All Forum Posts by: Matt R.

The way I read this...

From 2003 to 2012, the annual tax gradually went up from $2,425.75 to $3,450.19.  The tax was paid on time every year.

In 2013, there was a "school relevy" of $2,469.02, but for some reason, the entire amount of this was credited back, which meant that it didn't increase the taxes owed.

Also in 2013, the tax was paid late, resulting in interest charges in addition to the tax bill.

In 2014, there was another school relevy, that was credited back in full.

Also in 2014, the tax was paid late, resulting in interest charges in addition to the tax bill.

In 2015, there was no school relevy, and the tax was paid on time.

Depending on the dryer design, something like an errant dryer sheet or sock or scrap of fabric may have escaped the drum and fallen into the air piping in the dryer.  In theory, the lint filter should have caught this, but in practice, it happens.  You may need to unplug and take apart the dryer (or have somebody do that) to find it.

One good diagnostic is to run the dryer on "fluff/air" - no heat - to see if you still get the smell.

Keep in mind that the area that it "sees" the temperature of gets wider as you get further away from the surface.  The manual should tell you the width of the area it is measuring, at various distances.  Some of them have an integrated laser pointer, which shows you the center of the area it is measuring, but the total area will be a circle centered on that red dot.  Put an ice cube in the middle of a table and take readings at various distances... if you're next to the ice you'll get pretty close to 32 (or 0), but as you get further away, the temperature will go up.

Also, some materials are better at emitting infrared than others.  If you heated samples of two different materials to the same internal temperature, you would get different amounts of infrared radiation from them.  The measurement of this is called "emissivity" and runs from 0 to 1.  It works out that "most" things have an emissivity of 0.9 or more, so a lot of infrared thermometers used a fixed emissivity value of around 0.9 to 0.95.  Things that are shiny/reflective have lower emissivity, though... if you need to measure things like that, it can help to get a thermometer with adjustable emissivity.

Once you've done everything you can with an infrared thermometer, the next step up is an infrared camera.  These are made by FLIR, who is very, very proud of them.  Usually, somebody like a home inspector buys one for several thousand dollars, and then pays for it a little at a time by using it on many inspections.  You can "see" where the studs are in walls, if a ceiling has water behind it, and even overheated electrical connections.

This has been an interesting read, seeing how renovations work in a rowhouse.  I'm mostly familiar with how suburban single-family houses were built from about the 1960s to the 1980s, so it's just a little different.

Just curious... what's that purple drywall in the basement for?  Extra moisture resistance, more flexible, or special in some other way?

I like the look of the exposed brick next to the stairs, but one thing that comes to mind is that it'd be hard to hang pictures on, without Tapcons or similar.  Does anybody ever do a picture rail molding at the top of the exposed brick, or is the answer just "hang the pictures on another wall"?  :)

Thanks!

In Missouri and Oklahoma, where I know for sure how it works, the property taxes for a particular year are due at the end of that year - 31 December.  The payment in December 2015 covers the taxes from 1 January to 31 December 2015.

If you have a mortgage, some banks want you to pay the taxes monthly to them, along with the principal and interest on the mortgage.  (This is so the bank can make interest on your tax payments.)  The bank just holds on to your tax payments until the end of the year, and then writes a check to the county for the property taxes.

You can also have the option to pay the property taxes yourself.  In that case, the only thing you pay to the bank every month is the principal and interest on the mortgage.  You have to remember to set aside some money for the tax bill, but you don't have to pay that money to the bank.  Some time around the beginning of December, the county sends you the property tax bill.  You usually have until 31 December to pay it to the county.

For the houses I have lived in, I have always opted to pay the property taxes myself.  Banks have been known to forget to pay the property taxes, or to pay the bill for the wrong house, or whatever.  If I pay the property taxes, I get a receipt that says the taxes on my house are paid in full, which protects me in case there are questions later.

One kink on the "due date": in Oklahoma, I had the option of paying all the property tax by 31 December, OR paying half of it by 31 December and the other half by about 31 March the next year.  There was no penalty or interest or fee for doing this; it just made the property tax fit better into people's personal budgets.  Missouri doesn't offer this; I have to pay all the property tax by 31 December.

If you buy a house part way through the year, you only owe property taxes for the part of the year that you own it.  If you bought a house today, and the annual property taxes were $1,200, you'd only pay about $150 for 2015, since you will only own the house for about a month and a half in 2015.

Similarly, if you sell a house part way through the year, you only owe property taxes for the part of the year that you own it.  If you bought a house in 2014, sold it today, and the annual property taxes were $1,200, you'd only pay about $1,050 in 2015, since you will have owned the house for about ten and a half months in 2015.

The way that this works varies in different parts of the country.  I *think* some places will send out two tax bills if the ownership changes - one to the previous owner and one to the new owner.  Each bill covers the amount of time that person owned the house.

