All Forum Posts by: Michael King

Tried to send it in a PM but the page wasn't working. Mike Sedlak American Family Insurance in Wildwood MO.

I think there's some missing information here. Many good answers above. I would think that if the door came down hard enough to break the glass, then a spring broke. And she would also have a damaged hood as the door would have dragged across the top of it backing away from it. 

What height are the floor sensors? They are supposed to be 5-6" off the floor. A lifted Jeep, or if the sensors are too low, would compromise that safety feature of not letting the door close. 

Did the door come down, smash the glass and then retract upwards? It shouldn't have that amount of downward force. And there's no damage to the door, but she has a damages (or is the service call) bill? 

It's all very mysterious. 

I was talking to one of my friends yesterday; he lives across the street from one of my LTRs. He was complaining about the house 3 doors down that is now being used as an STR - he said airline employees rotate in and out of there, so my guess is it's like a crash pad. Too many cars there and the yard is being let go. One neighbor called the cops about the cars and at least one parking ticket was issued. This is in a suburban neighborhood with an HOA. I imagine the HOA will in future ban STRs if they're able to.

If they ban your rental from being an STR, will it survive as an LTR? That would be my plan B. Plan C would be to look elsewhere.

@Dave Foster The trick then is to not only build value in your portfolio, but also build value to those that are most likely to benefit from receiving that portfolio. Hmmm seems like a knife edge to walk along!  

So @Dave Foster, when one croaks and the properties are inherited by the surviving (or murderous?) spouse and children, is there a tax they pay for the inheritance? 

I'm too young to be thinking all this.

Was it on Zillow? When listed on Zillow today, if you're not the first buyer tomorrow with cash or credit in hand around here, you're not a home owner. 

Ah the 4D method. We would even die to get out of paying taxes! 

If the property you see is listed in that low price range, you're better off going to the listing agent. Realtors are busy right now I would guess, and prices are up in my market, so why would a realtor help you find a deal in that range, when they're probably already busy helping others find deals for 4 or 5 times that amount? At least until you develop some kind of relationship with a realtor. 

I've got a guy here that is in property management, but he's hungry to get into sales, and will take me to any property I ask for, and in good time too. Relationships take time to build. 

I lived in Montgomery Co for a few years. The taxes were insane - $9000 for a 3000sf home on Honea Egypt. I also lived in Spring and taxes were around $6K for a 2800sf home. I was planning on investing in Spring, but the taxes were still nuts (welcome to Texas!). I would have bought there but took my job in Missouri back and moved away. 

I think Conroe is a sound area, especially if you can find a lakehouse. Think short term weekend rental type deal and you could do well I'd say. Good luck.

 Good question! Some expense categories I use are:

Repairs

Supplies 

Utilities

At the bottom of the sheet I have separate calculators that add up any repairs for the month. Same with the other two. For example, say I used a plumber and an HVAC guy for March, I throw their bills into the calc at the bottom and it populates the total in the Repairs category for the month of March. Same with Supplies because I buy a lot of supplies - paint, electrical stuff, ceiling fans, etc. 

For the Utilities category, there are 4 companies that bill me for one of my properties, so I list each company on the monthly spreadsheet. At the end of the year it populates all 4 of those companies as a total under Utilities. I don't think my accountant cares how much I paid to which company, he wants to know how I much I spent on Supplies, Repairs, Utilities in total.