn't find anything conclusive on everett.gov site.   their response said a business license was needed,   but I suppose they may have been incorrect.

Moot point now,   as the property I was looking at had a few too many issues for me to want to tackle given price they wanted.   Too bad because it is really well located.

If this property is in Seattle city limits, be sure to read and understand all applicable landlord/tenant and tenant protection ordinances. Some are pretty draconian. Especially for SFR see the roommate ordinance: with a single family home you literally have no control over the number of roomates the tenants choose to bring in, all they have to do is claim an extremely overbroad "family" relation to bypass all screening and all occupancy limits. Also be aware of strict screening limits and enforced process for screening (first in time) and that its likely we will lose even more rights around screening - our local city councilperson who has been pushing for (and getting) all these regulations has now decided that FICO score is 'inequitable' (using a different word than they did) and they are pushing to ban that from screening. I believe its already banned seattle or statewide to consider eviction or rent debt if it occurred during pandemic, and you can't screen for criminal background in seattle prior to that. There is also an annual 3 month "winter" eviction ban they are trying to expand to include teachers and any tenant with children during the school year.

Perhaps,   fix up the property to sell it for owner occupancy,  then reinvest proceeds in a 4-plex (or bigger, depending on how much more debt you want to take on)  someplace outside Seattle proper where the rules are still a bit more sane,  though some of this stuff is starting to leak into statewide rules too.    

@Aaron thanks for the info.   I did contact city of Everett directly and they implied a business license is required,   but maybe its 'soft' enforcement I don't know.   Thanks for the FD inspection information.

Hi -

BP has a "Tacoma" and "Seattle" forum -  they need an "Everett" or "SnoCo" one...

If you have residential rental properties within jurisdiction of city of Everett, Snohomish County, Washington,   or you are a professional property manager (with staff, office, modern practices, handyperson, etc) operating there,  I have some questions for you.   One specific question:

How does City of Everett do rental licensing?   It looks like they want a regular business license and business registered with State of WA.  Does this mean things like paying city or state B&O tax?   Most cities I have looked at make a special case for rental license in lieu of a business license so this is new to me. 

It looks like City of Everett has their Fire Department do annual inspections of multifamily properties.  Anybody have experience with this and what they are looking for?

Thanks for any insight.