All Forum Posts by: Jorge Garifuna

The tenant downstairs complains that the tenant upstairs makes annoying noises sometimes in the middle of the night. 

When I approach the tenant upstairs about the issue, she says that she only does it to send the signal to the tenants downstairs to keep their noise level down. 

Both tenants pay on time and I've talked to both about the issue, but it keeps happening repeately for about two weeks now. 

I've been very good at addressing my tenants' issues, but this one seems to be one of those that I'm not sure about what to do anymore, since I already talked to both of them. 

Any ideas on how to deal with situations like this?

My wife and I have been self-managing for about 3 years from a google sheet that I created and have improved over time. 

We currently have about 8 properties and each property has its own tab to track income and expenses. There is a dashboard tab to see the most relevant information about each unit from a single section, along with color-coded current rental status with yearly summaries. 

There are also tabs to manage issues, leases, marketing and city charges among other things. 

I am a software developer by profession and most of my real estate investment fund comes from creating enterprise and web applications for well known companies as a consultant. 

I currently run 3 cash flow positive businesses from google sheets and one more that will start producing within 6 months. This last one is a long term project that takes 3 years to become cash flow positive. 

The reason I run these businesses from google sheet is because they work for me and is fast to make changes as I learn about the businesses that I try. 

I've thought about creating a webapp out of the real estate google sheet I've been using for 3 years. Some reasons I haven't done it yet: 1) my existing process works great for my purpose and cash is flowing in. 2) When I semi-retire in a few years, I'd like to have the flexibility to either hand over the property management function to another company or relocate to anywhere in the world without having tp worry about paying web hosting fees. 

I recognize that with only 3 years of experience in real estate investment, there's still so much more to learn about the business. My only strategy so far has been to buy and hold and cash flow from day 1 and from reading your posts here, there are many other ways to go about doing this and I'm more than willing to keep learning. 

If this community feels that there are pain points in the property management software out there and is willing to provide desired requirements to ease the pain, I could consider putting the software together that would benefit most as long as there is enough support :)

If this concept generates enough interest, we could probably start by doing a google hangout to showcase what I have now, while gathering your feedback to tweak the process so that we're all in the same page before developing the first version of the webapp(not google sheet). After the first version is released, you get to try it to see how it works for your case and provide feedback for the next iteration of the software. The idea would be to have a piece of software that easily helps in most cases, while quickly iterating to improve on those things that are needed. 

 Verh insightful. Thanks a million!

That looks awesome, Brit!

I currently just buy to rent. I've been seeing some attractive returns on flipping and would like to try it. 

What would you recommend to someone that wants to start flipping?

Was it all your creative input that was applied into taking the house from the old to the new or did you get some help in figuring out what would go into the new place?

I ask because I wouldn't know where to start :)

Welcome to BP Brett!

I'm sure you'll feel at home here. 

Phillip,

Congrats on your new investment. I live in California and also own some investments in St. Louis. 

Thank you all for great suggestions. I really appreciate it. 

 Thanks James.

In my specific case, are you suggesting that I raise the rent for these new tenants as soon as escrow closes or are you implying something else? If something else, I would appreciate a little more details, with numbers if possible.

Again the rents on the fourplex are $450/month and $600/month on the triplex. Where would you go from here?

 My wife and I manage the entire operation. We currently have 8 properties under our belt and two in escrow as of this writing. Over the years I've stablished relationships with the local service providers so when things break I just have to call them to fix it and pay them via US Bank after following up with the tenants to make sure they're happy with the service. We are considering managing properties for other investors, but we're still working out the details.

Hello everyone,

I'm in the process of closing escrow on a fourplex and a triplex. All tenants are currently on a month-to-month. I already have 10 tenants on my existing investments and they all started with a one-year lease. 

The fourplex has 3 tenants paying $450 each and there is a vacant unit. 

The triplex has 2 tenants and they're paying $600 each and there is a vacant unit.

I would like to convert all these 5 new tenants to at least a one year lease and I'm looking for advise.

A little more background about my overall plan:

My overall plan is to increase my rental income by at least $3,000/month ($36,000/year) for five years. 

Once these new investments(fourplex & tripex) are fully occupied they will be bringing in $3,600/month, which is $600 more than my target of $3,000/month. 

I was thinking about lowering the rent by $20/month to entice these new tenants to sign a one-year lease. If I do this, I'll be bringing in $3,460/month when fully occupied, which is still $460 over my target.

Are there any general rules/formulas to apply to the rent amount when going from month-to-month to either six months or a one year lease?