All Forum Posts by: Eric Bowlin

My tips is...Do not use a roller on trim or doors. Rookie mistake.

Cut first..roll second. Ceiling first.. Doors, trim, and cuts next..walls last. Use a nice angled paint brush and be patient. Painting is simple but requires patience.

I find women are much better than men at painting. I really don't know why.

I am a licensed construction supervisor (MA's "GC" license).

At a minimum Being a GC carries the risk of properly building a home and keeping people safe. At the maximum, your name is on everything as mundane as the paint to the trim.

Point 1) will you be good...I don't know.. But it isn't a part time job. Being a good licensed contractor does not require you to build things, but it does require that you can inspect good and bad work and you need to know everything about everything. The fact is, most homeowners do not know what is 'good' and what is 'average' or they would not hire someone...this means that there is a high chance that you do not know either.

If you do not understand the different types of construction dating back 200 years from balloon to platform framing and if you do not understand structures and and how loads travel through walls, beams, columns, and footers..you should not GC any structural projects.

If you do not know the difference between a level 2 or level 4 plaster finish or the differences between a dovetail or stapled cabinets, lippage for tiles, or how climate, season, or recently poured concrete impacts hardwood floor installation, you may not make a good non-structural GC.

Point 2) IF this contractor thinks it's such a good idea to get licensed...why doesn't he get licensed? Why did the girlfriend move along once she became successful? Remember..your name is on the work someone else does. If he is a hack, he will want to work under your license.

After becoming licensed, insured, incorporated, and paying all the costs of a construction company...I no longer hire these fly-by-nights as subs. They are cheap but they don't follow nearly any legal requirement..which is why they are cheap. Keep this all in mind during your conversations with them before they convince you to get licensed and pull permits for them.

i agree. The numbers show me to let someone else do it. Is there any thing to watch out for while selling it? Trailers are not my speciality.

Thanks for the input @John D. @Omar C. @Bill Neves 

I own a small mobile home park. It has 5 trailers on it, 1 of which came with the park and has been vacant for 5-7 years. The trailer was legally purchased for $1. Rents for a single wide are $435/month and includes water but nothing else.

Option 1) Fix the trailer and rent it out. I believe that I could get around $550/month for a 1 apartment. 1 bedroom units in the city rent for around $650-700 so I have applied a discount to live in an urban trailer park.

Total cost to renovate will be around 10-12k as it needs a lot of work.

Option 2) Sell it cheap or even give it away. I will immediately collect $435/month and won't have to worry about repairs. I think I could offer to seller finance some repairs at a reasonable interest rate. I'm really interested in the rent more than the interest on any repairs.

Your thoughts?

Dilemma... Does a police officer (or anyone) have the ability to come onto your privately owned property and demand proof that you own it? The obvious answer is 'no' they cannot. It's funny though, because the exact same story and replace 'homeowner' with 'copper thief' and the police's actions were suddenly lawful. For better or for worse, police walk a fine line every day on the job.

That being said I would NEVER be disrespectful to a police officer. I may assert my 4th amendment rights to them an calmly explain they should not search me or arrest me..but I would also show my ID and explain the situation.

@Dawn Anastasi I think this line of thought is very simplistic and it doesn't benefit anyone. Yes it happens to white men and it happens to attractive women. Entering vacant or abandoned property carries many risks, one is to have the police called on you. It has happened to many people I know and a very similar incident happened to me in fact. 

I was lawfully entering a vacant property owned by the town. I had asked them if I could view it prior to their auction and was granted permission. Nosy neighbor called the police. They were there very quickly and asked us what we were doing. 

I (white male) responded with the truth and explained the situation. My wife (well dressed and attractive Asian female) was with me but coincidentally did not have an ID with her that day. I offered to provide the phone number of the people in the town that manage the properties but they decline to take the number or verify it. They asked for my ID and we offered my wife's full name and SSN since she didn't have the ID. They checked my license number to see if I had any outstanding warrants (I didn't) and they gave it back to me and said 'have a nice day'. I responded with praise explaining that I am happy to own property in a neighborhood with the response times so quick (I own a neighboring property). 

The key is not your color or gender, but how you act. This guy acted like a dope thus was treated like one. 

I haven't been on the business side of it...but as a consumer I immediately unsubscribe from anything I didn't request. I do request newsletters from many websites and companies because that info does keep me up to date in those areas... If the information is useful.

IF in the future I decided that I needed a product or service..I would probably reference those emails first. 

Don't forget to check your registry of deeds.The mortgage or deed filings as well as the foreclosure docs will be filed there and you can read them. There SHOULD be a last known address on most of that paperwork. 

If that doesn't work and If he owns the property in an LLC you will get the name from that. Go to the state corporations lookup and see what address the managers have listed in their organization paperwork.

I just have an active account, strong incomes, and several very good lines of credit/credit cards. I have never had to use the credit cards but 50k with low interest can get you pretty far.

Just for fun though, you could get crazy with the math and do a risk adjusted savings per unit! 

Say you believe there is a 10% chances of a major repair happening on any one building...ie one major repair every 10 years. Say the average cost of this repair is 5000. You might start with 5k then save 500/yr/unit. You might want to calculate the odds of having two major repairs in one year happening (10%*10% = 1%) and have a reserve to meet both. The odds of 3 events happening is very small in this scenario. You can really get as crazy with it as you want.

Another thing you might want to consider is to have the reserve to cover your insurance deductible for every bldg. Assume catastrophic event that damages EVERY property at the same time (hurricane, ice storm etc)..if you have 2k deductable an 10 bldgs..maybe 20k is a good number to have.

Hard to say what is the 'right' way to do it. I'm sure an actuary could calculate it for you though.

MA is becoming more and more strict on sprinklers. Now all townhouses, and new construction 4+ units require sprinklers. Any modifications or improvements costing over 50% of the building assessed value triggers sprinkler rules..Also, and modifications within certain categories of work triggers the rules as well...such as upgrading a heating system MAY trigger the rules.

It has become so bad many towns are putting the same rules on 3 unit buildings. 

The housing stock will deteriorate in quality and decrease investor opportunities unless we become smart on these new requirements and build them into our costs.

- Does anyone have any 'rule of thumb' to estimate the cost of a sprinkler system. I've heard people use anywhere from 5k-10k per unit. This seems a bit expensive to me to run some basic plumbing through a house?

- Any one else encounter these issues? Any thoughts or comments to help educate me about this topic

It's funny you wrote this today. Just last night I was flipping through my business journal (my personal journal but I keep only business thoughts in it). In 2012 I wrote what my goals were for 2013. I look back and I actually came pretty close to achieving it! We made a couple of detours, bought a couple of flips instead of another multi...but similar enough and I count it as a success.

I lost focus in 2014 and went off doing 1000 different things..started a construction company and completely lost focus. I'm just now drawing all the strings back together and refocusing for 2015. 2014 was a wash...made money, increased my portfolio, but could have made MORE if I stayed focused.

I generally have only been thinking 1 year a time...but It's time I come up with at least a 3 year plan. I'll work on that tonight. Thanks for the inspiration @Alex M.