All Forum Posts by: Jeffrey Rittenour

Quote from @Michael Baum:

Very interesting. I use Proper and we are in North Idaho on Lake Coeur d'Alene. Fire is always a concern, but there hasn't been one around here ever.

I would call your agent and see what they offer. A lot of companies have gotten into the STR business.

I use foremost for a long term rental across the border. They seem fine but the rates did go up this year.  As far as fires.  The Last big fire here was 1910.  The forest management is a lot more on point than areas that burn down every season.  Glacier National park is an example of poor forest management. They had a massive fire from a lighting strike that burned thousands of acres. After the fire a lot of trees were still standing.  At this point what they should’ve done was gone in and helicopter logged all the dead standing trees. It would’ve still been useful for lumber.  But they wanted it to stay “natural”. So naturally a lighting strike struck again and burned the same forest again.  I believe it was the next year.  Proper forest management does a world of good.  It’s not perfect by any stretch of imagination.  But 113 years is A pretty good fire free stretch.

@Immanuel Pierre I hired a property manager after my first tenant 😁. Would’ve saved me a heck of a lot of eviction fees and headache if I had gotten a manager as soon as I bought the property. Not to say that managing a manager isn’t a job. But at least the chances of getting good tenants is higher because they have systems in place to handle it. I got lucky because the mess left was minimal. Could’ve been a lot worse. Lesson learned.

So I’m listening to an episode of BiggerPockets from years ago. Brandon turner is talking about working on his rentals and states that he can’t do any of his own electrical because it’s a rental and not a personal residence. This brings into question what is not legal for me to touch in Washington state. Can I cut down a tree? (Was a logger in my younger days). Can I set a toilet change a light switch replace a sink drain? Tenant wants a fan installed. I thought no big deal. Crawl in the attic install the mount buy a fan wire it up. Hundred bucks tops. Now I’m not so sure. I’m in the Spokane WA market currently. Also if I do have to hire an electrician is it better to bundle a bunch of things for them to do at once? Property management had light switch replaced once for 6 times what the dang switch cost. Also thinking of having plumbing replaced throughout the house and I’m assuming the same thing with that if I’m not allowed to touch it. I get that if I mess something up it’s on me.

Any reliable electrician and plumber recommendations would also be helpful.

I’ve also considered replacing insulation in the attic. I know in Idaho it’s not a problem.

@John Bartlett Just thought I’d bring this up. Bleach was like a 70’s wife’s tale. It doesn’t get rid of it. We do mold remediation. If you don’t see the guys doing the mold remediation going into the house in full hazmat they don’t know what they’re doing. We won’t even do the demo to open up the walls without full hazmat. Wearing full hazmat all day sucks so if we didn’t need to believe me we wouldn’t. In most cases theres a lot of work that has to be done to the framing before you can even spray. The rooms involved have to be put under negative pressure. And the chemicals that are sprayed aren’t something you ever want to be breathing or touching your skin. Best advice as I stated in a post above is to seal up the walls and use an ozone machine for the time being. The ozone machine I was told to tell customers as the best option for a temporary fix. It doesn’t fix the problem it should be dealt with professionally. But I was told it will kill the mold in the air. You open up a wall though your really exposing yourself to it. That’s why it’s best to leave them sealed until the professionals can come in to crack the wall. If someone does crack a wall at the very least wear a respirator. And no not an n-95. N-95’s are a joke. An actual respirator.

@Archer Stone I work with a mold remediation company in the northwest. Almost all houses here have mold in the attic crawl spaces or around leaky pipes. Is it dangerous? Yes it can be. But mold can be the thing that breaks the camels back. The only way to get rid of the mold is to tear the place down to the studs scrape and spray. And it’s not bleach. Don’t even bother. Let a professional take care of it. That being said I’ve been told that if a customer doesn’t have the money they could use an ozone machine in the home which’s apparently kills the mold spores that could be in the air. Also make sure the walls are sealed. So check around pipes. You don’t want to be exposed to the air that’s in your walls if they’re covered in mold. Also your heat vents if you have an HVAC. If there’s mold in the house there’s probably mold being circulated by the vents. Before we crack a wall we tape off the vents and turn the HVAC off. The vents should be cleaned if there was mold in the house but you don’t want the chance of cracking a wall opened and mold getting circulated to other areas of the house. I’m not totally familiar with ozone machines but I don’t think your supposed to run them all the time. So seal the walls up as best you can and start saving for a mold remediation. Insurance usually won’t pay for it. But you can check with them. On a personal level we’ve lived with black mold in our house for years. Something about the shoemaker that doesn’t have any shoes. The family has health issues that could be enhanced and aggravated by the mold. This summer we plan on tearing the bathroom apart and dealing with it. So will you drop over dead right away? No. But the affects could be long term. You can only do what you can do. Hope this helps some.

