All Forum Posts by: Dan Bosak

I just bought an old (100+ yr old) 6-unit building with a single hot water boiler on a single thermostat.  The heat works fine and the annual utility costs are reasonable, but there is no zoning and no good way to zone from the basement since various apartments and floors are tied into the same pipes from the basement.  I'm sure we will run into the issue that it is cold in apartments on the 1st floor and hot on 2nd/3rd which will result in tenant complaints and/or upstairs tenants leaving windows open to regulate their heat (I had this issue in a similarly configured 5-unit building).  

I'm thinking a solenoid valve on a couple of the radiators tied into a local thermostat in each apartment would be ideal but I've never seen or heard of this. Does anyone know if this does exist or have any suggestions for any good ways to regulate heat in individual apartments or a way to automate the individual radiators in an apartment?  

The building is vacant so it'll never be easier than now to do it.

I use propertyware for a little over 100 units and after learning the system it's great for handling: application, leases & rent collection.  You can use it to track expenses and export to quickbooks, but I have a bookkeeper and simply give her access to propertyware so she can see how to allocate the deposits.  

The bookkeper was a better investment than the property management software and wish I had started that earlier.  

I see buildium most often from other investors so would recommend checking that out too.

Duplexes can be good or bad depending on the numbers.  You do get 2 rentals at once and that can be really helpful when you are getting started since you still have some income when 1 tenant moves out.  However, you may also have some expenses that you don't with a single unit like common area or shared utilities.  Is each tenant paying their own heat, hot water, and utilities or are some of those on you as landlord?  Even if it's not all split, it can still be good as long as you know your numbers and pay what it's worth to you.    

@Jason Hirko thanks for the info.  This is an option and would be similar to PatLive who would simply get the call and connect to emergency contact if needed.  For non emergency items, I can have the notice sent to my assistant and she can coordinate the repair the next business day.

Patlive is inexpensive, around $100/month but they don't call out.

I asked my assistant to find some details on call centers and found out that she used to work at a call center so she is pulling together specifics for that.  I am leaning toward this option since she can manage the call center and then coordinate with our existing systems and resources.  The cost would be about $300/mn (maybe less).   

A property manager would cost me $60-70k/year so for that cost I might as well hire my own local staff who can do the property management + other tasks outside of the typical property management scope (i.e. marketing for new properties, processing of new properties pre/post settlement, etc.).   

Thanks Levi, I already have Propertyware set up and they have a call center too but I didn't think there was a good value there since seemed pretty much like Patlive but for more money.  I need to reconfirm exactly what they can and can't do. 

Sue, there are few true emergency calls but if there is one, it cannot wait until the next business day.  In the past year, we've had hot water heater burst in a basement in a 5-unit building requiring pump out of about 3' of water when caught at midnight, we've had several tenants have heaters break over weekends,etc.  

The need for 24-hr call center is because of the few emergency calls.  But, a call center in general will create a scaleable system that will provide better service for our tenants and us.  For most tenants, just knowing that their maintenance issue has been received and is scheduled to be handled resolves a lot of the tension and concern.  Additionally, I need a system to track the maintenance so we can be sure that issues are actually resolved.  We have had several issues that get passed to a contractor who calls the tenant but doesn't hear back and a month later, we find out that the issue was never resolved.   This ends up with angry tenants (despite them not returning the call).  

Our system now is to have all calls route to a single maintenance guy, which is not scaleable and I'd rather have our maintenance guy(s) simply worry about doing the work and not coordinating schedules.

I am looking into some options to handle tenant maintenance and especially emergency calls.  I have just over 100 units now and want to create a reliable and scale-able system for these calls (and emails and texts).  

2 Options I am considering: 

1. Hire a Reduced service property manager who would be able to get the calls and send out their own crews as needed.  This is probably the easiest solution but since we don't control it directly, may not be the best to integrate with our system. 

2. Hiring a call center to: receive the calls, determine the issue, decide if it's an emergency or if it can wait until normal business hours, coordinate appropriate contractor (based on my list of approved contractors) and followup with the tenant. 

Ideally, I'd like them to be able to log the info into our current property management system so that we have records of what was done.  

Pat live might be an option but they do not call out, so they will not be as effective with coordinating the repairs,will not followup with either the contractor or tenant to make sure it was handled properly and certainly wont work with our system.  Likewise, my currently property management system is set up to receive texts and emails (which is simpler for a lot of tenants) so I want to keep that as an option.    

Has anyone tried the call center route and if so any suggestions or issues I should look out for?

Any other suggestions for how best to handle the calls?

Thanks Alisha, I'll have to look into that since a single master key would make life a lot easier. 

I've never looked at the taxes as a % before but I like the idea.  

I only have 1 rental in cherry hill and my taxes are 27% of my gross rent and the cash flow on that property is mimimal.  It's the first property I bought and I am glad that I have it, but it does not my current criteria for a rental.  Most of my properties are around 20%, but that is because I look for properties with lower taxes, which is tough to find in Cherry Hill and a lot of the surrounding areas.  I have another one at 32% which again has little cash flow but that property was purchased more for long-term equity vs having cash-flow now.

You can find properties with lower taxes and overall expenses that will cash-flow but it is tougher to find but they do exist.

I have the oil company come out and do a reading and give me a form showing the volume and $ value of the oil.  I then charge this to the tenant and if it's a lot of oil, I charge them for it over several months.  

And when the tenant moves out, you do the same and reimburse the tenant for the oil they are leaving you  

I use propertyware and it's been good and allows nearly everything to be done online: application, generate a lease, accept payments and maintenance requests.  It's pricey if you are only doing a few and not the most user friendly software but I do like it.  Buildium is the other one I see a lot.  I have 1 property with a property manager and they use that and reports and info on the landlord portal seem pretty good.  I'd look at those 2 as a good starting point