All Forum Posts by: Michael Karl

i have owned my first rental for a little over 2 years. Its a 3 unit, we filled one vacancy after a rehab and the other two units still have tenants from the old owner.  We have been informed that one of those tenants will not be renewing their lease and moving out at the end of March.  I am wondering if anyone has any type of questionnaire for tenant move out? what kind of questions do you ask?

I have actually dealt with something similar recently. I actually talked to my postal carrier and he was very helpful with who to talk to regarding to postal address adjustment.  You do not need a separate street address if it is a single property, but the post office can help you establish a different mailing address for the rental unit for example 123 Main st and 123 Main st Rear.  does the rental unit have separate utilities to it?  If so, contact the utility companies because they may have already named the units

i would have to agree with @Mindy Jensen you need to have every bit of information written down just in case.  She may be trying to scare you but if she is not and does move forward to sue you then you will want as much information as you have.  Not sure how much time you have left in the lease but maybe it would be worth stating in your letter back that not only do you feel you do not need to return the deposit but you feel that the lease was broken and they are responsible for the remaining months of the lease.  I know you said you are not worried about the remaining rent but maybe to realization that if they sue you and lose not only will they not get the deposit back but they may actually owe you more money.  It might just scare them into dropping it all together.

@Paul Holtham I know I am a couple days late to your post but I am interested as to what local academy you are looking at that costs $15,000?  please share.   also as everyone here has told you and you will find all over the bigger pockets site most of these expensive classes are no worth a fraction of the money they cost and are meant to make the person running them money not help you.  If you spend a little time every day on this site you will learn more info then you could imagine. Also as far as networking you don't need to pay that much money to network, just look at your post here you have already connected to 5 people in the Buffalo area.   Good luck learning and save your money

P.S. @Connor Smith can you really buy a decent multi family in South Buffalo that cheap??

@Paul Lachaud great to hear you got this this property under contract for such a great price.  I would like to give a little info regarding the HVAC system from my prospective.  I have worked in the HVAC industry for more the 10 years now and I see this a lot.  Home inspectors can be great at the job they are doing for the basic aspects of a house but many times they don't know enough about specific items like a furnace to give a responsible recommendation.   I have seen this in a house a sold, a house I bought and in many properties that I have helped friends with, the inspector will list "have furnace cleaned and serviced by a qualified professional"  this is basically the inspectors way of not being responsible if there is an issue with the furnace.  I have done full cleaning and service to about a dozen HVAC systems for friends and relatives selling houses. 

@Shannon K. you hit the nail on the head, if you wait till 8am to start plowing they will be snowed in. I would explain to the tenants complaining that if the snow fall is overnight and your slowing service has multiple lots to plow they have no choice but to start early to make sure everything is clear before the morning.  I live is the town of Amherst and the town plows started at 1am last night, I think those plows running down the street at 30MPH is louder then a truck in a driveway or parking lot.  Do you have multiple tenants that are complaining or just the same person every time, something to consider if its just one person

@Mara Witt you have a lot of good advice and a bunch of different opinions regarding your current issues with your tenant.  I want to comment on the heat issue, I have worked in the HVAC field for 15 years and I have a few questions and some pointers that might help you.  First just a little clarification as to the system that is being used to heat this house, you referred to a "furnace" and "radiators"  are these hot water radiators? if so the system used to heat the house is a boiler not a furnace, not a major point, I am just trying to get all the info on the system.  As far as your handyman is concerned, the fact that he is not working for a HVAC company currently might be the reason it is taking him so long to get parts, I know not all parts are readily available all the time, but if its a heating unit of any kind there should be some place locally to get the parts in a day or two. 

As far as his license is concerned, not all area require a license for heating, so people might be misunderstanding this, a license is required to work with the refrigerant gases used in Air Conditioning systems.  

Is this heating system controlled by 1 thermostat? if so and it is a boiler system(I am making that assumption because you talk about radiators) and you have 2 radiators out of 6 that are not working it is very possible for some rooms to be getting very cold on cold nights.  The system may be working fine but with a third of your heating output not working you could have cold spots in the house.  

Here is something to consider if you are running on 1 thermostat you can consider installing a new wifi thermostat and you would have the ability to set up monitoring so when she tells you the house was "20" you can look back and tell her that it never went below 65 or whatever temp.

its amazing what kind of thing come up when a property survey is done.  its easy for a seller to tell you something is part of the property or not.  but until you can see it on paper to confirm it you never know.   thanks for sharing your story, hopefully others will see this an realize the money is well spent to have a survey done

@Abraham Rahmanizadeh I am not in the markets you are currently looking at, I am a little more west in the Buffalo, NY area.  If you decide to come a little closer to my area feel free to reach out to me.  Otherwise good luck with your search and I hope you get some good responses.  This Upstate New York forum can sometime be a little quite but there are a lot of people in the upstate area on here so hopefully you reach people that can help you

@Jerry N. I am in a similar situation with having a small portfolio and not using property management.  If you are going to attempt to take vacations that you are out of contact my suggestion would be have a good working relationship with some great local contractors.  The other option would be find your self a local handy man and start having him do your repairs and other work at your rentals now. Once you grow to trust them enough have a meeting with the handy man and discuss leaving his contact info with your tenants when you are away.  maybe test it for a long weekend first before you completely disconnect.  You may have to pay a flat fee to the handy man for the "service" of covering all unexpected events.  But like I said you need a GREAT contractor or handy man to make this process happen, remember for you to totally disconnect you will need to give this person the ability to make purchasing and expense decisions without contacting you first.