All Forum Posts by: Rachel Dunham

I am working on developing my website and would like to have everything my customers or I need, in one place. I was told, by a website developer, that it's not a good idea to put rental applications on your website, because of the liability of storing personal information, specifically social security numbers. If she is right and I shouldn't host my own rental application forms, does anyone recommend a company that provides these forms and hosts the stored information themselves and has some sort of wiget that I can embed in my website? That way, it at least feels like everything is in one place. What is everyone's thoughts/experiences with this? Also, does anyone have a recommendation for the best wiget for accepting fees and rental payments?

Do you know what your scope of work is yet?  I might be able to shed some light, depending on what the scope is.

Thank you for your thoughts @Kim Meredith Hampton! Those were my thoughts exactly, but never having had an automatic gate, I wasn't sure if they were built to be fairly maintenance free. so, thank you for confirming my suspicions!

We are currently house hacking a property in Golden, Colorado, with a small studio, above a garage. We currently have a long-term tenant living there. We are fixing up the rest of the property and plan to split the house were living in, into a small 1BD 1B short-term unit and a 2BD 1B long-term rental. The property was fully fenced in when we purchased it in September, which was great for our two pups. Unfortunately, the winter winds tore down our manual driveway gate. We've haven't fixed it yet, because we can't decide if we should put up another manual gate or an automatic sliding or swinging gate. The convenience of the automatic gate would be great while we live here, but I'm hesitant to install anything that would end up requiring a lot of maintenance. We also have two manual garage doors and I'm having the same debate with those. Do we install garage door openers and risk the tenants damaging them or do we just leave them as is? Does anyone have any experience with these automatic gates and can weigh in on how much maintenance they require? Also, does anyone have any knowledge about which style and/or brand of automated gate require the least maintenance? Any thoughts are much appreciated! We love being outside and need to do something soon, as the constant harping on the pups to stay inside the fence is getting quite exhausting!

That's great info Bill!  Thank you! Maybe if we do it right, we could make the numbers work as a luxury vacation rental and live in one half, since we could make a bit more on it as a vacation rental and Denver's vacation rental laws allow for you to rent it if it's your primary home.

Thanks for the recommendation Micki!  I'll definitely reach out to Dorothy.  I was hesitant to talk to the city, because sometimes they can tell you different things depending on their mood.  :)

That's what was a bit misleading. If you can do an ADU, does that include a duplex? There is a duplex across the street, which is in the same zoning according to the map. To get the use changed to a multi-family unit, do I have to apply for different zoning or just a zoning permit?

I am looking at a property zoned as a U-SU-C1 property and want to rehab the interior of the home to turn it into a Duplex or 4-Plex.  Does anyone know much about what this zoning area allows for and/or how to apply for a change?  I dug into it a bit and the code descriptions are a bit misleading. 

Huge thanks to each of you for your input! Sorry for my late responses, we went on a wild trip out to Chicago to watch my Cubbies in Wrigleyville. Thank baby Jesus they made the trip worth it on the last day!  

I listened to the podcast 109 this morning and WOW!!  I may have to listen to it 3 more times!!  That was an incredible amount of information and I'm so grateful to have heard it in the beginning.  So, huge thanks for that suggestion!  I will have to listen to those YouTube videos next!  These are the moments when I wish I could just spend all of my time devoted to learning about and doing real estate, but maybe some day!  

Funny you should mention that episode, Bill. I did listen to that episode and have an appointment to talk to Brandon in a couple of weeks! I also learned a bit about the various business entities in a business law class I took a few years ago, but just enough to be dangerous! :) From what I remember, with an LLC, they can still come after your personal property, should you ever find yourself in a law suit. I can still remember my prof saying that the main reason people do an LLC instead of an S Corp, even though there isn't as much protection or benefits, is because it's so much easier to set up. Though, it's always good to get as many opinions as possible on subjects such as these, so thank you so much for your input!!

Also, I want to encourage you to take the steps to make your vision come to fruition!!  My dad and I dreamed of flipping houses together when I was in high school, long before HGTV got ahold of the industry.  Had we acted on it then, I can only imagine how well we would have done.  My dad will most likely be retiring in a couple of years and my hope is he will join me in one way or another.  It may not look exactly how we envisioned back then, but instead of regretting the steps we didn't take, I'm moving forward and using the experience I've gained from my deviations to hopefully make it even better than we dreamed!