All Forum Posts by: Marian Smith

It can cost $500 for a cleaning crew to do a move out clean on a house.  If you allow her $500 then you need move in clean pictures and she then needs to leave the unit in that condition at move out.

 I would tell her to save the photos for her move out...allowing her to skip deep cleaning at move out, hire cleaners for her move out on your dime and add a lease requirement of a receipt from house cleaners and one from carpet cleaners on move out to your lease.  Becoming pretty common requirement to get a professional clean on move in and pay to clean on move out.

@Manjunath NA I think doubling down on a new build is extra risky and might cost you them both if you hit rocky shores. But you will have double the appreciation with two, no doubt. If you sell early, any appreciation will likely go to the realtor. If you are buying in a new community your builder will be your competition both should you want to sell and also if your rental prices are higher than the cost to buy, to a degree. A lot to consider...real estate is easy to get into but can be difficult to exit so you definitely need cash reserves. If builders are allowing investor purchases again does that signal a market top?

@Zach Kracht Downtown Round Rock is zoned multi use or some-such. Businesses and residential are both allowed. But I am not sure what type of businesses are allowed, probably nothing industrial.

@Jeyo Punnakottil I would be concerned about the cleaning issues. Did she clean and bag the 6 bags or leave the cleaning and bagging to the landlord? If she is a slob and he moves out then you are stuck with a slob with too low of income. I don't expect clean freaks but someone who leaves behind 6 bags of garbage is a big risk imo. How difficult is it in your area to evict, in the event the partner moves out? You could lose as much money trying to get rid of her as waiting for someone better.

@Samantha Chouinard Is it a private street or city maintained? Here, anyone can park on a city street. There may be limits on how long a vehicle remains unmoved.

@Jacob Beg We removed a gas insert type fireplace and put in an electric fireplace, one of those long rectangular ones that have glass looking embers that change colors via remote control. And an electric resistance heater with blower. The fireplace itself was $400.

@Emily L. Wiersema You will have to disclose the knob and tube. Call realtors and ask if they have trouble selling houses with knob and tube. I'd hate to do a bunch of work and find out I can't sell without replacing the knob and tube.

@Faycal Bouab Thats what I do. Print the ad. I also write a receipt and take it with me and ask the seller to sign and put a phone number for my records. They have had no problems with that. Sometimes I forget but I still write it off. Never been audited but the system is pretty honors based anyway. Plenty of ways to cheat and a used appliance is not the most lucrative..

@Matthew Slaughter Zinser has a primer called peel stop that you might look into. My home depot sells it.

@Steven Barr Thats a fair question. Ask them. Did they promise the current tenants that if they put up with the hassle of renovation that their rents would not go up? or something. Because if my landlord was going to renovate and raise rents I would move to somewhere already fixed up and not deal with workmen in my place.