All Forum Posts by: Lee G.

I'd agree with everything that has been said... You never know when your relationship with your tenants will go south. The last thing you want to deal with is a pissed tenant standing on your door. Having a separate address also cements the fact in everyone's mind -- yours and the tenant's -- that this is a business and a business relationship. Many landlords loose grasp of the business angle of this and treat their rentals as a play thing. Never forget that your job is to provide clean, high quality housing. Your tenant's job is to take care of your assets and pay rent.

What are you looking to do with it? I've played around with it but it tends to be expensive...

What you are describing is a standard landlord's insurance policy. Just call the agent who does your home and tell him you are looking for a landlord's policy.

We insure for the replacement cost of the building, 6 months lost rents, and your standard repair stuff that you would see in your homeowner's policy. We don't cover anything for the tenants. They are warned sternly in their lease to obtain renter's insurance and within their move-in packet. We have most of our policies with State Farm.

We did cookies from costco for our tenants this year. I just left them outside their units with a card that said happy holidays. I got a number of calls thanking me for it.

William is right- you tenants are customers. Take care of your customers and they will take care of you. That said, we did pass out an eviction notice. It goes both ways.

It's your usual rehab strategy -- buy low, fix and sell after awhile. It works but some of the stuff in his books is BS.

I have to agree with what Tim said, Hal. Everything you said is setting you up for a bad experience.

I just bought a 4 plex that's adjacent to another property of mine. I unfortunately inherited a bunch of subprime tenants. Fortunately, most signed short leases with me so they can be moved along quickly.

Anyway, what would you do in this situation?

Got a call from one tenant (who I'm evicting for not paying rent) saying the cops showed up and busted the tenants in another unit for pot. My lease says I can evict immediately without the right to cure for any illegal activity. I suspect it's a first offense so they'll loose their driver's license for 6 months, get a steep fine and get probation.

So laugh? Cry? Evict? I guess I have the full spectrum of grief right there.

Dunno. All my stuff is in town. For my tenants, I allow pets but they are responsible for any damage the pets do, even if it exceeds their deposits. I would ask for the stars, moon and sky and see what happens. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Frozen pipes are a real bear. I have a laundry room and last year, the pipes out there froze. Cost me $200 to get it working again. Got really lucky in that the pipes didn't burst. This is a good idea... need to get something worked out for that room.

I look more at cash on cash returns of a property that's 2-4 units. I am typically looking for more an 12% cash on cash returns initially. You might talk to your realtor and have them provide a list of recent solds from the MLS. I know with the MLS in my area, the rents are usually in the listings. You can then get a feel for what things are worth after analyzing the properties.

Kudos to you -- you are asking the right questions. Too many investors buy without looking at the numbers or they look at net cash flow without looking at what that means.