@Jonny Boi So I live in North Idaho and currently have a rental in the Spokane area. When I did it I was thinking about using a loan that would require Owner Occupancy. But who's gonna know unless they go knock on the door right? As long as the bills are payed. Here's what I learned. It gets stickier when you cross state lines. From what I recall it turns into a federal crime. Here's the other thing. Yea you get a lower interest rate but presumably your putting a lower down payment which keeps your payment high. My advice is whatever you do try your best to put at least 20% down. I only had 15% and paying PMI sucks. The bank I'm with I have to request the PMI be removed. Well I've requested twice now. And even though I'm over 20% equity they still won't drop it. It's more of a pet peeve at this point. But it's still like 400 bucks a year. The other thing is my house is a little over an hour from my house. If there's a problem I can go deal with it. Being my first rental it was very convenient. It's not that it can't be done out if state. But it's gonna cost more in maintenance. Like if there's a leaky pipe you can fix it yourself for maybe a hundred bucks or you can pay the plumber to go out for 15 min and charge you 300 bucks. I ended up having to pay the plumber anyways because the problem was the pipe had already been broken and hobbled back together several times before I touched it. Not saying don't invest out if state but make sure you have some cash to weather any storm that may arise. Chances are something will come up. That's usually how it works. An entire year of cashflow can be wiped with something dumb. Buying my rental was the best decision I ever made though. Even with all the lessons I had to learn along the way. Just proceed with caution. Sometimes the best thing you can do is jump in. Only looking back do you realize how bad it could've gone. Wasn't it Brandon Turner that said real estate is forgiving? I know that to be true.

Been there. My first tenants went sideways. Luckily the only damage they did was leave a truckload of trash in the house. Unfortunately Washington has quite a wait period before I could get in the house. By that time the tenants were long gone but I’d already got the ball rolling on the eviction. Couple days after I’d rented to them I listened to a Bigger Pockets that talked about the things you should watch out for when renting to tenants. Pretty sure I checked most the boxes. But I hoped for the best. Which lasted about 6 months. Lesson was learned. I now have an awesome property manager in Spokane now and haven’t missed a single rent check! Don’t think i’ll self manage again. Once you finally get it up and running it’s worth it!

Realistic thinking is based on what others think is possible—but they are not you and have no way of knowing your potential and purposes. -grant cardone 10X

Hello everyone! I'm in the Spokane WA Market. I've purchased and rented my first rental. During the rehab I hired my family who have a background in construction and painting to do the work for me as I work long hours. I told them to keep track of their hours for me to pay them. All the materials were payed for in cash. What is the best way to pay my family members to so I can take it as a tax write off? Do I just write each member a check and keep a receipt detailing what they did and how much I payed them? I'm pretty sure I can call it an expense but I want to make sure I do it right. Also the cash for materials was cash from things I sold on Craigslist that never was in my bank account. Can I call all of the recipients that I have expenses or not? Hope that makes sense. Thanks for the show! Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks guys!  It looks just like a wood burning stove.  The first time I walked in the realtor thought the same thing.  I used Advanced Technology Heating & Cooling.  It turned out that the stove needed a cleaning.  Apparently there was enough buildup to cause an explosion.  I was told it needed to be serviced once a year.  Super thankful it wasn't something more serious.  Its been a stressful month or so.  My first tenants are moving in tomorrow!  I'm very thankful for all the encouragement and help I've gotten from the podcasts @David Clinton III and the real estate investing community.  Its been a long road to get here.