All Forum Posts by: Paul Sandhu

@Luke Carl  It's no joke.  She's my wife.

Not to highjack this thread, but my cleaning lady does all 22 of my furnished rentals for free.  She also sleeps with me.

@Jeff Kehl

You are the one posting crap, not me. I would tell you that most of my posts on this website are in the STR forum, the rest are in the DIY forum; and that you can find all the answers to you questions in my old posts. But to save you time, I'll answer the 5 questions.

1. It is $200/week per bedroom that I charge, not $200/month.  So a typical 2 bedroom house generates about $1700 in a month.

2. Bank foreclosures.  I'm in a town with a population of 10,000.  Amazon was the largest employer in the area until they closed the distribution center and moved away 3 years ago.  Lots of people moved away shortly afterwards.  If their home was on wheels, it went with them.  Otherwise their home stayed.

3. $1000 will pay for labor and materials for bring a fuse box up to code with a breaker box. They do it in 4 hours. It will also pay for enough roll roofing to replace a leaky section of another house, and there is some change left over.  It will also pay enough to replace dog urine soaked carpet and particle board in a master bedroom of another house and there is change left over.  I also have a dumptruck, dozer, and 40 acres to bury/burn waste.

4. Estate auctions in nice neighborhoods, no goodwill/garage sales/flea markets.  If the appliances and furniture were good enough for someone well off to live with in their own home, they are good enough for me. I have a 16' trailer and a 12' trailer.  My wife and I both drive 1/2 ton trucks.  The two of us can easily move the contents of a house in one trip. Estate auctions are Saturday morning.  It's actually quite fun to buy stuff to furnish a new house.  We've done it 22 times.  My best bargains: 5 piece bedroom set, $50. Fridge, $15. Whole house central air system, $200 plus installation. 2 sofa beds, $10, those beds alone generated about $2500 each.

5. Been doing this for 5-6 years.  Started with one house.  Now we have 22 houses with 82 beds.  2 local motels and a mobile home park with cabins are in the process of closing or selling, probably because I've taken all their customers.   Here is my ad from CL, posted it 12 days ago.

https://seks.craigslist.org/apa/d/refinery-contractors/6269418009.html

Buy houses in a small town with a refinery.  Buy bank foreclosure houses.  I pay between $6 and $8.50 per square foot for a house with central heat and air.  The house normally needs about $1000 of work done, then it needs to be furnished (another $$1500 or so).  Rent them to contractors working at the refinery.  Each bedroom is worth about $200/week in rent.  Houses pay for themselves in 6 months.

The best results I've experienced have been from Craigslist.  With AirBnB I've had probably 3 inquiries in the last 2 years, and they just wanted to stay for the weekend.  My minimum rental is 7 days.  Probably get 6-7 calls a month from the Craigslist ad.  I keep 3 ads on Craigslist.  Today, yesterday, the day before yesterday.  Tomorrow I bump up the ad from the day before yesterday and it shows up in todays results.  Repeat every day.

I feel like an antique.  I use a piece of 22"x28" posterboard to make a calender.  The days of the week run up and down.  The board fits 35 days (5 weeks)  My horizontal lines are the addresses of the rentals. 22 horizontal lines.  I use post it notes to write down who and what company is at an address, and to mark down reservation dates.  I also mark down on the board the day they pay, the day they pay again, how many weeks they are there, and how much they pay each week. 

Maybe 3% of my rentals call more than 24 hours in advance.  97% call me when they are already in town or when they are on the road heading this way.

Plugs, switches and covers.  If you have to wonder if you are qualified to replace them vs having an electrician do them...you either need more confidence or more skills. 

You should be able to replace the innards of a toilet, change the wax ring, change all the plumbing under a sink (supply lines, shut off valves, p trap and other pipes) and above a sink (faucet and cartridges), replace the agitator dogs of a washer, replace the heating element of an electric dryer, change the air filter of your central air, replace the ignitor of a gas furnace, replace heating elements of an electric furnace, replace the ballast of a fluorescent light, the list goes on if you want to make more money in rental property near you.

Water heater installation is easier than you think.  Electric is pretty easy.  Gas is still pretty easy, you just have to match the vent height to the exhaust height.  I can pretty much guarantee you that the new gas water heater will be taller or shorter than the previous one. 

I keep a vacuum and cleaning supplies in all 22 of my furnished houses.  Whether or not they get used is up to the tenants.  I tell them to take the trash out when it's full, most of them do that.  My tenants are refinery contractors; welders, pipefitters, electricians, boilermakers, scaffold builders, etc.  I do all the laundry myself and make the beds, so I know everything is clean.  Other than that, I don't tell or request my renters to do anything else.  A lady does all the rest of the cleaning in the house for me for free.  She also lets me sleep with her.

@Peter R. About 15 minutes away would be my maximum limit, my furthest rental house is 7 minutes away from my home.  Collecting rent, that is done in person since it's usually paid in cash.  Cashing their paychecks, also done in person.  I keep spare appliance and plumbing parts in my truck, use them on a regular basis .  Things like people needing a jump start, a flat tire fixed, being locked out of their house, borrowing a boat motor, providing deer processing equipment, fax service, finding a place for their girlfriend when their wife shows up unexpectedly and sending/receiving packages are things I do for my tenants regularly.  Couldn't do it if I was an hour or two away.