All Forum Posts by: Ian N.

@Russell Brazil. I use the GCAAR Montgomery County lease.

@Linda S. The touchups were done on every single wall all over the wall, it's pretty all over the place, we found only one room that was in good shape the dining room so we are skipping that wall. I like your idea and that was my original thought, to give the tenant an opportunity to repair. They were good tenants. But to paint the whole house would cost me $4k.

@Alexander Felice The walls were painted exactly 1.5 years ago before the tenant moved in.

@Frank Chin I understand your point. The tenant stayed for a year and six months. The paint was not bad at all the last time I was at the property before he vacated, just minor ding, scratches, etc. Just one wall was bad due to their child marking it up with a pen but I was not concerned as I knew I could fix that easily. As I mentioned he had left the house without the touch ups, it would have been completely okay because in my view he didn't really do much damage to the wall (even with wear and tear) while residing there.

@Deanna McCormick I went to the house with the contractor and the paint on the house is cream color. It appears the tenant initially did this cover up with a completely wrong paint color of gray called Frosted White. Then after they noticed went back and bought the cream color called Paper White and re-did the work. My contractor attempted to do a few spots to see if they color will blend well but the tenants touch up color is still showing. I think had he not done the touch up in so many areas of each wall through out the whole house it would not be an issue. The contractor and I have a good relationship, he often does small work for me without a charge and in fact fixed some of the items the tenant had broke without a charge.

@Jason Hirko The lease has a repair deductible.

Biggerpockets Friends,

I have a situation where a tenant recently vacated my property. For the most part they left the condition of the home in pretty good shape. However, in an attempt to ensure he gets his security deposit back, the tenant bought paint from Home depot when the original color was from Sherwin Williams and attempted to touch up the wall through out the whole house. This of course just left the walls with spotty unmatched paint everywhere. This a three level townhouse. My contractor stated that with so much touch up work, it's best to paint the whole house. Is this something I can hold the security deposit to use to have the house painted, or at least a portion of the deposit. I hate to not return deposits for tenants that were generally very good, however it probably would have been better if he had not done anything and left the walls as is, where I would have paid to have minor clean up and touch up done. Any advise? Please share.

@Paul Moore that's an interesting story. I'm not sure I'll strike gold with oil soon, but maybe luck will be on my side. It sounds like you had substantial capital to begin with. I am curious on the risks you ran into with the development side of the world that caused you to shy away from that arena considering the potential to make more. 

@Brian Adams Great story on how you got started. I noticed you went from small to big in a relatively short period of time and was inspired by your approach. I sometimes wonder if I'm thinking too small by looking at duplex or four units or if that is a good approach to begin with. I have three rentals at the moment and definitely looking to move up from that. I noticed you were able to raise substantial amounts of money to purchase large buildings. While I believe I can raise funds from family and friends I really need to consider how to structure a deal pay back those that invest their funds with me. Great story and I'd appreciate how you structure the payment back to your investors. 

Hoping to generate a good discussion to learn how people got started with multi-family units, especially in big cities where prices are so high. How did you locate the property and make the deal happen?