All Forum Posts by: Jason T.

Very impressive. The house looks great! How many dumpsters of trash did you fill? That's about as bad as I've seen.

You might check out http://www.arpola.org. It's an investors association that has a discount to Lowe's. Also, when you're making a bulk purchase you can take it the "bid room" at places like Home Depot and Lowe's. That's where they give discounts to contractors. In my experience you can get 10-15% off there.

Jeff -

Your first safety net should be placing your properties into LLCs and/or trusts. I'm not an attorney so I can't give legal advice but every RE attorney I've met says to, at a minimum, place your properties into an LLC.

Your second safety net should be adequate property insurance with liability. This is called the primary insurance and will be the first to pay if an occurrence happens. I would suggest $1M liability per property. Liability insurance is cheap enough it's not worth skimping on. Most policies and most agents will suggest $300k liability coverage but that goes away real fast when a jury is involved.

You umbrella liability policy (personal or commercial) should be your third safety net. Umbrella policies are excess coverage which means they don't kick in until your primary (property) insurance is exhausted. Occasionally a claim can go over even $1M liability so this is when it's good to have the umbrella.

I hope this helps!

Yes, the tenant was not smart for what she did and it seems like the guy may have been trying to do the right thing. But, he removed the generator before authorities showed up. Looks like he was trying to cover his tracks. That's almost admitting guilt. Bottom line is that you can't allow your tenants to be put in that situation because you never know what they'll do. In this case it's the property owner that is liable, no matter who is actually "at fault."

Read the story here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110502/ap_on_re_us/us_monoxide_deaths_landlord_charged

A landlord is being charged with 4 counts of reckless homicide after giving a tenant a portable generator to temporarily heat the house. Unfortunately, the tenant and her three children went to sleep with it on and never woke up. This is a very sad story but it brings to light an issue that all landlords need to be conscious of. First and foremost, you must provide your tenants with a safe living environment.

The landlord in this case is facing up to 20 years of prison due to his negligence. Aside from the financial hardship this will bring him and the potential for facing prison time, can you imagine living with yourself after an incident such as this? Yes, the tenant should have known better but so should the landlord have.

Yes, we actually have investors with hundreds and even over 1,000 properties insured with master policies. We insure over 1,800 investors with over 8,000 properties across the country. Rehab, vacant, rental, SFR to 6 plexes.

Another reason we should start manufacturing here again instead of always seeing, "Made in China." :)

When using individual policies insurance companies can drop the coverage or, more likely, increase your premium come the next renewal when a claim is filed. Unfortunately, the claim will effect how other insurance companies price you too because they'll want to know.
I would suggest putting your properties into a master commercial policy where this doesn't happen. There are programs designed for real estate investors that work on master policies. Multiple investors insure their properties on the same master policy but each property and investor is separate when it comes to billing. By having a large pool of insureds and properties you won't be hurt near as bad from claims than if you were on an individual policy. Master policies also allow for added conveniences like monthly billing, easy movement of properties from rehab to vacant or rental, and claims management.
If you keep your properties on an individual policy then the answer to your question is really up to you. You can't foresee how an insurance company will react to a claim, big or small. Unfortunately, there's no good answer other than do what you're most comfortable with.

You're absolutely right Dawn. This makes if more difficult for small businesses to compete with large corporations and it was by design (or incompetency). Anyway, let's hold onto the hope that they will at least be taking this ridiculous 1099 section out of the bill.

As long as the guy is legit and has credentials to back up his claims then go for it.