All Forum Posts by: John Chapman

Christopher, thanks I'll check out the podcast.  Arlan, $250-300 per unit sounds like a lot -- by 'unit' do you mean house/property?

I have over 20 properties.  Many are houses and duplexes.  I am getting turned down by the preferred insurance markets because I have too many properties.  What are the advantages and disadvantages of bundling all of the properties into one commercial insurance policy.

Troy, you must be a Coug Alum!?  I love it.  You are right, given all the traditional Cougar partying, I guess 2MM might be a little light on the coverage. Thanks for the response!

I have a number of rental properties that I have purchased over 25 years.  I want to get an umbrella insurance policy to increase the equity I have accrued.  Is there a rule of thumb for how large an umbrella insurance policy should be?  Is there a fixed amount-- say 2MM-- or should it be a percentage of the real estate equity that you are trying to protect?  Or does it perhaps depend on the region of the country that you are in?  How does one decide on the amount of the umbrella insurance policy?

I have 19 properties and am looking to purchase an umbrella policy.  How much coverage should I purchase?  Is there a rule of thumb based on the amount of equity you have?   I was thinking that I could get a 2MM umbrella and call it good.

I think its a mistake to not take into account appreciation if you are a buy and hold investor.  Who has held a property for 10-15 years that did not appreciate?  The odds are it's going to appreciate so that should enter into your calculations so you can as accurately as possible forecast your equity growth.  I assume that my properties will appreciate about 2.5 - 3.0%/year and I take that into account when doing my evaluation of a property that I am going to purchase.  I assume that rents will increase at about the same rate.

The issue is that the fire marshal wants me to put in sprinklers AND a fire hydrant. The hydrant will cost me about 10K and an estimate of the sprinklers will cost me $9 sq ft which is another $27K (proposed 3000 sq ft duplex) so together with the fire hydrant this is 10% of my project cost (not including the price of the land).

I am developing a duplex off of a narrow street. The duplex will be set back about 150' from the street and is serviced by a 20' wide alley. The fire chief is requiring me to put in sprinklers in my duplex because he says his fire truck can't make the turn into the alley/fire lane. But he also says he needs room for his truck to turn around and he wants us to install a fire hydrant for the truck to hookup to. Why should I need add a hydrant if he says the truck can't make it in the alley? Why do I need both a fire hydrant and sprinklers in the duplex. What recourse do I have if I want to appeal his decision? I'm prepared to discuss with his boss and the City Supervisor. Can I sue him for being over burdensome on his requirements?

Eric,

We are thinking about curtain rods and curtains also. Go into a unit, strip the curtains and throw into the washer/dryer and then re-hang. We have almost all of our units change over during a two week period so we have very little time to mess with mini-blinds.

We also spend a lot of time cleaning mini-blinds. We charge the tenant for the time spent cleaning (if they didn't clean them), but it is very time consuming. These are student rentals remember so we don't usually have long term renters. They are often there only a year, hopefully two years, but seldom more than that. Also, almost all of our rentals begin around June 1st, so we are extremely busy and we need a window covering that doesn't take as much time to clean.