All Forum Posts by: Gregory Wilson

In the Cincinnati market area, used washer and dryer sets go begging on FB Marketplace. Learn where to look for the date of manufacture and make the seller send you a photo. Only buy one that is hooked up and running. Plenty of people do not want to move them wen they relocate. Just search FB Marketplace.

It always a good idea to try to sort out the problems you are having with existing professionals first. While opinions of well meaning referral sources are helpful and I could give you names and numbers, they are also highly subjective.

I doubt there is a property manager active in Cincinnati that has not had one client sing his praises and another quit in dissatisfaction.

Not saying you are wrong, but the metrics have a local element. Some cities, you send in your rent 2 days late and you might as well include the late fee. Other places a landlord who enforces a late fee for a few days delay will get concrete down the toilet and tenants who leave chaos behind in revenge. Cincinnati is more like a small town than the big metro area it is.

Same for filling vacancies. If your manager has the rent $150 below market the unit might be filled in 2 weeks. If the rent is at or above market maybe it takes longer. Faster is not always a consequence of laziness.

I'd say see what you can do with the current manager before you jump from the frying pan into the fire.

Quote from @Edo Y.:

Hello.

We have a residential building of 3 stories and 8 units in Cincinnati. The basement level is partially finished and we would like to add 2-3 units in there. We would like to do it all legally with plans approved by the town.

Any recommendations for an architect / company that can assist us with this project? 

Also what would be a reasonable price range for this type of project? Each unit would be 400-500 sqft.

To your main question, renovation cost in Cincinnati is around $200 per square foot for everything. Renovation of fixtures and cosmetics without mechanicals about half that amount. But, a basement poses some unique issues. Unless the building is very well located full renovation of basement units will likely not pay off economically. People don't want to live in a basement. So rents will not be equal to upper units.

See what OTR ADOPT in Cincinnati has done with acquiring vacant and abandoned properties through receivership. You might get them to do all the legal work to take it and then sell it to you.

"Cincinnati area" can mean many things. I think all would agree that the City of Cincinnati is utterly different in approach to other building authorities in the Metropolitan area. Working with the City of Cincinnati is a finely tuned skill. If you are in the City of Cincinnati, go to the historic conservation board and download some presentation packets for past projects like yours (worth the time it will take to go through them) and see which firms are doing them.
Here is the site where you can look at other developers packets:

https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/historic-conservation...

In general, leases have a local flavor. What is standard in Cincinnati Ohio may be a deal breaker in Chicago.

The documentation is mostly in the public domain meaning that you can copy it and use it to make money without violating a copyright. Even so I have never heard of any landlord suing another landlord over using his lease document(s). Worst case, load it into Gemini or ChatGPT and ask them to rewrite it so as not to violate copyrights. You won't believe how effective that is.

Accordingly, it makes sense to get the documentation that the largest most successful landlord is using in your property location and follow in his footsteps by capturing his language and process.

An application, approval/denial letter, lease, checklist, termination and security deposit notice, will cost many thousands of dollars from a lawyer if he drafts it from scratch for you and, for example, if he is not located in Cincinnati he probably will not be familiar with the ordinance requiring deposit alternatives or providing tenants copies of the ordinances and statutes the City requires.  But, the competition will have all this.