All Forum Posts by: Matt R.

The relevant part of my lease looks like this (edited slightly for the bank and city names):

All such payments shall be made to Landlord in one of two ways:

a) By depositing funds into Landlord's bank account at a Foo Bank branch in Suburb or at other Foo Bank branches in the Big City area.  Landlord will provide information on how to make these deposits.

b) By electronic transfer to Landlord via the website cozy.co . This option requires Tenant to have a checking account at a bank in the United States, or a credit or debit card. Payments from a checking account are free; payments from a credit or debit card incur a fee of two and three-quarters percent (2.75%) of the payment amount. Landlord will provide information on how to make these electronic transfers.

One thing that may help, for Home Depot, specifically: see if you can get into their "Pro Xtra" program.  Sometimes it's included in your membership with a local real estate investor's association.  It doesn't immediately give you any cheaper prices, but it does provide some online tools for organizing your purchases.  Basically, you enroll whichever credit or debit cards you buy landlord stuff with in the program, and then anything you buy on those cards shows up when you log in to HD's web site. You can assign a label to each receipt (like "123 Main St" or "northeast bedroom"); it will break down things for you by their categories (electrical, plumbing, paint, etc); and I think you can get it to spit out a CSV or Excel file of your purchases, to save you some typing if you need to pull the data into some other program.

With Pro Xtra, iIf you spend a lot of money at HD (I think it's over $5k/year), then you get some rebates.  Also, if you have a big single order (I think over $2K, but ask them), they can send it to their "bid room" and sometimes get you a little bit better price.

The only recommendation I have as far as a scanner is to try to get a flatbed one.  In my experience, these are better at scanning things that are not 8.5"x11" pieces of paper, like most store receipts.  I don't have much luck with the scanners that are built into the top of a sub-$100 inkjet printer, where you feed the paper through a slot and it emerges an inch later; these tend to give distorted images, for me.  If you get one of those all-in-one printers that has a flatbed scanner on top, possibly with a document feeder for when you do want to scan some 8.5"x11" stuff - like the signed version of a lease - that may work better for you.

I have a really ancient HP flatbed scanner with a document feeder, and a separate ancient HP LaserJet printer, and those have worked for me so far, but I only have one SFR. I don't use an app or anything online to store documents; I just have directories on my PC, which are backed up regularly to an external hard drive.

What does the lease say? Most of them that I have seen have some language that says the tenant is expected to keep the place clean.

You can probably ask the tenant to clean it up; give them some kind of time frame to do so (like, a couple of weeks).  If it's not cleaned up by then, hire a cleaning service to come in and clean it.  Your lease probably lets you charge that back to the tenant - either on the next month's rent, or out of the security deposit - but check it to be sure.

I'm a couple of thousand miles away, but per Home Depot's Web site, at the South Philadelphia store (1651 S Columbus Blvd)...

Veranda Linden 6 ft tall x 8 ft long fence panel, 16 @ $69.74 = $1,115.84

Veranda Linden line post, 17 @ $31.57 = $536.69

Total for those two: $1,652.53 before tax; probably about $1,800 after tax

Add in: bags of concrete to set the posts in, a gate if you need one, a manual post hole digger (or renting a power one)... maybe $2,100 in materials, +/-.

Based on the bids you've been getting, that leaves around $2,400 to $3,400 for labor.  I would guess it would take two people most of an 8-hour day to install that much fence - 16 hours of labor - so that's $150 to $210 an hour or so.

Of course, the workers aren't going to see that much of it; you're paying for their knowledge, insurance, tools, a truck full of bits and bobs they might need to finish the job, etc.

Based on that, I'd guess those bids are maybe a little on the high side.  However, they might also be bidding higher-quality material (thicker plastic, longer warranty), which might mean they're more in the realm of possibility.

When I first had to do taxes for my rental property a couple of years ago, I bought the book "Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide", by Stephen Fishman, J.D., from Nolo Press.  It helped me a lot in figuring out what I needed to do.

