All Forum Posts by: Genny Li

>One thing a very wise man told me 48 years ago was that if I wanted to have a good relationship with my wife I needed to keep her out and away from my business and since that day my wives (all 3 of them) never had a say in what I did. Sorry, but I don't understand why married people think they have to have their spouse's approval for everything they do.

This made me laugh.  Starts off looking like sage advice to a happy wife then you indicate you have had 3 wives (not exactly a ideal relationship with each wife).  I do recognize later you indicate wife #3 has lasted 23 years, but by the time I read that part I already had my laugh.  

My wife and I are partners in our property investments.  She does most of the interaction with the tenants.  I do most of the interaction with the contractors.   I also do most of the number analysis and she does most of the book keeping.  It works well for us because we have complimentary strengths.  We each agree on rent increases.  It used to be that she advocated lower increases than I did, but now we are mostly in sync on the rent increases. 

We both believe good tenants deserve to be a bit below market rents.  We do not want any of these tenants to be able to move into a unit at similar price that has just had a tenant turn over flip (clean, etc).  We recognize tenant turnover takes work and costs money.  We also realize, regardless of how thoroughly we screen, that there is some risk placing a new tenant.  So we believe financially we benefit from letting the better tenants be a little under market value.  The pretty good tenants we keep at market rent.   The poor tenants we raise their rent above market which typically results in the tenant giving notice and us replacing the poor tenants. We currently have zero poor tenants.

Note with rent control limiting the rent increase, the rent has to be near market rate for a legal rent increase to be able to raise the rent noticeably above market rent.  

She doesn't get it. They'll be out of business in 5 years with her in charge....

25 feet may be a bit too long for this but I have a high power echo leaf blower I use and it seems effective enough for me.  

The best set up is the one with flexible hollow rods with special attachements powered by air compressor, that way less chance of dryer duct to get disconnected in the wall or ceiling.

 I agree, PEX is modern and is considered a low cost reliable water supply pipe. I am assuming that John meant to say polybutylene pipe, which is no longer being made. This pipe was used in the late 70's through early 90's before lawsuits shut it down. Some insurance companies will not cover houses with this type of pipe. It was used mostly in the south. Another form of plastic pipe is CPVC. I had this in a property. It is easy to work with, but prone to cracking if the building shifts. Really today, plumbers mostly use PEX or Copper for water supply. 

Gosh, there is so much to this simple post!  The work is not making sense and the prices are crazy!

If the floor joists need to be replaced, then you can sister them or put in new ones from below.  That si simple and easy.  I have had a few houses that required this in TN.  My two kids have been able to sister joists since they were maybe 14.  The thing you also need to check is that the rim joist is in good shape.  IT it the one that goes around the other floor joists and hold them together.  IT is much harder to replace.  My two kids could do 6 regular floor joists in a few hours, its not hard.  That should not be expensive, nails, framing gun, wood, nothing special here.  Could be done with the tenant in place, but why wait?  Simple and fast repair.

Now, the subfloor is another thing.  That can not be done from underneath.  Saying the floors are in good condition is meaningless because you will be pulling the floor out to put the subfloor on those joists and then the floor goes on top of the subfloor.  You can not put the subfloor on top of the joists from below.  The hard part of putting in the subfloor is removing the old floor.  If you are keeping the old floor it is even more time consuming.  Again, not a high skill task, my teens do it, have on 2 houses so far.  Its not their favorite job though, hard on the knees.  If you are putting back in hardwood, that will be an expensive move.  The cost of hardwood floors is a lot in the labor, each piece cut and nailed in, on your knees!  This job would require taking everything off the floor, so best done with an empty house.  And you can walk on the floors to see if they have 'give'.  If so, I'd replace the floor before renting because it is easy to fall through, and a big liability.  I personally fell through a floor on one of my houses and went straight down 4 feet.  Pretty banged up for a month.  And I hire people to put in the hardwood, paid $8k for a huge living room, dining room and large master bedroom, included sanding to get a perfect leveled floor and final coating.

Ductwork, I think you need to get another opinion  Most of my houses have the ductwork under the house.  You can get auto open vents in the crawl space, a dehumidifier, vent one of those ducts to the crawl space to put in conditioned air, wrap the ducts, insulate them.  Lots of much cheaper things to do that will fix the problem.  

Now for encapsulating the crawl space.  Get a quote from a pest control company that you get a yearly spraying contract with.  They are by far the cheapest where I invest to do this because they like to crawl on the plastic instead of the dirt.  I once, for my personal house, got 2 quotes from heavily advertised companies that do crawl space work for their business, both at $5k.  The pest control guy did it for $300.  Yes, less than 10%.  So not a use the small pest control company for that work.

But do use your quote to negotiate.