All Forum Posts by: Pat L.

Wife was showing a 2bedroom we have & the existing tenant of 2 years was swooning over the place. They had to leave because of the husbands job relocation, shame because she was OCD & the place is immaculate. Then my Wife & potential tenant come into the kitchen & the existing tenant is hugging the fridge & tells my wife how much she is going to miss it ???

We have a large home that has been rented by the 'touring' Coast Guard Chiefs for >16 years & the current Chief called to say they have been reassigned & will be vacating June 2022. Then proceeds to tell me that the incoming new Chief & his wife toured the home & are ready to sign a lease for the home 2022-2026 if that's OK. 

Sometimes you get a winner.

My boyfriend & his cat maybe moving in with me as well. The cat's a 'for sure' but the bf not so much. 

Applicant assured me he was handy, so could do some maintenance jobs.

I informed him that I have a guy so I don't need extra help, so he texts me back telling me "but I just don't do jobs that pay $15-$20/hr". 

We are lucky & all tenants are paying & are content.

But as our attorney said, 'most judges refuse to hear evictions'. He also confided that was once a $500 eviction is now $1,500-$2,500 in legal costs.

As an aside we had a PITA tenant FINALLY leave & we withheld 90% of his security deposit. He refused our check for the balance of his security deposit & wrote back 'see you in court'. 

5 months later he gave up & cashed the check, so trying to get a court date here is just about impossible. But traffic, housing (code violations/property citations) court action is just booming.

Some of us here can do the wiring, but has to be to code & no permit required. 

Running 10ga (or 8ga if its a long run) dryer wiring from a in-house panel would require a double-poled 240v breaker, assuming the existing panel has the capacity regardless of how they squeezed it in or sub-paneled it. If it was run underground you would hope it's in code compliant water proof conduit. Then you would need to have a second sub-panel in the garage to accept the 240v dryer feed plus another double poled breaker & a ground stake with 6ga Cu from that sub-panel. Then a 3/4 prong dryer receptacle outlet. If it was done 'professionally' you will notice both the neutral(s) & ground(s) are NOT BONDED in the panel.

So assuming all new parts, (2 sub-panels, breakers & ancillary wiring etc) material costs alone for us would be at least $375. Then he ran a new spigot, again we do not need a permit but that's another $50 in materials.

So assuming it passes code $300 is reasonable. Then again our tenants do nothing without prior permission & it's rarely granted. 

I can give you our experience...We have a 7 unit & had to replace the 12yr old 75 gall HW tank but could not find one at the time so threw in a 40 gall for $400 & did the install myself. The 40 gall proved inadequate during the winter, so I looked at an $800 on-demand 199k BTU NG HW system. But the install quote was $3800, so I did it myself. I've done a few on some of our other buildings, but this one was much larger & an interesting challenge.

Our old 15 yr boiler is also ready to be replaced, but again they want $4,000 for a boiler & $3-$4.5k for the install. I just replaced the boiler blower motor myself after the HVAC guys quoted me $1,350. Got the blower motor for $110 & did a hot swap while the boiler was active. I'm currently looking at on-demand NG boilers with Taco zone valves to eliminate the old Honeywell motorized valves buried within an octopus of 3/4-1inch copper lines. Thank God for YOUTUBE !!!

great story...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/fe...

We financed a kid several years ago to buy a small cattle farm/ranch. He was recently out of the Marine corps & had a Chem Eng degree.

His side gig was cleaning restaurant & commercial kitchen grease hoods. Said he had no competition & made $200/2 hr job. He also ran a chemical cleaner through the beer/soda tap lines to sterilize & clean per health department requirements. Again he had no real competition but most of the jobs had to be done 4-5am. The avg job was $250. 

We had one applicant (that I liked), but then his GF admitted that they had 11 kids between them from various assignations, but they DO NOT always visit at the same time. Both were early 30's so have been quite busy. They indicated that they were self-employed.....found out they were insta-cart drivers & he also worked as a mechanic on the side.

Had to decline them...

They complain about such a small %increase yet smoke & you say it permeates through the building. Then they have a dog that howls incessantly. You spent a lot of time & effort on rehabbing an upper apartment that I assume will pay higher mkt rents but get to enjoy the smoking as it permeates through the building & the dog howling.

You need to eliminate this nuisance & then rehab that apartment to gain yet higher mkt rents. We raise ours at least 5% p.a. & if it's due to a vacancy the rents go up significantly.