All Forum Posts by: James Mc Ree

RoundUp and pre-emergent weed blockers/killers, and landscape fabric under crushed stone or river rock will be your friends for the landscaping work.

Trash requires a bit more info. Trash just in front of your property tells you who you need to talk with. Trash everywhere is a neighborhood concern and maybe also a trash hauler concern. In that case, you might want to engage the city to encourage better use of trash containers with lids, talk with the hauling company, etc.

Try calling local real estate brokers. They will all have an in-house service you aren't interested in, but my recommend other title companies. Likewise, try going to your local investors' meeting and ask the attendees.

This question is probably more of a qualitative assessment than one based on hard data. You may want to dig deeper if you think you have a situation title companies don't see often.

OP didn't mention he had a property manager. He may be doing that himself plus the bookkeeping, so the advice above may be to considering hiring a property manager, CPA and/or bookkeeper. That's a big change from a do-it-yourself hands-on operation. It is neither right nor wrong, just a big change.

If you go all-in on that route, you will be paying a bit more and have all of your real estate time back as you will have much less involvement. That can be a wonderful thing as you will have more time for your family. It may also be a downer if you got into real estate partly to enjoy the business.

Think about why you are invested in real estate besides making money. Does this change positively or negatively impact that?

Consider doing a time study of where your time goes for your real estate business. Keep track of what you do each day for real estate and how much time it takes. You might be surprised to see some tasks are taking a lot more time than you think they should and maybe you are diving a little too deep into those items or need some automation.

I self-manage 13 SFRs with a set of linked Excel spreadsheets. I take all of the tenant calls, do all my own taxes and do almost none of the physical work. I hire contractors for that. I had a W2 job until I retired about a year ago when I wanted more time for family and noticed my real estate business was stealing time from my W2 job. I had a very flexible schedule at my job and probably flexed it too much. The schedule worked fine when I wasn't renovating a property, but the renovations took a good bit of time to self-manage.

You may find managing stable properties doesn't take much time, but renovations or other work does. Maybe it can be outsourced.

Just some things to think about...

If I understand this right, your 2 out of state LTRs have no connection at all to your LLC, so you aren't getting any benefits from the LLC there. Routing the revenue to the LLC will just cause it to route through the LLC back to you if this is a single member LLC. I don't see a benefit.

I missed that this was a commercial property. My mistake. 

@Taylor Cook

Be sure to get an estoppel letter signed by the tenants and seller stating the current amount of the security deposit and any other pertinent facts not recorded in the lease. This will protect you from a tenant claim that they really had $2,000 security deposit, but the lease only said $1,000. It can also capture damage to the property for which the tenant will be responsible so they don't claim it was in that condition when they moved in. Pictures are very helpful for that proof too.

Google "ada compliance inspections in NJ". Google again and replace "inspections" with "survey".

The property does not need to be ADA compliant unless you have a disabled tenant. It will likely be more difficult to rent to a able-bodied tenants and much easier to rent to disabled tenants, possibly at a premium since it is (almost) ready to go.

Call the municipality and inquire about the property. They can tell you the process to get it properly inspected and the deed updated as a multi-family. Costs and any inspections, work, etc that are needed can be part of your offer to the seller or covered during due diligence if you don't buy it "as is".

I wouldn't fire the agent just because the property hasn't sold yet. That's not necessarily the agent's fault. If you do, you need to find a new one and relist with new pictures, so you may push yourself off the market a week or two.

Ask your agent what feedback he is getting on the showings. The agent should be following-up on showings to learn what the prospects think. Your property probably doesn't look as nice as it could with the tenants there. That is may be one of the turnoffs which may come across as the price is too high.

Get the tenants out in two weeks, spiff it up, clean and you will probably have more interest.

@Elizabeth Rose

I have rentals in Delaware County, just outside Philadelphia. A tenant accidentally started a fire that resulted in an insurance claim of around $41,000. Insurance paid it and my premium went up about $50 for a couple years. The tenant was destitute and the insurance company could not recover anything from them.

I look at insurance as you have it for a reason. I set my deductibles at 5% as i only intend to use insurance for large losses. I consider this a large loss.You may find there is mold in there too. My recommendation is to talk with your insurance company to see if it would be covered and what impact there might be to you. You didn't cause the problem which is a major factor in the premium impact. There is no cost for the conversation though they may require you to fix it to stay insured even if you don't file a claim.