All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

 Liar!!! Why does a 'MAN' or a 'WOMAN' have to be a woosy and lie about who is in control. My father always pulled that crap, had my mother do all the talking and then would scream at my mother for not saying what he should have said himself. Be a man, write down your rules, stick with your rules, make your rules clear to your tenants, let your tenants know the exact names and contact information for the people they answer to.

I had serious problems with the very first apartment I rented when I was 22-years old and had just moved to California. The apartment manager was a serious a-ho...e. The kitchen faucet leaked, the garbage disposer leaked and the furnace was broke. I installed a new faucet, disposer and repaired the furnace at my cost and that was not required in my lease. I had a guest from England stay in my unit for 3 days and the managed came running up the stairs wanting me to pay for the guest and I thought he was going to have a heart attack. When I moved out the manager withheld my $450 security deposit (about $1500 in today's money) because he said the brand I installed was not the same as he would have installed. 

Of course, the manager would not give me the owner's contact information. So, I went to the building department (no internet in those days) found the owner's phone number, called the owner and got my entire deposit back. It is critical for tenants to have someone to turn to other than having to go to court for matters that should be simple. It is critical that the owner (you) have a communication channel with your tenants so you know if your managers are not screwing you over. I've seen many managers collect rents, deposits, give tenants free rent to cover their butts and tell the owners the units are not rented.

 Your post brings up the 2nd subject and that is; it is counter-productive to remain anonymous because the very first thing every person wants when doing business with every business is they want to feel secure and want to know that when (not if) they have a problem there problem can be solved easily without having to jump through fiery hoops like a circus dog.

We own several apartment buildings and we give every tenant both my wife's and my office numbers and personal cell phone numbers. Just recently, my wife purchased a separate cell phone for our tenants because we wanted to track conversations and text messages more-carefully for legal purposes and because we do get tenants calling us at 3 in the morning because their kitchen light bulb blew out (no joke).

We also just sold 26 homes in Las Vegas and had a property management company, but we still gave every tenant our personal information because we want our tenants to have someone they can turn to when they have problems with the property management company and there was many times our property management company did things to the tenants that was wrong and the outcome was always better when our tenants notified us. Otherwise, if we hid our personal information our property management company would have caused some grave mistakes that could have resulted in lawsuits and loss of income.

As for being friendly with tenants, there is a difference between being friendly and being friends. We are always friendly and would never be friends in the sense that we would party, go shopping, or on a fishing trip with a tenant. In fact, we've made the mistake of renting to a few relative and friends and had problems every time where I had to evict through the courts a sister-in-law, mother-in-law, an employee of my construction company and relatives and friends always think they can use a lame excuse to pay their rent late just because you are their friend. 

We have many tenants who are super friendly, make special food for my Filipina wife and give her small gifts like perfumes, but we never give our tenants gifts, never give rent discounts and we never treat them differently when their rent is late, or when we have any other type problem with the friendly tenants. Business is business. We have very specific rules we follow in regards to late charges, evictions, being quiet, being clean and we stick with our own rules to the 'T'.

One huge difference with the way we manage our properties is; I am positive most landlords and property management companies will not be on top of every situation as much as we are and that cannot be accomplished when you are an anonymous landlord. If you don't push your tenants hard to abide by all your policies then your tenants will test you to see just how hard you will push them and the more you give in the more you start to lose your ground just like a battlefield.

 Your post brings up the 2nd subject and that is; it is counter-productive to remain anonymous because the very first thing every person wants when doing business with every business is they want to feel secure and want to know that when (not if) they have a problem there problem can be solved easily without having to jump through fiery hoops like a circus dog.

We own severa

 Sharkbite should be okay for a DIT homeowner and it is only hot water running through the pipe. I've always been afraid to use Sharkbite, but install a fee Sharkbite valves for water heaters every week because I am too lazy to pull my torch of my truck and never had a problem, yet. 

Stop thinking about your feelings, stop thinking about your tenant's feeling and run your rentals like a business, or maybe you should invest your money in 3/4% cd's if you can't handle running a business. 

This is how professional real estate investors are supposed to consider rent increase. Get a piece of paper. Calculate how much profit you will earn in 1, 5, 10, 20 and 30 years by increasing the rents to the max. If you have 3 units and you increase the rents from $400 to $600 for all 3 units then in 10 years you earn 3 x 200 = 600 x 12 months = $7200 x 10 years = $72,000.

If you want to be soft, generous, unbusiness-like and give away $72,000 every 10 years, then let me run your rental business like a real investor and I will send you back 10% of what I will squeeze our of your tenants.

Let me put it this way! If you was my property manager I would immediately fire you. I will take that back! I would never hire you because you will never generate profits for your clients.

I really am a terrific person, but when it comes to a nickel of my money you will have to fight me to get it.

It looks like it is under-sized since it looks like the copper pipe is 3/4 inch and the orange pipe looks like 1/2 inch PEX (polyethylene). The valve on the very top looks like a valve to bleed the air and I don't believe that valve is necessary since any air in the system can be bled through another location including at the boiler.

Cut the 3/4 inch horizontal copper pipe and start with a Sharkbite at that location, eliminate the bleed-off valve, or install a Sharkbite tee for a new valve and get a fitting to reduce the the 1/2 inch PEX. Piece of cake!

The fitting with the arrow looks like there is a brass ferrule (ring) around the outside of the PEX and it is a compression fitting that was custom-made by the manufacturer for that specific baseboard system. You can buy the brass ferrule (ring) separately, but no supply house will sell the entire fitting.

I agree with some of the other posts. I was thinking you had a multi-unit building. Let the neighbor and tenant deal with the problem. If it was a multi-unit you may have obligations to your other tenants. Since it is a single rental it is not your problem.

This is a situation where it may be wise to get free advice from an attorney, or be willing to pay an attorney. I had a tenant with an autistic son who screamed so bad I seriously thought a woman was being raped in one of our apartment units and was about the call the police just before my wife told me it the tenant's autistic son.

There should be some law that protects everyone from having their sleep disturbed and I would worry about any damage to the property. Even people with autistic children are liable for damage to a property and I don't see why they would not be liable if their children cause other people to move because they can't bare the disturbances.

I would definitely write a nice and carefully-written letter to the tenant notifying the tenant that her child is disturbing others, ask your tenant what she (or he) can do to mitigate the disturbances. It is okay to have a little verbal communications, but when we have any type of tenant problem we put everything in writing. The last thing you want is to get sued for discrimination.

Thank you for your advice!

My statement is very positive. My statement says, "be careful about what you wish for because you may just get your wish". 

My post makes a statement that should be easy to understand. When a newbie starts out with saying they are looking for a mentor that person has created an environment where he subjected himself to having an unscrupulous and experienced investor take him under his arm, get him involved with real estate investing that benefits his mentor's agenda and the newbie gets ripped off. That equates to a mentor (if there is such a thing) seeing an opportunity to get from a newbie a blank check (so-to-speak).

Did you miss all that in the shortest one-line post I ever wrote?

I gave the sellers money before closing, ended up going to court and it took exactly 5 years to the last day the court case was going to expire to settle the case. Their financial situation is not your problem and business should only be treated like you are doing business and not solving people's financial problems. You are not a bank and if they don't have a job they can get cash from, or friends, or relative, or get a payday loan, or can't get a loan against their car, or don't have a priest to turn to then why should you think you have to be their savior.