All Forum Posts by: Matthew Banks

are you only working in Tennessee or would you consider NY?

 Thanks Andrew, Really appreciate it!!

Real estate agents with experience are the professionals, and from an agent's perspective it's often the investors who aren't. It sounds like you don't know how to work with agents, how to filter for an agent that is right for you, or how you need to work with them as a partner, so that you aren't just focused on yourself. If you come across as selfish and ignore those on your team, you shouldn't expect to make any progress in this industry.

An agent isn't going to send you amazing 'deals' just because you ask them to. If they're any good, they will take down any deal they find themselves or send it to a preferred list of people they have already been working with, who they trust to respond quickly, close reliably, solve problems effectively, and be pleasant to work with.

You come across as rather arrogant in your posts. Might want to tone it down if you genuinely want to learn from others, unless you just think you know everything, in which case you shouldn't be posting questions or voicing frustration, as you'd have solved everything and have a well-oiled operation in place....

So apparently many insurers won't give us insurance for a property that has students (undergrads or grads) living in it. Any recommendations for an insurer that will?

Thanks!

I've done a number of BRRRRs, managing contractors and my own sweat equity, and see opportunities for more BRRR/flips. I'd love to move into this full-time but not sure how to structure the initial crew, compensation and insurance.

What size/type of contractor crew should I put in place to get things going (for 1-3 fam heavy cosmetic that does not require structural work, $300-500k ARV)? Core crew of 3 people min? Rough carpenter? Finish carpenter? flooring contractor? tile expert? (painter, electrician and plumber are all a given but they are focused and supplemental to the more major rough and finish work) Hourly rate range?

I assume we'd start on 1099 basis at least for a while until we feel stable enough to offer employment. If I'm the GC, and they are 1099,  would I still need worker's comp or would they be responsible for it themselves? I'd have a liability insurance policy but would they also need one?

**Sorry for the newbie sounding ques, but despite doing these projects for a while p/t, I'm struggling to figure out how to setup a steady operation.

@Nathan Gesner while we try to use a spreadsheet to track bills, it isn't proving very reliable, and ends up taking multiple spreadsheets. We have to manually log the issue/damage, then enter each bill once we've done the work, then we have to track whether the tenants reimbursed us or not, then we have to pull together the water bills from another expense tracking sheet, and then re-organize everything per property or per tenant to be able to generate a summary report (which we are required to provide to tenants). This just isn't quick and it is error prone. If my partner forgets to update any step, then we end up with an error and tenants will complain. I've had to issue several adjustments after the fact. We just started using Baselane, and perhaps we could lean on that more to be able to track the expenses, categorize them per property/per tenant/mark as 'tenant expense'/mark as 'tenant reimbursed' or 'tenant unreimbursed', and then create a security deposit balance report, that would pull everything together.

I'm just looking for advice from someone that has already figured out a simple and standard way to handle this. Thanks

We have just 5 properties, but with turnover each year, it is very time-consuming to figure out security deposit refunds net of any deductions. We use a spreadsheet to track any deductions for issues caused by tenant damage. Then we also have to track water bills to ensure tenant reimburses us for paying them.

Is there an easier and more automated way to track and quickly tally the security deposit refund due to a tenant? We use baselane, so is there a simple process with accounting software that would make this easy?

Thanks!!!!

 Hey Jamie, good suggestion!! We're trying it now and so far, so good!

Is there a recommended option for washer/dryer that doesn't require coins/bills but instead takes phone pay or a card, so that both tenants and prop managers don't have to deal with coins and bills? Our tenants break our machines so often that we need to charge per use, but I would really prefer not to deal with coins and cash. Thanks!!!!!

We have several 1-2 family rentals in a neighborhood that gets a mix of students, grads, and professionals. The competitors all provide washers/dryers, some free and some coin-operated. We have washer/dryers as well, but are constantly having to do repairs. The tenants are likely over-stuffing them. I'd like to charge a per use fee to at least help recover the cost of repairs each year or buy new machines. I'd strongly prefer to have a cash-less payment mechanism though, ideally a phone or a card that you can add funds to with a credit card or phone, so that tenants aren't forced to use coins or cash bills. (It's a modern inconvenience to force tenants to get coins or bills from a bank, and then we're also stuck handling coins as well.) Anyone have recommendations for options? We have 2 pairs of washers/dryers that are currently coin operated that we could convert. And we have non-commercial machines in the other properties that I'd like to convert to a pay per-use.