Even if you hire an accountant or tax preparer, reading a book like that will help you understand why he or she asks for certain records, or suggests that you do things in a certain way.

I am not affiliated with Nolo.

I agree with the idea of grabbing a window unit or two and heading over there.  While you're there, it might be worthwhile to look the system over yourself; sometimes it's something you can fix for free or for relatively cheap.  Things I have seen happen:

The disconnect (the box on the outside of the house that the 240 V for the A/C is connected to) had fuses in it.  One of them blew.  Fix: replace the fuses (and get a spare pair, too).

Somebody weed-whacked the low-voltage wire to the outside unit.  Temporary fix: wire nuts and electrical tape.  Long-term fix: run a new piece of low-voltage wire from the furnace to the outside unit.

Somebody plugged something in, in the basement, that popped a breaker.  That breaker also fed the furnace.  Fix: Reset the breaker.

Thermostat quit working; the keypad locked up and it wouldn't tell the system to turn on.  Fix: New $35 thermostat from the hardware store.

Everything was running, but the condenser fins on the outside unit were full of dirt, pollen, cottonwood seeds, etc, so the system was blowing warm air.  Fix: Shut off system, power off outside unit at disconnect, hose out condenser (gently) with garden hose and nozzle, let it dry out for a couple of hours, reconnect power outside, turn system on.

I haven't seen this one myself, but it's possible: most furnaces since the late 80s or early 90s have an interlock switch on the blower compartment door; if you take the door off (like to change the filter), it shuts off all the power to the furnace, which also makes the A/C not work.  If you don't get the door reinstalled correctly, it might not close this switch.  Maybe the door came off for some reason (tenant wanted to change a filter; furnace is in closet and something in the closet fell on the door; furnace is in basement/garage and tenant's kid bounced a ball off of the door) and it hasn't been reinstalled correctly.

I'm assuming this is some kind of a residence, with a big lot for the potential shed or RV parking.

How do the shed/RV renters get access to their stuff?  Is there a gate with a lock or key code?  Do you let them have 24/7 access, or do you limit it to "normal" hours, or...?  (The tenants in the house might not appreciate an RV being started up or backed into place at 3 AM, or somebody loading stuff into their shed at 11 PM...)

Do you need security cameras or lighting on the sheds/RVs?  How about an outlet for the RV so the owner can plug in a battery charger, water tank heater, etc?  Can you easily install a meter for this stuff, or do you run it off of the house and give the tenants a small credit for the electricity used, or...?

What if somebody tries to live in the shed, or cook meth in it... does your lease give you the right to enter/inspect?  How about somebody living in their RV while it's parked there?

In a past life, I wrote software for a living.  My advice: don't do this.

If you build a site or app yourself, and you want to take debit or credit cards, you probably need to be PCI DSS compliant.  This is a standard set up by the credit card companies for how you use and secure your customers' credit card data.  I don't know if that also covers ACH transactions; I have a feeling there are probably some specs on that too, maybe from the Federal Reserve.

All these requirements are published, and the ways to meet them are known, but you're not going to meet them on a "hire a 22-year-old kid from Craigslist to cut and paste code from StackExchange" budget; it will be more of a "draw up requirements, shop them around to several webdev companies, figure out which webdev companies actually understand what you want, figure out which of those companies aren't going to outhouse it to another country, hire them, and then argue about the bugs and change orders" budget.  Multiple thousands of dollars and at least a few months, plus ongoing tests and upgrades as the standards change.

That 2.9% that Paypal, Square, etc charge, or the time delay that Cozy charges, is cheap in comparison to doing all that.  (And at $76K a month, you can probably find a card processor that will come down on the fees a little.)

