All Forum Posts by: Candela Rebot

I was just looking for PM recos in this area too! Will let you know if I find any good ones

Hello everyone! 

My brother is having headache after headache with this property manager of his on his property in Detroit. He's a long distance owner, as he doesn't live anywhere near Detroit. I offered to step in and help as I've been more involved in real estate the last year of my life while starting to invest in properties, but I am in LA so I wanted to reach out to the BP community for recommendations. 

Background: currently the property is vacant, and because of the snow storm it might need some pipes fixed after a few of them froze last week. To be honest this is not clear on how accurate this is as the property manager sucks, genuinely isn't taking calls or responding emails. We are lucky if we hear back from her every 2 weeks, so I want to find someone new. Property was previously rented, and the tenant was a section 8 who had to be evicted because of payments that stopped. My brother wants to sell, but honestly it would be an even bigger loss for him after all the repairs he did with that eviction and the costs of the eviction process, not to mention the current market. I want to find a new property manager that can help him evaluate what it would look like to get It rented again, but this time with a PM that's serious, communicative, knows their business, etc. 

Any and all recommendations welcomed! Thanks so much in advance.

Thank you everyone for all the advice, huge huge help! THANK YOU!

 Ty so much! I definitely will :D

Hey everyone! 

My boyfriend and I just closed on our very first property. It's a SFR in which we intend to live for 2 years, and fix up or rent some rooms out as we go until we are ready to move out and repeat the process. We would've some advice in regards to permits: The house is in really good shape, but the kitchen is very old so we have a licensed contractor on stand by to start renovating it as soon as we make this decision. We just can't decide if we need to pull permits or not. The kitchen has a half wall (vertically, not like horizontally as a breakfast bar would) that we are gonna knock down to open up the kitchen to the living room. We are also planning to close a window so that we can put more cabinets. Pluming doesn't need any changes, there's an outlet on the wall we are tearing down so I imagine we'll move it (electric) and we would need to move the gas line as the oven is in that awkward half wall and we are moving it elsewhere.

Our contractor, and a good friend of ours who has been flipping for 15+ years both advised that we don't need them at all. The renovation would take 3 weeks tops, (contractor says 2 but I'm assuming an extra week to be safe), and if we pull permits it will be a bit more expensive and take roughly 5-6 weeks. 

What do you guys think? I was set on not needing them, but my boyfriend brought up the fact that maybe we should to a void issues with neighbors whom might complain, I don't know what to think. Appreciate any and all advice as to how and when you guys decide permits are necessary!