All Forum Posts by: Melissa Steinour

Hi - I am a newbie and I purchased my first rental property this June.  I am in a college town. When I got my landlord insurance for the property they asked if it would be a student rental and I said no... my vision was to put young couples/families in it.   My bottom unit is filled with a 57 year old single lady. The top unit I am having problems to fill I think due to 2nd floor and no laundry. However, I do have 2 college students who would like to rent it.  They do not seem like the party type of kids at all.  (more anti-social).   But I am wondering if I rent to them, with the one mother co-signing, would there be a problem with my insurance if there was a claim, due to them also being "students"?    

Hi - I just purchased an under/over duplex. Unfortunately the natural gas and the borough water/sewer/trash is not separated.   Therefore, I have to do my best to divide the bills as fairly as possible.   Would it be best to build these expenses into the rent (making the rents look a little higher than market value) or can I still bill my tenants monthly for gas and quarterly for the W/S/T even though I can't produce a "bill" for them to see for their particular sides usage?  

I would appreciate any advice on this... 

Hi - I just purchased an under/over duplex that was previously a duplex (years ago), used as single family last and we are turning it back to a duplex. The doors that were taking off are still available to turn it back into a duplex.

The are exterior doors on the side of house for both units. However entering in the front door will now be a common area. Tennant B would go up the steps to enter their apartment. Tennant A would go into a door to the right and enter their living room but the door we have for that one is a french style door with windows. I cannot find anything to say in Pennsylvania what the code is for this. However, I am wondering if we should put a solid door there for tenant privacy/security or would it be appropriate to use the french style doors, put locks on them & just blackout or frost the windows so tenant B cannot see into tenant A's apartment when entering the common foyer through the front door? Any thoughts on this?

Hi - I just purchased an under/over duplex that was previously a duplex (years ago), used as single family last and we are turning it back to a duplex. The doors that were taking off are still available to turn it back into a duplex.   

 The are exterior doors on the side of house for both units.  However entering in the front door will now be a common area. Tennant B would go  up the steps to enter their apartment. Tennant A would go into a door to the right and enter their living room but the door we have for that one is a french style door with windows.  I cannot find anything to say in Pennsylvania what the code is for this.   However, I am wondering if we should put a solid door there for tenant privacy/security or would it be appropriate to use the french style doors, put locks on them & just blackout or frost the windows so tenant B cannot see into tenant A's apartment when entering the common foyer through the front door?    Any thoughts on this? 

I did forget to mention the square footage of this property is 4312.  It is a quadplex with 3 bedrooms and 1 bath for 2 units and 2 bedrooms and 1 bath for the other two above. 

Hi - I am looking at possibly purchasing a quadplex in Shippensburg, PA. This is my FIRST rental property. I am wondering how I can estimate the cost of property insurance? The mortgage lender quoted me 1200 per year but he quotes that for duplexes and this is a quadplex which I'm assuming would be higher. Also since I don't have an LLC, I was thinking it might be important to have an extra policy for liability coverage. Does this get coupled with the property insurance or is that a separate rider and I have no idea how much that would be as well? I'm looking for some info on numbers so I can make sure this property will cashflow enough to purchase it. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions. To answer some of the questions, I do not mind doing "management work" for rental properties.  I love office work/book keeping and I would actually enjoy that part of it.  However, my husband and I are honestly not great at repair work and would most likely be hiring out for repairs, upkeep, etc.   

The income we would like to get from the properties would not be to live on 100% but would be more supplemental to help us live better so to speak.  But of course doing as well as possible with cashflows would be best I know.   I think I have reservations about going into "debt" with mortgages....I like being debt free!    

My husband and I have recently inherited 200K and are trying to decide the best way to invest this money for the future. We are in a unique situation because I am 51 and my husband is 69. Therefore, we realize our future investments need to potentially last longer than most.   We are thinking about investing in rental properties - possibly 3 - and allowing the rents to pay the mortgages with time, but realize we may not see money for years from that. Or would it be more wise to pay cash outright for one property, a  tri or a quadplex, to allow more of an immediate cash flow at our age?  Or should we invest in something other than real estate?