All Forum Posts by: Dave Grosse

I think I might need a little help here guys - we put out 25 bandit signs saturday morning and have had 7 calls so far. 1 was a mobile home that I'm not interested in. two others we looked at tonight and they may be profitable, have to pull comps to see for sure. one guy has 4 properties he's wanting to unload - sweet!

and I just get off the phone with a guy who has been investing for 40 years (he says, but I really have no reason to doubt him) has ~100 properties he's wanting to sell in the next few months! Awesome, but yet I am feeling like a deer in headlights!

I have no clue how to handle this many potential properties. I mean I guess its no different than one property, I just want to make sure I don't drop the ball here...anyone have experience with this kind of volume?

I'd ask the big guys like @Jerry Puckett , @Sharon Vornholt, @Danny Johnson, @Mike LaCava, and @Aaron Mazzrillo if tagging was working for me...

I do not currently have a buyer that could just come in and buy all these in one fell swoop even if they were all good deals. But like I said this is a HUGE opportunity that I don't want to let slip away.

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks for the tips @Travis West !

@Michaela G. great question! Tricky answer...the water bill is combined with mine(my primary residence is right next door) and has been high since we took over the property. Tenant said the previous owners had always paid the water, sewer and trash bills and didn't require any payment from her so we agreed to continue to honor their agreement. BIG MISTAKE that will NEVER happen in my investing career again.

We moved in and took over paying the water bills last february so I am assuming the water heater had started leaking right about that time. The basement was dry when we did our final walkthrough before closing though - just a tough break for us.

I AM curious to know why she didn't report/notice a drop in water pressure though...but as I said I'm just happy that experience is over and that I still have a happy tenant paying rent on time every month.

@Andrea M. I WISH! I at least have a home warranty that covered replacement of the new water heater, but no insurance company that I know of will cover mold damage.

Thanks @Lynn McGeein I have in fact lined that up. I'm just thankful it wasn't black mold and that it was confined to the basement.

At the end of the day I'm actually very happy with the situation - it was a great learning experience, no one was harmed, my house is still standing and bringing in checks, I learned how to remove mold, and now I get to share my mistakes with BiggerPockets and hopefully prevent someone else from making the same mistakes!

@Edward Burns Yeah I'm kicking myself for not inspecting regularly - lesson learned!

and @Jon Holdman I agree about having reserves around for emergencies - its not been my intention to be a landlord, I just fell into this one. Other than this its been very smooth sailing, and like I said above I learned my lesson and will be performing monthly walkthoughs from here on out.

Thanks for the repsonses guys

So here's my very first horror story of landlording if you'd like to call it that.

Tenant says she never goes into the basement because she doesn't have anything down there and thus has no reason to go. Two weeks ago she wanted to turn her furnace on but it wouldn't kick on so she went to the basement to see if the pilot was out.

When she attempted to open the basement door she found it practically swollen shut, but was able to push it open. She says when she got it open it was like walking into a sauna! Water dripping from the stairwell ceiling, very damp and that she thought she heard running water but didn't venture down there to check anything out and called me instead.

So I leave work and rush over there to find a basement FULL of MOLD!!!! EVERYWHERE - stairs, windows, ceiling, doors...and a lot of it. In some places it looked like roasted marshmallows stuck in spiderwebs.

Naturally I looked for the water and it turns out that the pressure relieve valve on the water heater had busted and water was running out of the water heater I'm guessing for at least 6 months. Bid from mold remediation company was $4000-$5000 for cleanup. I don't have that kind of cash laying around at this point and the remediation guy told me their process which just so happened to be exactly what I had found here on Bigger Pockets anyway, so I decided to take care of it myself.

My question after all that is - is this negligence on the part of the tenant? I'm not looking to charge her for any of it at this point, but I did credit her a few days rent while she was out of the house for me to Clean the basement up. I would think a judge would probably rule in her favor, but I just want to get some input for future events that may come up. The lease doe s not make hr responsible for any repairs.

I'd say after the 5th which is normally when late fees start accumulating. I know I definitely get stressed close to the 15th if rent still hasn't come in from my rentals.

@Shaun Reilly my only goal is to find absentee owners who simply don't want their property anymore. I'm only doing wholesale deals right now so equity is a must.

However, I know many buy and hold investors simply pay cash when buying their investments.

Starting to seem like to much work and wasted time trying to decide on specifics like this though. I think I'm just going to set my filters to include properties bought in the last 10 years. 2-4 bedrooms, 1-4 baths in my surrounding cities. absentee owners.

@Dominika M I was having the same problem last night - although at least the @mention seems to be working again now. It has actually always been hit or miss in my experience

Looks very nice - not sure why you are worried about posting this tho - buyer name nor address of the place are revealed...maybe a moderator could jump in here?