All Forum Posts by: Matt R.

I use Cozy (which is similar to Tellus), and I mention it as one of two possible payment options in my lease.  The other option is them depositing the money at my bank.

When I was showing the property to potential tenants, if they got serious enough to want an application, I did mention the two possible methods of payment, and that they would need a bank account to use Cozy.  As far as I remember, that didn't really seem to raise any objections, but I figured it was better to tell them up front.

Does the city (or county, if it's a really small town) have some kind of economic development office?  Sometimes they know of businesses that are looking to expand, or can help with marketing your property.

Some retail chains have a "submit your property for consideration" link on their Web site somewhere.  When you're picking a chain, think about whether you've seen other stores in that chain in buildings that weren't built for them, or if they always build their own building, like Walmart.  When you submit your property, give them the address, square footage, year built, number of parking spaces, traffic counts (if you know them), what other stores are within a mile or two, and so on.

If you just got this unit, sometimes the electric utility can tell you what the usage was like in past summers. You may have to go to their office or customer service center in person and ask, and maybe bring a copy of the deed or mortgage, to show that you own the property.

Assuming it's central air, go to the place and take a new filter with you.  Install the new filter no matter what, but take a look at the old one, and inside the furnace, before you close it back up.  Is it full of dust or pet hair or something?  Maybe the filter needs to be changed more often.  If the blower wheel is plugged up full of hair, get an HVAC tech out to clean it.

Go around the house to all of the air vents, and make sure the flaps in them are open (use the little handle/lever/knob that sticks out of the grille), and that they don't have a rug or furniture or something blocking them off.

Sometimes people will turn the thermostat down and then close the vents to try to regulate the temperature - if this goes on long enough, the evaporator (A-coil, inside coil) can get ice on it, which really blocks the air flow.  Unfortunately the coil is inside the ductwork and hard to see without taking stuff apart, but if you see ice or frost on the outside of the coil, or on the copper Freon lines at the furnace, that may be what's happening.  The fix is to open up the vents and set the thermostat to "fan only" for a few hours to melt the ice - this will cause water to drip around the furnace, so maybe have some towels or a shop-vac ready to clean it up.

If the outside unit has never been cleaned, sometimes it will cause the A/C to work harder.  It can get plugged up with dirt, pollen, seeds (are there cottonwood trees around?), bugs, etc.  The fix for that is usually shutting off the power at the box on the side of the house where the cable from the A/C connects, hosing it out with a garden hose (use a wide spray nozzle rather than a thin "laser beam" of water, so you don't bend up the fins on the condenser), letting it dry out for a couple of hours, and then turning the power back on.  If you can, do this in the evening or on a cooler day, because the A/C will be off for a couple of hours while you do it.

If none of that helps, it might be time to get an HVAC tech out.  He or she can see if you have a Freon leak, or if there is some other problem.  Plan on at least $100 for the service call, plus any parts they have to replace.

I wouldn't do the electric baseboard heat anywhere it would be needed more than a few weeks a year - so unless the house is in, say, Miami, Houston, Phoenix, etc, then I wouldn't do it.  It's cheap to install but expensive to run.  I know the tenants probably pay the electric bill, not you, but it can become an issue if it makes your unit a lot more expensive to live in than the competition.

Is the broken heat pump central?  If so, why not put in another central heat pump?  (Maybe that's what the other HVAC companies will quote.)

Do you have gas (I beg your pardon)?  If so, it's possible to do a central heat pump with a gas furnace, if you want.  The heat pump provides the heat in the spring and the fall, but when it gets really cold in the winter, the gas furnace automagically fires up.

The HVAC salescritters should know about it, but it's probably worthwhile to check with the local utility companies to see if they have any rebate programs, and what it takes to qualify for them.  Sometimes you can get money for installing a more efficient furnace or A/C; sometimes they will also pay rebates for better insulation, windows, door weatherstrips, etc.  Sometimes, for the furnace and A/C rebates, you need to have a tech test your old system before it's removed (or at least note the model number if it's broken); sometimes you just need to write down the old and new model numbers on a form.

If there are any end walls in the attic, and the outside is vinyl or wood siding, it's possible to remove a strip of the siding near the top, drill holes in the outside wall, blow loose insulation into each stud cavity, plug the holes, and put the siding back.  If the end wall is a small part of the total wall/roof area up there, this may not be worthwhile, but if it's a big end wall it might help a little.

