All Forum Posts by: Mark R

What are your preferences or does it not matter. I've always dealt with 2bed 1bath and on occasion a studio. I find that anything less than 2br 1bath tends to be short term. While the 2br 1bath you usually have those tenants for years.

What are you guys thoughts. I'm seeing some property that can cash low but it's made up of 1br 1bath with studio units. I also see some that have mostly 2br 1bath then a few 1br's thrown in. I tend to skip these but now I want to reevaluate my thinking. At the end of the day it's all about cash low but I don't want a revolving door either.

If the water bill is under the landlords name then they must have the water on at all time or else fines will rack up. This is the case for NYC. If the property is properly sub-metered and it is in the tenants name then I guess that portion of it can get cut off. Since it's the tenants responsibility.

All points taken and great comments.

It really boils down to personal security for me at this point. When I was younger managing my parents properties at the time I felt good collecting the rents and knocking on the tenants doors, fixing this and that. As I got older with my own rentals before I sold off I would go to make my rounds and I had all cash on me and I though this really isn't safe. So I told me self in the future I'd have to find a better way to collect and spot check. But it's hard especially when you want to check up on your investments.

Driving by and you see a garbage can turned over I'm almost drawn like a magnet to stop and pick it up. I remember seeing an old car in one of the drive ways with no plates and flipped out. I banged on doors and tenant tells me it was her uncles friend car or some crap like that. I told her it had to go ASAP. So it went the next day.

Anyhow for those who have PM's do you guys ever do spot checks on your properties and if things are out of place how do you handle it them. I'm going to assume you'll them call the PM to get their arse over to take care of whatever it is.

In the past my tenants knew us as the landlords and owners. They'd call us if they had problems and issues. In the future we are going to take the advise of others and stay anonymous as much as we can.

Do you guys who go around to your properties just act like hired help? I was planning on assuming the role of a property manager. This way when I do my drive by and property walks to pick up garbage cans and some touch up tenants won't think I'm some stalker. Also they won't know that I own the place. I'd drive up in a utility truck or work van.

How do you guys who do it stay anonymous?

I wouldn't close anything until you buy your house and are done with people worrying about your credit score. You will lose points when you start closing accounts. You need all the points right now to look like a shining star to the lenders.

Once you have your house and are settled then you can clean up all unused accounts and rely on 2 maybe 3 main cards with high limits.

These are good scores, great in my book. Keep doing what you are doing with your payments and once they are all paid down/off the scores will increase. Your plan is a solid one if you are buying a house. Just make sure once the balances are paid in full they reflect on your credit report. That may take about a month after. You could probably expect to add between 10-15 pts to all of your scores once all is paid off.

Great reply TN-Apprentice

I myself didn't know anything about NNN but I got a ton of information from your post alone. I will be considering NNN at some point in the future.

A lot of car washed are up for sale due to lots of competition and bad locations. I've researched car washes in the past for a while and decided to opt out of it or hold off until I see better ROI. This is the site I was a part of and it has TONS of info http://www.autocareforum.com/ I believe this site is best suited for anything car wash related.

Oh and just to add. In the past few years the business has almost completely gone to automation and Touch free. The days of roller and brush are almost gone. In many cases the owners can't or will not spend the money to upgrade which is in the 100K rage to new equipment. Being on a car wash line for more then 5 mins is unacceptable in some peoples eyes. It's got to be in and out with a clean car. It cost lots of money to pump 100+ cars through per hour. This is another reason you see so many up for sale.

Might help to enlighten the exprienced ones on what problems you ran across so they can advise on what to do differently. Also so that they don't give advice that didn't work out for you in the past.

NY Times article of New Jersey RE family buying a building in NYC for 1.8billion. Have a look at the age of one of the family members. Granted he was probably born into money it's still an inspirational read (minus the jail time of his father LOL)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/nyregion/07building.html?ex=1323147600&en=c9ccf76d283034ab&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I need to accumulate 22,000 apartments.