All Forum Posts by: Jim K.

@Corey Goldstein 

Aw, come on. Where are the protection pentacles? The summoning ring? The cages for the sacrifices? The blood spatter on the walls and floor? Satanic, my foot.

This just looks like the result of run-of-the-mill substance abuse and mental illness issues.

One of the few times when I feel I have to disagree with @JD Martin.

Older, heavier people with incontinence issues like elongated toilet bowls and good toilet paper. I suspect that I get substantially more multigeneration reunion-type bookings than most people in my Airbnb. This WAS commented on (thankfully privately) when I stocked Aldi toilet paper. I now stock Charmin UltraStrong.

Nothing wrong with bulk toilet paper per se. But single economy rolls from Aldi didn't cut it for us that one time.

Am I missing something here? Airbnb offers $3M damage protection insurance (AirCover) if guests don't pay for the damages they cause, and $1M liability insurance if a guest gets hurt or their belongings are stolen.

That being said, I too do not allow instant booking or most last-minute long-term bookings out of nowhere. I suspect that weeds out a lot, but beyond that, I don't screen my Airbnb guests.

I've haven't had to take advantage of AirCover yet in six months of operating an Airbnb, so I'm honestly curious how this works.

Well, this is a wonderful thread.

All I can really contribute with enough experience to be absolutely sure of what I say: if you live on the coasts and your spreadsheet tells you your best passive returns over the long haul are going to be in the Rust Belt in cheap rentals, then your spreadsheet needs to be looked at by someone with a lot more experience in cheap Rust Belt rentals than you have.

My own take on the musings here of why everyone wants to quit their job these day and its possible connection to young people and their participation trophies, their possible work-ethic failings, moral turpitude, contemptible world outlook, lack of grit, et hoc genus omne...yeah, I know I don't know squat about all that.

This is a FANTASTIC price for a 120-foot 3-foot ditch in Pittsburgh. Almost certainly too good, even for pickup labor in the slow season. And the fact that these people are willing to fetch your materials from wherever makes the whole thing even more questionable. Is this going to be an exterior French drain? Because anyone quoting you this price for anything inside a basement with the need to haul the dirt elsewhere is clearly getting ready to rob you. But to dig the ditch, lay the canister assembly in gravel, and fill in the ditch for an exterior French drain? I'd take that price any day and I would assume they're using a small excavator.

Pursuant to what @Drew Sygit just said: the last building we bought, there was a tenant there who got in by misspelling his last name and never presenting any ID. So when the for-crap property manager ran the false name, no information on this prospective tenant came up. I noticed this upon buying the building, insisted on seeing ID, got the proper spelling of his name, and found four evictions. This was a relatively stupid professional tenant, thankfully, as the idiot has appeared under two different names in front of the local district magistrate over the years. I leveraged that to get him out.

@Jamie O'Connell

I grew up in Horseheads. I can see how you're making it work your way in Elmira. I suspect in a more urban area, with a lot more entrenched and generational poverty, things would be a bit different. But good luck on the Chemung County Section 8 Express as long as you can ride it.

If you watch the scene in The Exorcist where Father Damien Karras is with his mother, the radio is playing an advertisement in Greek for Astoria Park.

With an endorsement like that, who wouldn't want to live there?

@Andy Okamoto

One cautionary note: if your idea of "cash flow" is $10K in net operating income, $120K before taxes in your pocket every year off your rental property, well, if it happens to you in 10 years, it will be a low-probability event with a lot of lucky breaks and eventually will likely ruin your life when you make a misstep because you assumed your lucky break was the norm.

If you're serious about moving out here, at least look at the Pittsburgh area and its proximity to Carnegie Mellon (tech) and UPMC (health care).

@Rashad Shepperson

"She just does not want to be bothered..."

Gee, the apple didn't fall far from that tree, did it?

Your best best is to find a local real estate lawyer to handle the legal transfer of the wooded land that your mother wants to give you. How to convert that land legally into a mobile home park is something you'll have to learn elsewhere.