All Forum Posts by: Dalton Dellinger

Hello BP. I have a handyman with a technical degree in Construction Management. He has been working for me for about a year now and I am very impressed with his work. Normally I pay him hourly at $15 an hour, which is a pretty good wage in my area, Southern Indiana. This weekend I want him to replace some framing members, repair termite damage, and build a staircase for me. My thoughts are: since he is doing specialized carpentry work, he should be paid like a carpenter instead of hourly. What are your thoughts on this? I like to pay people based on the amount of skill required to do the job. Is this thought process wrong?

Thanks

I love The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs! To save you some time: if you are interested in putting the information into a spreadsheet, wait until the very end of the book because it is already formatted into one in the back of the book. I spent a lot of time reading and taking notes and organizing it into a spreadsheet only to find out all I had to do was copy it lol

I have a multifamily property on the west side, but am not all that familiar with the single family market. I would assume that there is a relatively high demand for houses due to USI's location. I also do not pay attention to appreciation as much as I do cash flow, since my main focus is Buy & Hold investing. Shoot me a message if you want to talk shop about cash flow and ROI numbers! I love analyzing and spreadsheeting lol.

Thank you all for your responses. I have heard of the group showings concept before but have not tried it myself. I will call some handymen in the area and see if they would be interested in setting up a deal. 

Thank you again.

@John Underwood I did not consider having a realtor show it. What kind of fee did you have in mind?

@Nathan Gesner what kind of incentives did you have in mind? Those are all great suggestions. Thank you!

Hello BP!

I own a Fourplex that is about 50 minutes from where I live. The property management company that I have had in charge is terrible.

I am considering managing it myself until I get it 100% occupied.

My questions are:

How do you show the property? Do you have a handyman do it or some other "boots on the ground"?

How do you pay them for their time?

Other than that I think we could self manage easily. We have online payments set up with our closer properties and have handymen in place to handle maintenance.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Thank you

@Cody Ruff I invest in Evansville and one company I will NOT recommend is FC Tucker Property Management.

The agent that I have worked with is terrible about communication. I will call and leave messages and no response. I will send an email with no response. It is really hit or miss whether they respond to me or not. My fourplex has had 3 vacant units for 5 months now and I have had to complete the work needing done myself. She was waiting for over a month on bids from contractors. In our contract it says that I have to give them 60 days notice to terminate the contract. That day is up on April 1st.

I could keep going but I will leave it at that. One company that I have heard good things about is Goebel Realty. They were recommended at the Meetups multiple times.

Happy investing! Let me know if you want to connect sometime. I love talking all things business and real estate!

Good Luck,

Thank you all for the advice. I agree with @Alexander Felice in that I am way overthinking this.

Going forward in the future I will do as suggested and only tell people what they need to know, if asked. It really isn't anyone's business but mine if I get multiple bids or just one, as long as I am honest with everyone involved.

Thanks again.

@Dan Weber thank you. I will have to work on separating business from the emotional aspect.

So this might be ridiculous that I am even worried about this. I met a contractor at a potential BRRRR investment the other night. He seemed like a really nice guy and he has done a bunch of work for a lot of people I know in the area. He is a pastor in his church and his company goes and builds houses for people in natural disasters.

 Should I feel bad about wanting multiple bids on the property, even though his bid was at a very good price for my total numbers? My wife normally handles the people equation of my rental business, because I am too nice and care about people's feelings too much.

Do I need to even tell him that I am getting multiple bids?

One thought was: in order to stay on good terms with him for work in the future, I would pay him $50 or $100 for his time he spent.

I don't want to make the mistake of only getting one quote but at the same time, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

Thanks,