All Forum Posts by: Kyle Meyers

Michael,

For the new water line, my plumber works with someone who does that work and was able to get everything set up. All I had to do was make a phone call, and now I will have to pay the bill. I am going to the property today to see how everything turned out, but I spoke with my plumber last night and he was able to test all of the water lines and said everything is working fine.

I have been looking for an easy way to create a floor plan for my rentals to put with the ads online. Does anyone know a good program or website to do this?

A couple hours ago I kept getting logged out and then got the ruby rails error. I haven't had a problem yet in the last few minutes I've been back on the site.

I would check with a lawyer. This has to do with jurisdiction and venue. I think anyone who wanted to sue you for something you do in CA would have no trouble proving that they can sue you in CA (jurisdiction) and that it is the best place to do so (venue). I am not a lawyer, so I am not positive about this, but I recently took a law class and these issues were some of the first things we discussed.

Jennifer,

I don't have the contact info for you, but there are a lot of services that do this. Do a quick google search to find some more information. I was trying to start a business a couple years ago that would require a call center and spoke with several services. I would also recommend looking for services that take the after hours calls for electricians, plumbers, etc. They may be able to offer the kind of service you are looking for.

If you don't need an actual person to answer the phone, you could use google voice for free and they will send you a text message and email with the voicemail transcribed for you.

I'm having my water lines from the street to my newest property in Indianapolis redone today. I had the water company out about a month ago and they told me I needed to get a special pipe to put the meters in, so I had my plumber do that. Then last week, the water company called to tell me that they couldn't turn water on and I would have to replace the pipe from the street to the house. Since it is a duplex I have to run two lines and it is costing about 3000 and holding back everything else. My plumber told me it might just be that the city wants the the curb side meters and so they won't hook it up until I put those in, but I thought they would have told me that the first time I had them out. Good luck getting everything done. I found IPL much easier to work with that Indianapolis Water.

I think it is just personal preference. I've had some contractors break it apart, others just give me a total. For one of my properties I bought most of the materials myself and hired contractors just for labor, now I am having contractors provide most of their own materials. I still buy the design materials (tile, lights, door knobs) but the basic materials I just have them buy and it's included in the quote.

I would just ask the contractor to do the quote whichever way you want it done.

My contractor for my current fix up has been happy with being paid weekly for the jobs he has done, our contract has all the specific tasks listed out with prices for each. I meet him once a week and we go through what is completed, and what he is doing next, sometimes we find another project that needs to be done (fix the hole in the bathroom floor that we found when we moved the tub over). I haven't had any problems with this system, he did ask me for some money for materials before he goes out to buy the paint, but everything else he hasn't required anything upfront. I have worked with several other contractors, most of them want a small amount for materials and then payment at completion for the rest of the work, but I think on a longer job, the weekly payments make more sense.

I also have been able to build up trust between myself and my contractors, I can call them and make add something else and they can get started without a contract in writing, then I just sign something the next time I see them, or just pay if the work is completed.

I am pretty new to this whole thing, but it seems to be working so far.

I think one difference between being a shareholder of a company and the sole owner is that you are making all the decisions. My understanding is that someone may be able to successfully sue you for a decision you made, not based on your ownership. Since I make all the decisions for my investing, I would not really get much benefit from the llc (I think). If you don't make all the decisions or have employees, I would definitely think and LLC makes a lot more sense. I really don't know, this is just based on things I have read and people I have talked to. In any case, it is at least another layer of protection, I think I am ending up with the decision that the level of protection I think it would provide in my situation is not worth the hassles I would have.

I think I am going to just keep everything in my name for now. It doesn't really seem worth it to get the llc for me right now. I am keeping it in mind for later on. As I get more properties, I will think about whether it makes sense for me to set it up.