All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

I hate gray. It is depressing and I don't understand why it has been the fad.

We use only Home Depot Behr Linen White Satin finish. We literally painted an an entire apartment with 4 colors and 3 sheens until we were happy with linen white with a satin finish. Semi-gloss paint looks like crap on walls, flat is too flat, eggshell finish never seems to have an even finish because it always looks like portions are shiny and portions are flat and satin always looks perfect. We even use linen white for hallways and the exterior of most of our building, but my ex-wife prefers a peach color for the exterior.

Linen white is a very neutral and relaxing color. I even painted everything in and outside my office building with linen white and I put red metal awnings over all my windows on my office building and on every window for my apartment buildings. The awnings provide great shade and they stop water from destroying the window sills.

When you do any plaster or drywall patching always make sure you apply a coat of PVA primer before painting. If you don't the paint will suck into the drywall and be less glossy that the rest of the wall even if you apply 10 coats of paint. I always mixt the PVA primer with a massive amount of water so the paint gets sucked deep into the drywall or plaster. PVA primer always comes in white color and I always have it tinted with the the linen white formula because when it is white I can't tell whether or not I missed sections of the wall.

I am a heating contractor and hate smart thermostats. Especially when you need to read tiny print for long period to learn how to change settings and then it is even worse when you lose the instructions and have to start searching the internet.

Buy a lock box that goes over the thermostat for a few dollars. Also, if you don't already have a separate power wire coming from the furnace you will need to run a wire, or use a battery-operated thermostat and now your get calls from your tenants because the battery is dead. Actually, I don't know if they make battery-operated smart thermostats.

I've been in California for 48+ years where I've never seen a boiler room that heats a multi-unit building and I've been looking at properties in Cleveland where it looks like almost every apartment building has one boiler room. That scares me because I lived in Massachusetts, managed 135 rental units in 6 buildings and the boiler breakdowns were horribly expensive and all the tenants get into a tizzy when without heat for a few minutes. I am wondering if it would be better to install a heat pump through a wall for each unit and have your tenants pay for the heating. Every apartment building I purchased in California had 1 or 2 100-gallon water heaters. I removed the large heaters, installed water heaters for each unit and I think I save something like $60,000 every year by not having to pay for the 100 gallon heaters. I like to stretch all my numbers out for 10 years for everything and that comes out to a savings of $600,000 every 10 years and since I am a plumbing contractor I will bet my cost to install the water heaters was less than $80,000 because back in those days water heaters cost me less than $100 and I had my own workers install the gas, water piping and smoke pipes.

Your cost to install heat pumps that also give your tenants air conditioning may be less than installing a new boiler, fuel and maintenance. In Massachusetts, we eventually removed the boilers and installed furnaces in every unit.

Sorry! I missed the 'you are renting the house' and not selling it!!! We still leave all the utilities on so we can be positive everything is working before the tenant moves in and so workers can make repairs. It is hard to repair a leaking toilet if the water and electric is turned off.

Post some numbers including the price, rehab costs, property tax, insurance, utilities, trash removal, sewer use fees, property management fees, rental income and lets have a look.

As you probably know, as a banker, there are many laws in regards to using investors' money and you literally can end up in jail for violating the laws. You need to speak and an attorney who specialized in syndicated real estate.

Read everything you can find on the internet about syndicating real estate deals because the laws and the math is fairly complicated. There was a podcast on BP about 18 to 24 months ago by a person names Cho. I met him a few times when he started with no units and within about 1 year he had 1,000  units, if I am correct, and may have 2 or 3 thousand units today. I don't know.

I recently looked into syndicating about 70 to 100 units in Ohio, but the problem I personally run into is when you take on partners they usually get 5% to 8% of the profits, paid quarterly or annually, for 4 to 10 years. Then at the end of the 5 or 7 years, you re-finance the property, pay your partners about 30% of value the property appreciated and the property now belongs solely to you. The problem I has is the partners earn an annual percent of 10% to 20% and if I can get a bank loan for 3.2% then it doesn't make sense for myself to pay partners 10% to 20%. But, for you, it may be a great way to accumulate hundreds or thousands of units.