I kind of dodged the light bulb thing by putting in LED bulbs or fixtures every place I could.  In nearly two years of having it rented, I've had exactly one failure of an LED bulb.  I sent the tenants an email that I wanted to come over for a regular maintenance visit, and they mentioned the burned-out bulb; I brought another one and swapped it while I was already there for other things.

The bulbs that burn out the most on me are the incandescent globes over the bathroom mirror; I like the look enough that I haven't switched these to LED.  I left them some spare bulbs when they moved in, and they would swap them if one burned out, but eventually they ran out of spares; they wouldn't call me just to change the bulbs, but they would mention it if I was coming over for maintenance.  I finally figured out to bring enough to do the whole fixture, plus a couple of spares, anytime one was burned out, and just leave the spare ones at the house.

LED bulbs are cheap enough now that they probably won't disappear from the fixtures on you.  The lower energy usage might be a selling point for some prospective tenants, too.

I am fairly sure you can get mechanical locks that are always locked from the outside.  In other words, you always need the key to get in from outside.  From the inside, you can always grab the handle and open the door without a key (which is a fire/life safety thing), but you can't get back in without a key.

Put locks like that and a door closer on the doors that you don't want to give out keys to might help your concern that the tenants will leave those doors unlocked.

I wouldn't send a complete SSN over email to anybody.  The driver's license number is not as critical, in my opinion, but it's still probably not a good idea to randomly send it out.  You might not need the full birthday for a landlord reference, but it might be a good idea to list at least the year, to filter out any obvious mismatches (for example, prospective tenant was born in 1995, making him 23 or 24 today, but you rented to a 47-year-old man).

Encrypted email has been available, for free, since at least the early 1990s, but hardly anyone uses it.  A live voice phone call (not voicemail) might be the most readily available, reasonably secure way to transfer data like this, if you really need to.

Disclaimer: I only have one property so far. I am not affiliated with any sites mentioned.

I use Cozy.co for background checks and collecting rent. The tenants have Cozy pull the money out of their checking account, and then Cozy puts it in my bank account a few days later.  This doesn't cost me anything.  Cozy also offers a credit report and background check service that costs money.  I wrote a detailed post about it here:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

They did pay cash for the security deposit and first month's rent. They asked about this ahead of time and I agreed; I printed up a receipt and then dated and signed it once I had the cash in hand.

Something I forgot to mention before:  I have seen toilet and sink connectors, and washing machine hoses, that have a valve in one end that are supposed to shut off the flow if the attached device starts using "too much" water.  I think these are simple mechanical valves, so they probably won't help will small leaks, but might help if something breaks wide open downstream of the valve.  I've never tried one, but they're usually on the shelf at the local hardware store, for a few bucks more than a plain connector or hose.

My opinion: It's a neat idea, but not at that price, for most houses.  There is also a little bit of a privacy issue.

There isn't $500 or $900 worth of stuff in either device.  I think you're probably paying $150-$200 for the water valve and then $350 to $750 for the insurance policy that comes with it.

For $500, you could probably replace all the shut-off valves and flexible connectors (like from the wall to the toilet, or from the wall to the sink faucets), in most reasonably-sized rental houses.  You could probably also replace the toilet fill valves, and buy at least one pretty nice new faucet for that money.  I think that might be a better investment against possible leaks

It looks like the valve uploads data through a Wi-Fi connection to somebody else's computer.  Once it's there, the water usage data will be sold to Google and Facebook, and given to the federal government for free.  The fact that you can get neat graphs on your phone is just a side benefit.  (I realize most people don't care about this, but I figured I would point it out.)

Places where I think something like this might be a good idea are...

A summer house / vacation house / short-term rental that doesn't always have somebody living in it every day, especially if it's somewhere where it can freeze in the winter.  You might not notice that you have a broken pipe in these until a neighbor (if available) notices, or you get the water bill.

A really old house with dodgy plumbing - like, old galvanized pipe that is starting to corrode, but for some reason, you don't want to replace the pipe.  I still think it might be money better spent to replumb as much as you can with copper or PVC, rather than on this device - especially if it's possible for you to do the work yourself.

A house where the plumbing is in an unheated crawl space, in a location where it can freeze in the winter.  Even then, $500 buys you a lot of pipe insulation and heat tape.