All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

I purchased this 2 bed 2 bath 1349 square foot house in Turlock California about three years ago for 72,000, I put 15,000 into it after I completely gutted it so everything is new inside. I rented it out without even posting an ad or sign and made about 400 dollars a month profit for those three years.

We listed the house a couple of weeks ago at a bad time since the kids are all getting out of school and graduations are taking place. Today the second person to look at the home put it under contract and it's scheduled for a 30 day close. It sold for 175,000 and my estimated sellers net sheet says we will end up with 109,000 cash after all of the fees!

We are going to reinvest this money into a nicer home in Texas using a 1031 exchange. The good news for us is that we have more homes to sell off that should net us about the same results and allow me to buy many more rentals with the profits.

I have a question, my plan is to roll the money over from each house into a rental in Texas using the 1031 and then refinance the home to pull the money out later to buy other rentals. Do you guys think this is the best most efficient way to transfer the funds without the taxes from the state of California?

Some lower income tenants rarely use email or borrow a friends computer to do the application and background process.

A letter in the mail takes too long and would most likely be "lost in the mail"

All landlords should have a late fee that is enforced.

Calling on the phone leaves you with no proof you contacted them, so texting would be the best option.

I have every text from every tenant from the application proccess until they stop texting, it has saved me a few times when a tenant has said "I didn't say that or I didn't get the message".

I can tell you why, sometimes when you rent to seemingly nice lower income people and they screw up and get asked to leave they turn into wackos! We use a PO box for mail now because we live in town and dont want them knowing our address. Our next house will be a ranch in Texas with a tall fence out front and driveway gates preventing entry onto the property so I would not have a problem with giving my address then if I had to.

Let me ask you, do you know the address of any other business owners of you do business with? I'm guessing that would be a no...... 

I buy sets of 6 Kwikset lifetime warrantee deadbolts and locking door knobs, I have plastic boxes that hold all six sets and I rotate them. I take the locks off the house and pull a set out of storage to replace them with. Most homes have less than six sets and the extras are kept in their box with the current address on it.

This program works pretty good for me, I tried the smart key lock sets on my own home and have been locked out several times before they replaced them with better built locks. So many times I purchased the smart key tool to fix them myself, then I found out how easy it is to break in with the smart key sets. Talk about a waste of money!

I don't use mail or in person, none of my tenants know my home address, they deposit at the bank. Before they even get out the bank door I have a message from the bank stating that they made the deposit. They get a deposit slip as their proof of payment and I can look online and see the actual pictures of the deposit slip and check to determine if they are late.

I use one account per two houses with one higher priced and a lower priced sharing an account so I know who deposited. I have one tenant that is always late but takes great care of my home that gets dinged for late fees about one out of three months and this eliminates them saying "oh the check is in the mail" I have had her tell me she deposited the money before the late date and it just was not posted to my account then I sent her pictures of the deposit slip and check and told her to go pay her late fee.

I have been doing it this way for almost four years now and it works flawlessly.

 I like the mold addendum because I have had tenants cause mold problems from bathing and cooking with no ventilation going in a small house.

The clogged drains part I have standard in my contract, once I had an older property with a septic system and a garbage disposal. I removed the cord from the disposal and informed the new tenant in writing they were not to use it.

A couple of months later I get a call that the pipes are clogged and sewage is shooting out the roof vent! I go over and find that the wife has hooked the disposal up, then shoved plastic bags in the washer drain and the disposal was pushing the water out the roof vent!

I said call a plumber you are responsible for all clogs not caused by broken pipes or tree roots. The next day I removed the disposal like my wife told me I should have when we purchased the place.

I had to get rid of them because the wife kept rigging things on my house, the last straw was the roof vent had a duct taped on broom stick with an antenna on it with wires running down the side of my nice house. She also cut all of my dish and cable lines for some reason so they had to go.

I would be interested in finding regular contractors in the Northwest Houston area to build our dream home after we find a property. Also affordable contractors to help me with projects on my rentals that I don't feel like doing myself or if I take on too many units at once.

Thank you for the link Erica! 

 We have had this one since a tenant used store bought mice, calling them "rats" to try and weasel out of a month to month lease! They moved out two days after notifying me they had a problem and I took care of it the same day by setting traps. It worked out ok though, they still ended up paying for all the time left and now I have a tenant in there that never wants to leave and is so clean he does not wear shoes inside.

This is a good thread!

 When I started I didn't know any rules! Lol 

I did know what the rents were for each house and what the monthly costs were, then I figured out what materials would cost for each home and did all the work myself. This is where I saved a lot of money because if it's on a house I can do it. The last house I did I gutted it and rebuilt it.

I made out very well, every property has doubled in price or more! And I have good positive cashflow since the houses didn't cost much to buy. I actually passed up a bunch of places because they were under 50K and I couldent get loans on them. I did manage to talk my broker into doing a loan on one for 47 but he said it was a one time deal and to keep them over 50.

On SFR we require the tenant to take care of the yards, grass and shrubs, we take care of the trees larger than 6 feet.