One bad thing about syndicating is it is illegal to advertise for investors and if things don't go as expected you will get sued by your investors and be in big trouble. The way people get investors legally is by going to real estate seminars, club meeting, talk to everyone about golden opportunities you are working on and let those people ask you and I believe that is the reason Cho made the podcast on BP. As soon as people watched his video he most-likely had people from all over the world throwing millions of dollars at him and begging him to take their money and that is how very many people get filthy rich.

Keep all the utilities on because when you sell the house all the appliances, water piping, heating and air conditioning, drains and the sewer need to be inspected and tested. It doesn't make sense to turn the utilities off and if they are already off they should be turned on asap since it sometimes takes a long time on the phone with customer service and sometimes a few days to get them turned on. 

We always leave water and soft drinks in the refrigerator with a sign telling everyone to help their self.

We always leave plenty of toilet paper since for some strange reason the very first thing many prospects request is the location for the bathrooms. That raises the hair on the back of my neck when those are the first words from a prospects mouth, but we have to live with that and then the mess they make in the toilet and on the floor. If a property is out of my area I always pay a maid service to give the house a cleaning and clean the toilets and floors around the toilets when the escrow opens. 

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Nothing people do is simple if you want to be good or the best at what you do. Put another way; if you want to be very good at what you do then things are not simple. Investing in real estate is not simple. Every fool can purchase real estate, get lucky and then think he is a genius, but analyzing properties in regards to doing the math is very complicated and very few investors, including brokers, do the calculations and compare apples to apples. This results in investors getting little to no significant profits when a good business model and a little math can earn profits that are almost exponential.

Doing the math is complicated, frustrating and most investors do very little of the basics to totally relying on advice and opinions of others rather that hard math and comparisons.

I would like to see more BP members ask more about the math before their money burns holes in their pockets and they waste their wad of cash on senseless investments that give far less returns that they can get by spending just a few more hours and a few more days of math, research and comparing different opportunities.

Always remember that no agent or broker represents the buyer since your broker has his own agenda and that is to earn cash. As far as your broker is concerned every property that is for sale is great for you as long as you are willing to purchase from him (or her).

I would be super careful investing out-of-state because you inherit many losses and additional expenses you cannot avoid and those losses eat into your pocket. Properties often look cheap in other states, but rents are also lower, the ability to increase rents as much as you would to is not always possible and there is nothing better than being hands-on and able to check on your properties every few months.

The next major hurdle a beginner needs is the ability to analyze the math for properties and to be so positive about his decisions rather than asking questions you need to have the ability to tell brokers and sellers what is best, what is right and what is wrong. Otherwise, don't expect your own broker to help you with getting the most bang for your buck because every sane broker will not tell you a bad deal is a bad deal and lose out on a $50,000 commission. 

Post your number, or send me a PM and I will be glad to give you my opinion in regards to what purchase may (never a guarantee) give you the best return. 

Tenants don't rent common areas. Give your tenants a 7-Day Notice To Comply to remove their personal items. Put your policies in writing and stick with your policies. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't be afraid of tenants moving because when they move it gives you the opportunity to upgrade units so they don't get too deteriorated, you get to charge new tenant more and you increase your property's value.

We had (not have) the same problem. We give them a 7-Day Notice and the notice states that if they don't comply they face a potential eviction and our letter states that if they don't move their crap we will move it to a storage and charge for both the labor and storage costs. The labor costs in some states may not be legal. BE THE MAN!!!

 It is true, the tenant's deposits and fees may not cover the cost for the pet damage, but like someone else said, if your applicant pool is large and you rent the unit faster and retain your tenants longer you make up for the loss. 

The only time I had problems with a tenant over dogs was when a tenant said he was bringing in a 35-pound dog and brought in 3 Labradors into a 900 sq ft apartment. I immedediately evicted him, it took 3 months for the sheriff to lock him out and the dog odor was so bad I washed the walls, painted them removed the furnace and cleaned inside the wall, removed the light switches and receptacles, washed the tile floors with bleach (every floor was tile), waxes the floors and I could not get rid of the odor. But, I have never had damage caused by dogs and cats always damage blinds and cause damage to floors.