All Forum Posts by: Lam N.

Ok, no offense to you, but I have tracked down the source of ridiculous monthly costs of $800-900/month bills during the winter for resistance electric heat.  Here is my finding.

• Landlords who install these heating units go all cheap on them.  They never put in enough heaters for the square-footage.  See, these heaters are designed to heat up the space then stop working once temperature is reached.  But if not enough heaters are put in, the desired temperature is never reached so the heaters are on ALL THE FREAKING TIME. 
• Landlords tend to buy the cheapest units they can find on the market.  Not all resistance heaters are equal.  The $40 baseboard heaters you find at menards is only about 30% efficient.  Do you know what that means?  It means that 70% of the energy used is wasted.
• Landlords don't install a thermostat.  They just put in a cheap knob that says low medium high.  

What I did to to solve these issues.

• I actually measure out the square footage and put in enough heaters to heat up the space.  
• I buy the 100% efficient hydronic heaters.
• I have them controlled by an honest to god thermostat on the wall.

The 1400 sqft house I was mentioning before.  I bought it from the previous landlord who put cheap heaters in and he didn't even put enough of them.  Electric bill in the winter was always $800-900.  I had my people tear them all out and put in 100% efficient heaters controlled by on-wall thermostats.  Bill went down to about $200-250/month in the winter.

My point is this.  You have to set it up so your tenants will succeed.  If you go cheapo on certain things, when your tenants start having trouble paying the energy bills they will certainly start having trouble paying rent.  So, don't go cheapo on these things.  

What is wrong with saying "no" to him?

Wrong forum.  There is nothing we can do here for you.  Sorry for the insane new bills.

Midwest here.  I have a $1400 sqft house that is completely resistance heated.  My tenant tells me the biggest bill they got was for the month of February (the coldest month here) and it was about $250.  And they keep their temperature at 75.  

I'm a big proponent of steps being taken to switch over to all electric and away from fossil fuel.  I mean, does anyone actually seriously believe that the world has an unlimited supply of fossil fuel?  Let's start the switch now, not 200 years from now.

Serve him a notice ASAP.  Then file paperwork to evict as soon as April 1st hits.  

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever let them move in before security deposit and first month rent are paid. Take my word for it, if you let them in before these things are paid, they will eff you in the rear sideways. 

I speak from experience. My butt still hurts.

Banks always appraise low.

 Depends on where you are.  Where I'm at, we can choose not to participate in the program.

 I'm sorry you feel this way.  

My properties happen to be in whiter than white area.  I actually have 1 honest-to-god black tenant... and he's only half black.  White mother.

So, my experiences with section 8 in the past had nothing to do with race.  And I'm neither black nor white.

It is great that some people on here have had great experiences with section 8.  But for me, the worst experiences I've had with renters have been strictly section 8 people.  Not to mention the bureaucratic nightmare that surrounds this program.

Where I am at, there are plenty of landlords who participate in this program.  The market really doesn't miss me, I don't think.

 Easier said than done.  

As an investor, I don't just look for good deals.  I don't even look for great deals.  I look for highway robbery where I'm the robber.  These properties don't always come with meters already split.  And I'm not going to walk away from a highway robbery deal (again, I'm the robber) just because the meter ain't split.

Case in point.  I recently bought a 5-apartment building.  The old couple I bought it from has had it for 15 years or so.  They were in financial distress and they got problem tenants there.  They were this close to having this place foreclosed.  And since no one is buying at this time, they couldn't get rid of it.  I told them whatever they still owe on this property I'll pay that much cash TODAY.  They could walk away from all their problems with their credit intact.  Also meant they would lose all their equity.  They very happily agreed.  

That building only had 1 meter.  I wasn't going to walk away from this deal just because the meter ain't split.  

I very quickly got rid of all the existing tenants and got new ones.  I jacked up the rent to market value + water.  I just blanket charge $100/apartment.  It is now one of my best performing investments.  Tenants are paying every month like clockwork.  And water bill for that building has consistently hover around $150, so I got plenty of cushion room.

My point is non-split water meter ain't an issue if you know how to deal with it. Don't let something so trivial deter you from deals.  Aim for the forest, not the weeds.