All Forum Posts by: Mike F.

Such a loaded question. Part of the problem is the window replacement industry is one of the most dirty industries in home improvement, very similar to used car salesmen. The stories are endless of one person on a block paying $8000 for all new windows and another practically identical house on the block paying $20,000 for all exact same new windows.

So your means of buying and getting the windows installed can really affect whether this is a good idea or not. On one end of the equation it would probably be a no-brainer that it would make sense if you were buying all the windows at wholesale and either installing them all yourself or paying someone hourly to do it. This would yield you a very cost effective renovation that would have a great chance of being worthwhile to you over time.  If on the other hand you were going to be paying retail prices through a window company and you end up paying inflated prices, then this would end terribly for you.

Windows can cost a homeowner so much that no matter what type of BS they try to tell you about pay back, you'll never see the payback on them. But on the other hand if you can get them cheaply and installed affordably the payback numbers become a bit more realistic.

Kohler Cimarron, have installed close to 1200 of them, almost zero call backs.

Every manufacturer has a toilet targeted at being user friendly (non-clogging) with the EPA 1.6 gal flush requirement.

You really can't go wrong with a Kohler Cimarron, an American Standard Champion or a Toto Drake, these are all designed to compete with each other in this category. They all are available as one or two piece designs, round or elongated, and either 1.6 or 1.2 gal flushes. You'll likely find the Cimarron to be the lowest priced of the three but this might vary upon your location.

I think you have every right to demand retainage as a real estate investor as long as you're also a government agency or it's a commercial project. Other than that, any contractor who agreed to retainage for residential renovations is either very inexperienced, dumb or has the intent to defraud you anyways and will agree to whatever you want up front with no intentions of ever completing your project.

Doing due diligence on your vendors and hiring based on reputation instead of price are two things that will positively affect the outcome of your project and relationship more than relying on contract maneuverings that are out of place for the industry. When people come up with or demand strange things like retainage or bonds(another one thrown around a lot) in residential construction it shows you're inexperienced in the transaction and probably just reciting something you read online or in a book and misinterpreted it due to inexperience.

Contracts and dealing with your vendors should be win/wins for each parties. In residential construction a simple payment schedule tied to progress with a final payment of 10% upon substantial completion is the norm. In my neck of the woods retainage is for commercial construction or dealing with municipalities, the vast majority of contractors dealing only in residential work likely don't even know what retainage is.

 The majority of contractors don't charge. The ones who do are usually well worth it, they are professionals and have figured out thier time is limited and valuable. The 80 /20 rule never fails. People who are at the top of their game can do things that the rest can't like --charge a fee.  In 30 years of experience I can count on one hand the number of times a homeowner who picked the highest bidder made a mistake in doing so, the amount of people who took the lowest bidder and ended up with problems is infinite. The best get paid what they are worth and they have practices that the rest find eye brow raising. You said yourself this person checks out.

 Almost the same thing, just a different approach. One of the main issues with a cross over, under vanity type like the OP has is you need an electrical outlet for the pump, most vanities don't already have an outlet located inside of them. Putting the pump at the hot water heater eliminates this issue as the odds are much higher that near the hot water heater where the pump is located in your system there is a greater chance of an outlet nearby.

 That system is not really fool proof. If the home only had one pipe that ran to one faucet it would do what you believe it's doing in protecting the water line from freezing, but homes have multiple water destinations, kitchen sink, dishwasher, ice maker, bathtub, vanity faucet, showers, toilets etc...with multiple water line branches.

That system works only as a localized system on the trunk line or water line that is in direct line from the place you have it installed, back to the water heater, there are other water lines that branch off from the water heater at some point and odds are greatly not in your favor that you're pulling the water from those lines and recirculating it.  Just food for thought.

I'd be surprised to learn that you can legally automatically renew a tenants lease without their approval. I'd imagine if a tenant didn't return your notice to vacate that you'd have nothing to legally stand on beyond that the tenants lease automatically turned into a MTM term.

With such great relationships with your tenants that you have, why don't you simply tweak your renewal system, in a way that monetarily incentivizes your tenants to get their paperwork back to you?

For instance if you have a tenant paying $800 a month and their lease is up for renewal, why not just send them the renewal paperwork with the new lease at $820, and a clause reminding them that without a signed lease they revert to month to month and the month to month rent is $900 a month?

I think you'd see your renewals returning their paperwork much faster and in the mean time if they drag their feet, you're being finacially compensated for their procrastination. Almost all issues with tenants seem to be resolved easier if you employ a method that involves the carrot and the stick.

 Three words -L.S.D - large security deposit.  On a typical rental property of ours that rents for say $1100 a month, the security deposit is $2500, 1st months rent and security is due by certified funds, no move in unless all paid in full. In addition you stay on top of a brand new tenant in those most important first 3 months of the lease, keep them in line, watch out for any warning signs, squash any issues like a bug and be ready to evict at one false move made by them.

I don't  put a lot of faith in 'collectable' versus 'uncollectable' tentants as almost everyone is uncollectable to one degree or another. If I only rented to guaranteed 'collectable' tenants I'd have no tenants. 

Not saying you don't screen tenants based on legitimate and legal qualifications, but I'll take any stripper, hair stylist, waitress etc... with a good set of verifiable rental references over just a blanket policy. 

As I have to explain to friends all the time when they get good laughs about stories I tell them about past tenants and the crazy stuff they do- Renters are renters for a reason. I try to always keep that in mind and perspective. If they didn't have their own special set of issues they would be home owners instead of renters in the first place.

Not sure what the reasoning is behind your desire to do all this, maybe as you hinted for legal reasons has something to do with it. But like most of the answers you got hinted at, really nobody goes down the road you're going. 

In reality, inquiries are really worthless, only qualified showings really matter. Like some here, we book multiple prospects at the same time. Usually anywhere from 3-5 people booked to see the property at the same time. Not everyone shows up to a showing so booking multiple prospects avoids wasting your valuable time waiting around for someone who never shows. I personally wouldn't spend any time mining inquiries, with the right property, priced correctly and advertised correctly you should be aiming to make the phone ring with qualified prospects not just trying to get the phone to ring as many times as possible. I'd much rather spend my time with 5 qualified prospects than 50 unqualified ones.

 Cash investing takes longer but is safer. Most investors have small windows of experience with no consideration that the economy goes up and down. The highly leveraged are the first to lose everything. Very much a turtle versus the hare. Real estate is a get rich slowly process. And the investment world is littered with paper millionaires who end up bankrupted when caught flat footed in a down turn.