All Forum Posts by: Michael D.

I completely disagree. A person upfront about charging you for his time has respect for both his time and yours. Someone trying to take advantage will offer to do a walkthrough for "free," hoping to skin you later.

That being said, $500 does seem a little on the high side - but remember, it's a couple of hours at the house and another few hours back at the office putting things together. Not completely unreasonable for someone whose time is justifiably valuable.

He's probably as skeptical of you as you are of him. Ask him how many times he's done free walkthroughs for people, giving them a plan and a shopping list, and learned that they farmed it out to someone else or did it themselves.

Here's something to consider: If the decision is close, then it probably doesn't matter much over a number of trials.

I.e. Assuming you're having a tough time making this decision, then just pick one and don't lose sleep over it.

To what extent can putting things into a non-revocable trust help?

Michael

Sounds like wisdom won the hard way. I can't imagine why he'd actively try to steer you wrong (maybe I'm naive). I'd want to have a few more conversations with this fellow over lunch - on me - to learn more about what he did and what went wrong.

Caleb Green, I think this is simple:

It's about having options. Once you pay down the principal you cannot get the money back without some grief (selling, financing, etc). And it's even worse if you actually NEED it for something.

If you're not sure, just put the money in a bank account. You can ALWAYS give it to the bank later if you want to, but maybe you'll think of something else you'd rather do and be glad you have it available.

Keep your options open. You'll be glad you did (but neither one of us knows why - yet).

I disagree - I think verbal offers ARE worth the paper they're printed on.

And define "Come to find out..."

You need to figure out how likely it really will happen.
The seller told you - 10%
Some guy at the city told you - 50%
An official from the city promised - 80%

I rent a house that is worth about $750k. I treat it with greatest care - just like I would my own. And I'm not a renter because I can't or won't take care of a place. We take off our shoes to come inside. I take good care of the yard. I pay rent a week early.

And I have a few oil spots in my driveway. Evict me?! Go ahead.

Lots of good advice from everybody - thanks!

As far as putting tenants in charge of repairs, this 9-unit property is managed by a large PM and a considerable flight from where I live. Nobody really "put him in charge" per se, but the PM didn't go out in person either. I don't know if it would have turned out differently if the PM or I was there personally. I come from an operations background, so I tend to be excruciatingly careful about what goes where. Unplug the wrong cable and millions can't get to their web page...

I guess I'm going to chalk this one up to lessons learned and pay up.

It also sounds like the $650 water heater is at worst a little on the high side, so I won't worry about that too much. In fact the first (wrong) one was only $625, I guess since it was electric.

Oh well, thanks as always everyone!

I had a 3rd floor tenant of mine call in about his hot water not working. This is what happened. (names changed).

Day 1:
- Plumber sent out Frank, who arrived onsite and met the tenant.
- The tenant showed Frank where the hot water heater was downstairs in the basement, which Frank saw to be leaking. This water heater was labeled "3rd
floor"
- Frank replaced this water heater and left.
- This turned out later to have been the water heater for the 2nd floor - the WRONG one.

Day 2:
- Tenant realizes that he still doesn't have hot water, and calls up angry.
- Plumber is called back to the building.
- This time Steve (boss man) goes out himself.
- The new water heater is electric, so Steve starts by checking the breakers which are fine.
- He then checks the water heater itself, and finds it to be hot and working fine.
- Steve starts to realize at this point that the wrong water heater was replaced on day 1.
- Steve goes up to the apartment and leaves the hot water running in the kitchen so that he can trace it down, but does not further explore the apartment due to a pit bull (I though we don't allow those!)
- Steve goes back down to the basement and hears the water running in an old, leaking, rusty, can't-believe-it's-working water heater off to the side. This water heater was labeled "2nd floor"
- Steve asks Frank to come back later to replace the old water heater now known to be for the 3rd floor.
- Frank comes back later and replaces the correct water heater.
- Since Steve knew that other 3rd floor apartments have the water heater in the unit, he asks Frank to investigate this while he's there.
- Frank looks around and confirms that there is no water heater inside 3rd floor unit, then leaves.

I guess I'm just going to have to suck it up and pay for both water heaters. I initially wanted to blame the plumber, but after hearing from him that the tenant showed him the wrong one, which was also mislabeled, I don't see how I can. I could try to blame the tenant, but I can't charge him for it the extra one - it's 1.5 months rent ($650)

Thoughts?