All Forum Posts by: Paul Mendel

Albany County does not have tax auctions. So be careful your not getting scammed

Do you have a furnace (with duct work) or do you have a boiler (baseboard or radiators), If you have a Furnace adding AC is rather inexpensive).

If you have a boiler (which it sounds like you do since you said wall hung unit) you can look into zoning the system, If its not feasible (which it may not be) you can also look into restricting the flow to some areas to balance the systems better. 

Again if YOUR paying the bills, you should really investigate further into load reductions... how well the place is insulated. how to reduce water consumption, etc

They Also sell thermostats that can have a remote sensor so you can try to regulate the temperature from a different point then the actual area the thermostats in to try to help balance things. Typically these have WiFi so you can also see if your tenant(s) are turning the heat up or down on you.

The suggestion above about using mini splits above can be ideal but will not be cheap, you could set up new meters for each system and they can double as heat aswell..

Have you looking into ways to reduce actual demand? Insulation in the attic/walls/basement? Low flow Showerheads & Faucets? 

Yes they do pay more for utilities included (otherwise they end up giving them a voucher for the utilities as well), I could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure its tenant to tenant (for what they contribute), and it's Rarely 100%

At that price range for a 2 family you're likley in a rougher section of albany (however you said albany area so im not sure if you are even speaking specifically to the city or surrounding), so as others said budget a lot more for damage and maintenance. 2 families in college and better neighborhoods rarely go for less than 200k in the city. 

You mentioned furnace replacement for $2500, that sounds on the very low end. You might want to double check if its really a furnace or if its a boiler (most of older albany have boilers not furnaces) and those are significantly more expensive then furnaces. Also is it only one of the furnaces or both?

These are a mess, the one contractor i had do one for me in the past told me he would never do it again and getting him to do  the paperwork was a nightmare... and everything costed almost 2x market rate at the time...

With that said, I have a house off washington, that iv lived in for 3 years now, I am all in for around 1050 a month, my upstairs pays 1100, and for the first few years i had a roommate for 350, which covered heat and cable, so I was happy just living 100% for free, it wasnt worth packing another guy into a room and wrecking my quality of life for an ever 350 a month.

Area and price of the house is the biggest factor, Depending on what you pay for the house it could work or not work. I find many of the "better" neighborhoods price points, Such as New Scotland, Upper Western Ave, etc. the numbers hardly work if you’re keeping a flat to yourself unless you’re renting out additional rooms in your unit.

However the math is simple… run an amortization calculator see what the taxes & Mort payment are, and then know what a flat in that area rents for, With that said here is 2 typical examples of Albany properties

New Scotland area 2 family’s run around 220k, 6k taxes, 1k insurance payment would be around 1570 a month, typical rentals would be around 1300

Washington ave areas 2 family will run around 140, 3500 in taxes, 1k insurance would be about 1000 a month, with rentals being around 1000 a month.

So you pretty much can break even in the not as good areas, grab a roommate or 2 and you’re really cash flowing.

But don’t forget about the big savings of the low down payment and locked in low interest rate when you plan on exiting in 2-3 years

@Mark Harrington ... Nope..

I got this back in January 15'  from the assistant county attorney: 

"Unfortunately, there is no deadline in Florida law for filing a surplus claim; the Clerk requests 90 days in order to expedite the process for all claimants, but failure to claim never “cuts off” a claimant’s entitlement to surplus. The only options if an apparent priority lienholder does not claim are to file an interpleader action (so a judge can determine which party should receive the surplus), or to treat the funds as “unclaimed” and send them to the State to hold until a claim is made. In the interpleader process, if the Bank does not answer the complaint, the judge can award the funds to the Condo Association. I hope this helps."

With that said there has been no updates in that time on any changes in the file.

And my attorney simply said it was a waste of my & his time...

Albany's rental market is great, until your in an area where homes are only 30k, then its a whole diff story...