I have a whole domain name and Web site just for my rental business, and I use the email provided by my Web host.  I have four email addresses set up there.  One of them is the name of the street the rent house is on; that's the one I use to talk to the tenants (now) and prospects (when I was advertising it).  (When I get another house, I plan to set up another email address just for that house.)  One is "cozyco", where my payment info comes in from Cozy.  One is "stores", which is the one I give out when I have to sign up for a store account or website related to my business.  The last is "goog", which is the one I set up a Google account with.

It's possible to set up a Google account and not use a Gmail address.  They will still snoop all the stuff you do have with them (like your texts and calls if you use Google Voice), but that makes it harder for them to snoop your email.  Google will bug you sometimes when you log in to set up a Gmail address, but you don't have to.

If you use any kind of webmail service, try to have local copies of your email as well.  That way, if the service goes away, you still have your old emails.  I use Thunderbird on desktop, which creates a file on my PC that has my emails in it.

As far as privacy, it's simplest to assume that any free-to-you "cloud" service is snooping your data, selling it to anyone with money, and giving it to the feds for free.  Some of the pay ones probably are doing all that, too.  :D  (So are Windows 10 and OS X, but that's another discussion...)

Zillow doesn't give an estimate for this house in particular, but their average for New Castle is $65K, and their average for that zip code is $78K.  So if it's listed for $19K and is 116 years old... there's something wrong with it.  :)

The county tax history is kind of interesting. https://beacon.schneidercorp.c... The county valued it at $89K until 2016, then $53K in 2017 and 2018, and now $22K in 2019. So why did it drop off like that?  County valuations are not always super accurate, but they can give you some kind of idea - so just based on that, it may need somewhere between $34K and $70K of renovations.

It also looks like it may have gone to a sherriff's sale in 2013 and got bought by Fannie Mae, who then sold it in 2015 to someone, who is presumably the current seller.

Until I knew different, I would assume:

- you need to replace the roof (shingles), and possibly the wood under the shingles too.  From the pictures, you also need to fix some of the wood under the eaves.  Probably a few thousand dollars.

- you need to do work on the foundation.  This varies a lot, from maybe a couple of thousand dollars to tens of thousands.

- you need to rewire the whole house.  The photos of the bedrooms show only a couple of outlets, which often means that it still has some knob-and-tube wiring.  If original, the insulation on that wiring is at about three times its design lifetime.  The main fuse/breaker panel has probably been replaced since the house was built, but don't assume that the wiring has been replaced just because the panel is new.  Maybe three or four thousand dollars for the materials - plus labor if you don't DIY.

- you need to insulate all of the outer walls.  The house was probably built without any insulation at all.  It may have had some added over the years, but maybe not everywhere, and probably not that much.  You can estimate this yourself by figuring the area of the outside walls, and then pricing rolls of R-whatever insulation at the friendly local home store.

- you need to get rid of all the lead-based paint.  This involves plastic sheeting, fans, bunny suits, and a place to dispose of the stuff you tear out.  If you have to hire it done, figure on several thousand dollars.  Even if you DIY, plan on a thousand or so for the sheeting, bunny suits, disposal, etc. 

One thing that works in your favor, is that if you plan to demo all the plaster and put up new drywall, that makes rewiring and adding insulation much easier.  Demoing the plaster also takes care of most of the lead paint.

I agree with the idea of keeping the wood floors, if possible.  Also keep the woodwork on the first floor - those nice doorways and doors.

Free advice:

Hire a home inspector on your own (not one recommended by a realtor), and get one that has experience inspecting houses that old. Pay the trip charge for them to come out from Indianapolis if you have to.

If you're going to make this a rental, check to see what the city requires for that.  If you're doing a full-gut renovation, they may require things like AFCI circuits in the bedrooms and wired smoke detectors.  Usually the things they want aren't particularly hard to install, but it's better to know about them ahead of time.  They may also want it to be professionally de-leaded, which is expensive.

If you're going to make this a rental, consider blocking off the fireplace. Ask your insurance agent how much this helps.