All Forum Posts by: Katie Jewell

I have a question regarding a tenant. He is one of our tenants in a new duplex. The agreement between him, the old owners, and ourselves was that he would split the water bill with the other tenant and that was written into the lease. The lease actually says he will pay all utilities and then detailed the split of the water bill. The old owners just kept referring to the “water” bill. Well we got the first bill from the utility department of the city and it is four items: water, sewer, storm, and refuse. I got the following text from him today after he and I discussed that I would bill him monthly and send him a picture of the bill. I paid my portion the water bill last night. I believe I'm only responsible for water and utilities under the lease. I think you might have accidentally included the trash and storm fees in there as well, which is not required payment under the less. The bill gives a breakdown of each portion, but aggregates the total amount due. Half of water and sewer (calculated from meter reading "actual use") came to $28.82. Please let me know if you disagree. Thank you. Well I do disagree with him, but I am wondering if you have any advice or insight into a way to say it. I was thinking of saying, “your lease says “All utilities” and this comes from the utilities department. I understood that to mean everything on the bill.” Do you have any thoughts or ideas? My recent thought was the last owner wrote the lease and kept referring to a $120 a month water bill and then that is what they wrote into the lease. So my thinking is they meant that entire bill and not just the water. They referred to it that way with us as well.

@Melonie Dickson how much are you willing to bet there is nothing wrong with it? How much risk are you willing to take? It’s all about bets and how risk averse you are. If gathering the knowledge from an inspector will give you the peace of mind to make the deal and you’re comfortable with it, great. If you’re willing to go into it blind and know it’s still a great deal or bet that it’s a great deal without knowing all of the cards, only you can know that.

Much appreciated! Only number 1 left to handle! The rest of all looking very good.

We have been in discussions on a duplex that is FSBO for about 6 weeks. We are waiting for the taxes to be settled by the county and our cash to be free. Timing is coming together at this moment with cash becoming liquid and taxes are settled. We will be hopefully making an official offer by the end of the week. Both parties are very happy to work together and have worked through many minor details already. What are the steps we need to make sure we are completing for a cash offer and purchase? This is in Ohio. Any state specific laws we need to be aware of? Thanks for your time in reading this and any response you have is appreciated!

@Junior Picanco I think maybey husband and i have gotten confused or some bad info along the line. So we can get a 30 year mortgage even if we don’t live there? Good to know! For some reason we’ve come to think we couldn’t get a loan for an investment property even with 20% down. But I think I know where the confusion is coming from. And who do we talk to about a heloc on a rental property? Just our bank? We’ve also been told that will not happen on a rental.

I’ve been listening to the podcast and watching some of the YouTube videos on BP. I have a couple of financing questions that I’ve wondered this week based on what I’ve seen. @davidgreene mentioned on this week’s podcast that he takes out helocs on all of his properties. How does he do that on a rental? I didn’t think you could take out a heloc on a home you weren’t living in. Second question, I was watching a video on Brandon running the numbers on a potential triplex that would clearly be a rental but he put down a traditional 20% in his calculations. I did not think banks did traditional mortgages on rental investment properties. Does anyone have any insight on this? Was he just putting nice numbers in for the exercise or are there traditional loans out there for investment properties?

@Joe Villeneuve Thanks for the input!

What would you do? Our first property we bought as a personal place to live on a 15 year note from a family member in 2012. We have paid about half of the life of the note obviously. In that time, we moved, kept it as a cash flowing rental and the property has increased in value from 85k to 200k. We have never tapped into the equity in that property and would like to now to do our next deal. Would you refinance it or would you take out a heloc? Would you pay off the note or just keep paying that as its already set up with a 4.5% interest rate?

@Doug Wright great list! Thanks

@David Smit thanks! New windows but good to look at the details and surrounding frame. Built in 1946.