All Forum Posts by: Howard Mayne

@Nick Cuttonaro

First off, great run down on the different products.  It's clear you've done some research on these, so I was wondering if you've come across a good Excel CRM template? One thing I want to do is not only add people to categories such as Investor, Contractor, Agent, etc., but I'd also like to  have sub-categories for things like specific projects the investor or contractor is apart of.  

This may not be best suited for Excel and I might should bite the bullet on getting a paid CRM platform.  I've tried the free version of Zoho and like you, don't particularly care for it.  

Thanks! 

I use eRentPayment.  It's $3/transaction or $10 for 5 and works using ACH instead of credit card. You can set it to charge you the $3 or for it to charge the renter.  It also handles reminding the tenants when rent is due or over due, and you get an email when rent is posted or late. I've been pretty happy with it so far as it's pretty much a set it and forget it system.  

Looking for a plumber that is reliable and trust worthy to take a look at a leak in my rental house that is near Belliare.  

Thanks @Stacy Livingston. I think we are looking at 2-3 years max in this house. I agree with needing to really update them both, I'm just not sure the ARV is going to be there within that time frame. As it stands now, it is not. Thoughts?

We are buying a house that was built in the 90's and both bathrooms look like it in Bryan / College Station.  Looking at our budget, we having to consider updating both bathrooms some but leaving things like the florescent light boxes above the vanities in and the cultured marble (aka fake cheap marble), or we can fully update the master bath and just do some small things like paint the guest bath.  

Which direction should we go to maximize our return? 

Side note: This is primarily being purchased to live in, with the thought we could do a little updating while we live there to increase the resell value when we sell in a couple of years.  

Hey BP, my wife and I are moving to another city here in Texas so we decided to buy something that needed some slight cosmetic work.  We found a house in a great neighborhood with great schools, and in great condition.  It was built in the '90s and a lot of the house still has the '90s feel, think florescent lighting in the bathrooms and kitchen and brass door knobs, etc.

We want to know what projects makes the most sense since it doesn't look like the ARV will give us much room to play with.

Here are some things to know about the purchase:

• 2,900 sf
• Purchase price $128/sf
• Updated, we fell it will bring $145 pretty easy
• By no means are we thinking we got a screaming deal, just got a house that needs a little updating and it was priced appropriately to reflect that. (Baby-steps right?)

Here is a list of the things we think need to be done, and in the order we are thinking:

• New wood flooring in most of the house (leaving carpet in all bedrooms except master)
• Update master bath
• Paint most rooms
• Update guest bath
• Change glass panes on either side of front door
• Remove florescent lighting in kitchen
• Add patio w/ cover in back
• Change out brass fixtures
• Add shelving and mudroom type bench to laundry room
• Add outdoor kitchen to complete back patio
• Change out white oven and microwave for stainless (the rest of the kitchen has been updated w/ stainless and new counter-tops) 
• Other odds and ends

As you may have figured out already, we clearly would like to do more to the house than what our budget will allow if we were to treat this as a flip.  I'm waiting on bids from the contractors, but I'm guessing we don't stay with in our range after the first 2-3 items.  Have already found our flooring and it is $7.60/sf installed.  That doesn't give us much room to play with.  

So, that being said, if you have to start cutting items up top, what do you cut, and what do you prioritize?

Howard

@Bruno S. I'm searching for the same thing.  It appears you didn't have any luck w/ this post.  Were you able to find a good list somewhere else?

Doug Yeager with Loke Lord's office in Houston has experience in self storage.

http://www.lockelord.com/professionals/y/yeager-doug

Thanks everyone. I seem to be finding the same pros and cons as y'all.    However, the good news, for me at least, is that I did a little cleaning up of my files, including getting rid of some 2+ gb movie my friend had shared and I'm no longer encroaching on my 8 gigs of allotted space.   So I'm heading back to Dropbox.