Other places only send out one bill a year, and it's up to the owners to work it out.  Continuing the example above, if you bought a house today, and the annual property taxes were $1,200, the seller would give you about $1,050 towards the 2015 property tax.  You would then put $150 of your own money with that and you would pay the $1,200 property tax bill all at once in December 2015.

Similarly, if you bought a house in 2014, sold it today, and the annual property taxes were $1,200, you'd give the buyer about $1,050 towards the 2015 property tax.  The buyer would then put $150 of their own money with that and they would pay the $1,200 property tax bill all at once in December 2015.

There have been a couple of previous threads here about this:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/44/topics/193...

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/125...

Quick version: Knock on doors, talk to neighbors.  Tell them that you want to buy the house, fix it, and resell it.  They may know where you can find the owner or their heirs.  They may not want to give you the info, but they might pass along your information to them.

If the owner died, and they lived in the house, the neighbors can probably tell you about how long ago it was.  Look at the obituaries in the local paper from around that time to see if any relatives are listed.

Sometimes one of the heirs or the executor of the estate has a forwarding order for the deceased person's mail.  Usually this only lasts for 6 months to a year past the time they died.  Send a letter (First Class Mail, not bulk) to the property address and it may get forwarded to someone who can help.  One of the threads above talks about this.

I joined the local real estate investor group (MAREI in Kansas City) and they have a program through Home Depot where you can get a 2% rebate on all your purchases; you have to be an investor group member to get it.  They also have some deals through HD for appliance packages, where you get a deal when you buy a certain model of stove, fridge, dishwasher, etc all at once.  You might see if your local investor group has something similar.  Even if you don't do these, HD has a program where if your total order is over about $2,000 or $2,500, they send it through their pro desk to see if they can improve the pricing.  I think this program is available to anyone.

You should also find out where your local appliance parts distributor(s) are.  They don't usually have complete appliances, but they can help you with parts for your existing ones.  Some of them also sell motors and other furnace parts, plumbing stuff, etc.

There are Web sites that will sell you appliance parts, and it's good to use them as a price reference.  I have found, though, that a cheaper price online, plus shipping, often works out to be more expensive overall than the price at the local parts store plus tax - and that's just getting retail pricing at the local store.  Plus, you get to have it today, rather than waiting for the mail.  Also, sometimes the local store will sell you a fits-all kit of parts for less money than the original part... this is common for things like fan motors, where you can get a kit with a motor and several mounting brackets and just use the bracket you need.

Like everyone else said, fix the roof first.  Get estimates from roofing companies and ask the estimator if the roofing company offers a finance plan.  If they do, compare their terms to what you can get from the bank.

For the windows, check into any energy-efficiency rebates that are available.  Sometimes you can get them from the gas or electric company.  Otherwise, the local or state government may have something.  In 2009-ish there was a federal program that gave you tax breaks on energy efficiency improvements, but I think it may have run out by now.  Sometimes, to get the rebate, you have to have the house inspected first to get approved for a certain rebate amount.  The window salesmen will probably know about the rebates in your area, but research it yourself too.

Did the property ever have a shed, detached garage, or other outbuilding?  In some jurisdictions, those count towards the property tax.  If the outbuilding was torn down, maybe somebody didn't think to update the tax records.

Several years ago, my parents put a storage shed in their backyard.  Their city told them that if the shed sits on the ground, on a poured concrete slab, then it counts towards the square footage for the property tax.  If it was built on a frame sitting up off the ground, then it didn't count.  So it was built with a frame, up off the ground.  :)

If you are local to the property, and the outside shape of the house isn't too complicated, you can ballpark it even before you set foot inside.  For instance, if it's a 25' x 50' rectangle, basement + one floor above, garage in half the basement (and you know garages don't "count" in that jurisdiction), then it can't be more than about (25 x 50) + (25 x 25) = 1,875 square feet.  (If the house has lots of bays and alcoves and stuff in the outer walls, then it's probably simpler to just measure the rooms inside like normal.)

That's the "don't expose your personal email" feature on Craigslist.  When you place an ad, you can have it show your "real" email address (like amy@gmail dot com), or you can check a box and have one of those [email protected] addresses appear in the ad.  It doesn't cost anything to check this box.  If you reply to that craigslist.org email address, Craigslist then forwards your email to the seller's "real" email address.

Scammers can hide behind this, sure.  Legit sellers use this feature too; some people are legitimately worried that if they list an Xbox/TV/car/whatever for sale, and use their real email address, that a bad guy will Google the email address, figure out where they live, and go there to steal the item.

One other thing I've heard of, just from people looking to rent an apartment in my local area: there is a species of Craigslist rental ads that has generic-sounding apartment ads (no address or pictures) for attractive rents.  When you reply, the seller tries to sell you a *list* of apartments that "might" be available, for about $90.  If you actually buy the list and start calling the people on it, you get lots of responses like "What?  No, I've had the same tenant for 5 years, and I'm not looking to change", or "Yeah, I listed that apartment 6 months ago, but I got a tenant in a week", and so on.