All Forum Posts by: Colleen F.

@Mike Donovan in Narragansett, RI we wound up with a RI FAIR plan due to the fact we rented to students. We don't rent that house  at the moment so I can't say what the current situation is.

I am having trouble following you can always send the money to an insurance company.  Did the insurance get cancelled in this case. 

@Jorge Caceres  too bad that can be expensive. The issue I see with your $500 allowance is that in some seasons they will definitely be seeing a big cost. I would just cap it generously to only catch abusers and figure the normal running costs in your rent.  Otherwise perhaps your winter people will pay $500 extra if your cap is $500 and that is not what your competitors will be doing. 

@Jorge Caceres Is this with electric baseboard heaters or  heat pump/minisplits. We did get much lower costs when we changed to minisplits but the initial cost is high.

@Jonathan Bombaci  You want an expert eviction attorney in the jurisdiction you are evicting in, available when you need them.  What do you do when in house goes on vacation?  or needs to be in two places across the state from one another? MA has a lot of courts, not a small state as you know.     Do you get any volume discounts or better service due to the volume of your business from the current providers, that might be something to consider. not sure if that is even a thing for lawyers though.

@MIchael McCUe   I get it, it feels like an incredible weight that you could easily lift with bankruptcy. To some on here that is not much money but you measure it in relation to your income, my guess is it is a big % of your income. I have a son in a similar situation, he went 6 months trying to get decent work and had other issues. Earning 50 k/year like he is, that would be 1/5 of what you make to pay it off. All the while you have to live. Even so I would not recommend filing bankruptcy. Paying this off is the start of learning how to invest and live well. There are two ways to do this decrease spending and increase income. You have lots of income suggestions, work on them and remember it isn't forever. Then look at every dollar you spend. Where does it go, do you need to spend it? Coffee shops, fast food, subscriptions, even consider what groceries you buy. Come up with a budget. Pay off the highest interest debts or consolidate into a lower interest rate. See if you can roll anything into zero interest cc and knock off the higher interest stuff.   You don't say what you do but consider finding a career path job that might give you better income if that is an issue.  Where are you living do you have the possibility of a roommate? Cheaper housing? You can do this without bankruptcy and if you continue those new habits you can move on to buying an investment. Think of the debt payoff as a trial run for your investments.  In the end you have this weight lifted and you learn better financial management.  

@Harrison Jones  One of the major flaws in your perspective is that it is focused on cheap rent (driving rents down) not affordable housing. These are two different things. Affordable housing in not built by driving rents down, that probably will result in a slum like environment. Affordable housing is about the housing itself and the economic environment it is created in. I believe if people make money and there is sufficient housing supply, housing will become affordable. 

You could start a PM company that handles subsidized housing program recipients primarily but I am not sure of the economics of that as it is not my specialty. I am not sure there would be enough margin in this to support your goal.

We know people are not lining up to accept section 8 so you could build housing targeting that group in some locations. You could build or flip less expensive units and sell them to your clients/occupants over time. However, the group you get money to do that from is either government grants or targeted charities because it isn't investors. You are trying to say you will use the " investors" to fund community programs, that sounds like a charity because there is no earning on the investment.  

I think if the end result is affordable housing people need to be invested in their own housing otherwise a good percentage of the beneficiaries of your program won't care.  

@Keira Hamilton Great summary. This was in a middle class neighborhood and I get why that is less risk however with apartments increasingly including laundry, I would imagine demand lessening in that location.  I would be curious about the breakdown in machines use vs wash and fold service and how that contributed to the sale.  Also if your sale price for the business was driven by some value add, better record keeping, or was underpriced to begin with?

@Kathie Mata   appliance insurance may work in some places, in my area is quite slow to show up.   I don't want to give the impression that we don't maintain.  We do fix/replace things just not these ice makers.

@Jon Martin I agree and in short term its just not worth what you will get in reviews for something like this. People don't read STR descriptions you see this alot with international properties where people expect US standards.

@Kathie Mata well obviously we don't agree.   If you make it clear upfront, it is between you and the tenant and goes in the lease.  I have two properties where I ran into this issue. One the ice maker is not advisable. It freezes constantly.  It is a perfectly good fridge, tenants don't care. When it dies I won't replace it with an ice maker but they were over the moon to get the rental and this is the second set of tenants that said we don't care about the ice maker. First set stayed 7 years. I have a second condo property where the water quality became unacceptable (PFAS) so I put a filter on the sink and make people aware the fridge water no longer works. They generally don't care.  All your properties may be perfect but if you are transparent about why something is not in service, it makes sense, and they agree it works just fine for long-term rentals. That said I would spring for the connection if that was the only issue.