All Forum Posts by: Steven Colella

Thanks for the advice. The tenant's estimate (which seems pretty fair based on the utility bills) is that they've paid an overage of approximately $600 - $650 for the four months that all four units were connected to their meter.

So I became a landlord when I purchased a four unit building about nine months ago and everything has been pretty good so far. My partner and I live in one of the units and we rent the remaining units out.

In April/May, we started to have some work done on the house. One of the pieces of work included was a complete rewiring of the house to remove the active knob & tube system. This process took approximately 2-3 weeks.

Due to some issues with the general contractor, the service application to have the meters changed over to the new system took almost three months to process and complete. During this time, apparently all but one of the meters had been disconnected - a meter belonging to one of my tenants. This means that, apparently, all four units plus the public service utilities were being billed to that tenant.

I just received a letter from the tenant with their bills from April-August enclosed, stating that they were concerned about the high usage and asked the Public Service Commission to investigate, which concluded that all four apartments' utilities were being billed to the tenant. As an aside, the tenant has also been several days late to pay rent for the last few months, but I am having a hard time faulting them due to the hardship from the increased utility bills.

I'm not a shady guy and I want to make this right, I just don't know the best way to do so. I don't want to just pay them off and have it come back to bite me in the ***. The way I see it, my options are to:

1) Ignore the complaint. I am leaning away from this option.

2) Pay the difference in the electric bills and chalk it up as the cost of doing business.

3) Pay the difference in the electric bills up front and seek restitution from the contractor for causing the delay in the process, which resulted in the lengthy term of higher utility billing to the one apartment.

4) Provide the tenant with the contractor's contact information and invite them to seek restitution directly. I am also leaning away from this option, mostly because I know it won't go anywhere.

Can anyone provide any insight into how you would handle this situation? Again, I want to make things right for my tenant, I just don't know how much of it should be at my expense and how to handle it in a way that will close out the matter completely.

So as an update, we made an offer of $240k and requested 3% closing for the property. The owners have come back and said that they'll come down to $250k. All the other numbers above not changing, any additional thoughts on whether or not this is a good deal?

Thanks for the warm welcome, all. As I mentioned in my first post, I've started a topic in the deal analysis forum. It would be great to get some feedback on the opportunity!

Here's a link to the discussion:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/88/topics/229763-prospective-househacking-deal-first-time-investor

So as I mentioned in my introductory post, I'm in the process of considering my first real estate purchase. The property in question is a 4-unit building. The plan would be for me and my partner to occupy one of the units while leasing the other four. In order to keep the costs manageable, we would plan to "pay" ourselves rent in the amount of the unit that we would be occupying.

So here's the breakdown. Let me know what you think!

Asking Price: $279,000

Offering Price: $268,500

Closing Costs: $6,000

Down Payment: $10,000

MIP Funding: $4,800

Total Loan: $274,000

Income

1x1 = $495

1x1 + den = $715

1x1 + den = $700

2x1 = $630

Gross Income: $30,480

Expenses

Financing (Principal & Interest): $15,600

Maintenance (pro-forma): $5,000

Taxes & Insurance: $5,051

Vacancy: $3,658

Total Expenses: $29,309

I know it's not exactly a cash cow, but it seems like a good opportunity to get my foot in the door, and start building up equity in a property for minimal costs. Thoughts? What am I missing?

Hey everyone -

Well, here goes! I am eager to join the ranks as a real estate investor and am about to make my first offer in the next week or so. I am currently a renter looking to buy my first primary residence; and of course, as an aspiring investor, plan to house hack instead of purchasing a conventional single family home. My hope is to live in one of the units for 1-2 years before refinancing and going around the block a second time.

As for my professional background, I am involved in economic development with a focus in marketing and events. I am also currently enrolled in a pre-licensure course to become a real estate agent. It is my goal to synergize real estate investing with real estate sales to go out on my own and create a meaningful business opportunity. I am still debating what brokerage(s) to investigate more seriously as a starting point, and am happy to take any insight in that regard.

I currently live in Carroll County, Maryland and plan to stick around for a while with what will hopefully be my first purchase. I understand there is a deal analysis forum, so I will probably post more details on this first prospective deal over there.

In the meantime, any and all advice is welcome and I look forward to connecting with many of you.

Best,

Steven