All Forum Posts by: Calvin Thomas

Currently we do not pay anybody's heat or hot water.  In every building, that we bought that had common heat and hot water, we seperated those units on to their own devices.  The exception being condos where the common heat was not in our control.  We have installed gas hot air furnaces, gas hot water boilers, and heat pumps.  All of thoise are more expensive to install that electric baseboard but have much lower operation costs.  We're in it for the long haul, we want tenants to stay a long time and reduce vacancy.  We've had 30 year tenants, and currently have a 25 year tenant, and several 10 year tenants.  Our average tenancy is 12.5 years.

Great idea, I thought about mini splits for each unit but that would be about $17-$20k and wouldn't be worth it. I would need to make sure there would be enough power for each unit to run baseboards. Thank you for the suggestion.

Hi all, my wife and I, after many years of analyzing, finally purchased an 4 unit apartment in western NY. Now that we are deep into the winter months we have noticed our heating bill (gas) continue to go up, our latest bill is over $400. We have a single boiler system with four zones and looking for advise or suggestions to lower the gas usage.  One thought was to move the thermostats from the apartments to a single conditioned space and place temperature monitors in each unit to make sure the apartments are at a comfortable level. We are not sure if one apartment or some are leaving windows open of if something else is happening. We have sent letters to each tenant asking them to be mindful and, if needed, to let us know if they have a maintenance issues with a window or door. Has anyone done this? Is there any other suggestions you may have?

Thank you

Jim 

Does anybody have recommendations on the various alternatives to requiring a full security deposit?

I know there is surety bond process and there a a few companies that appear to offer a service (Like Rhino)

Furnished Finder has a new feature called Worry Free Waivers but when I tried  to better understand their process, it was clear they have not done a good job of vetting this out.  They have outsourced the entire process to WAIMO which appears sketchy. 

Full security deposit for a three month MTR is causing me to lose business and I need an alternative!

Options - collect full payment for the 3 months up front and lower the deposit to secure against damages only, require insurance. Let them pay the deposit with a credit card. Collect first two months rent up front and deposit on next month. 

None really reduce the amount of money they have to come up with, but if they are broke as a joke do you really want them as your tenants?

Hi all! Just digging in to this forum and learning a lot. 
Have recently started a renovation company with a friend, both of us successful business owners and talented in the trades. Also both enjoy freedom in our schedules. My question is, for a fix and flips, I'm considering financing the whole thing with a HELOC instead of hard money. I have 100% equity in a home valued at about 400k. Secure income from a thriving business as well. My partner is considering the same on his home, however, he still owes about 100k with 300k equity.

Is this a wise strategy? Is there another way I should be considering? Thanks for any and all advice!!

I purchased a fix and flip that got complicated when we found one of the basement walls was bowing in. It ended up being an easy fix, getting steel braces installed for about $6000. Then things went south...

I decided to gut the rest of the basement since it got water damaged from the foundation issue. I noticed quite a bit of mold growing up the walls, but didn't think too much of it. The day after I gutted the basement I got really sick. I was dizzy and off-balance for weeks following. A couple months later finally starting to feel better.

That's when I called in a professional mold remediator. Long story short, his crew blasted through the job in a few hours and the clearance test failed. I asked if there was anything else we could try, he got very angry and demanded I pay him in full. After a few nasty emails and him threatening to sue me if I left a bad review, I paid him in full, $7000 and moved on. Worst contractor experience I've ever had.

I then hired a second remediator. They pointed out all the things the last company did wrong, and gave me a quote for $4000. I had a better feeling about this contractor so I hired them. Just received the clearance testing and still have "slight mold elevation" in the basement, still indicating Stachybotrys and a couple other bad types of mold. Not the clean report I was hoping for.

The numerous remediation attempts and testing have wiped out my profit on this flip. Now I'm just trying to get out. Anyone with experience that can recommend a path forward?