All Forum Posts by: Jeff N.

Joel, the washer/dryer is on the first floor, so the water damage was limited, but still costly. I'm definitely going to take your advise and install a drain pan and require braided hoses. I guess theres only so much you can do with this, eventually a water issue in the laundry room is going to happen at some point. My optimum solution would be to move them to the garage.

I know this topic has been discussed previously but wanted to get a fresh prospective. How do you handle tenant washer/dryers.

1. Dont include a washer and dryer with the unit.
2. Dont include a washer and dryer but require a professional installation of tenants machines.
3. Include a washer and dryer

If you don't include a washer and dryer don't you take the risk of the tenant installing a junker or installing improperly and risk flooding the house?

What is the best way to mitigate a washer/dryer leak destroying your rental?

I recently had a units 1st floor flood from a leak in the laundry room, which subsequently destroyed the wood laminent flooring. Now I'm paranoid this is going to happen with my other rentals.

I'm having a similar issue where the tenant is watching a friends kids during the day, totaling 4 children plus 1 infant in the home during the day. It's causing increased wear on the unit thats apparent on my inspections. Not quite sure how to handle this.

Can you charge extra for additional tenants without violating housing discrimination laws?

I don't see HOA fees as negative, especially on an out of state property. I have two condos in my portfolio and I like having the HOA restrictions to help keep the community, tenants in check and the risk of the community deteriorating over time is also reduced with a well run association.

Currently I live near a huge townhome complex (few hundred townhomes) that was built in the late 90's. They have no HOA or community association. Most of the community looks run down, I drive through it often and about 1 in 10 of the townhomes is an eyesore.

Thanks Jon, When I said I would modify my lease I was referring to strengthening my staements for excessive wear, not anything relating to limiting the number of children.

To mitigate this current situation I'm going to make monthly visits until I'm satisfied that the unit is not receiving greater than normal wear and being maintained withing the guidelines of the lease.

Thanks Jim, lesson learned. I will keep on top of it with my monthly visit and adjust my lease template where needed for future tenants/renewals.

I was apprehensive renting to a family with multiple kids also, but they qualified very well and were the first to look at the unit and said they wanted it on their initial walk-thru. Being a new landlord I didn't want to get into a discrimination lawsuit if they asked why they did not qualify.

One of my rentals has a couple with three kids. When I visit to make repairs I have been noticing the stains and wear from three kids running around my unit all day. Any suggestions on how to mitigate the wear on the unit? The walls are getting dirty from the kids touching them as they walk, newly installed carpet in bedrooms is already stained, etc. They are not causing extreme damage, but more wear than I would expect for a typical family.

Can I charge them for repainting the walls on moveout, professional carpet cleaning, tile grout stains from not cleaning after spills, etc, or would this be considered normal wear?

I have sent them an email with my concerns and I'm going to start making monthly visits to the unit for inspection to attempt to mitigate further excess wear if possible.

Have you ever had situations where you had good paying tenants, but they were not the cleanest people?

I knew the time would eventually come. After 7 years of owning rental property we had our first major issue yesterday. A pipe leaked inside the wall in the washer/dryer room and it wasn't noticed until after it flooded the first floor. Unfortunately the floating vinyl wood floor throughout the first floor warped immediately, along with a lot of baseboard and drywall damage from the water soaking into the walls. Looking at about 5-7K of water remediation and repair of floors/walls depending on the type of replacement flooring.

My first question is concerning the tenants. Looking at about 3 days to dry out the unit and another 3-4 days of repair. The tenants will be able to stay in the unit during repairs, but should I compensate them in any way for the 6-7 days of renovations if they ask?

Also, the unit is an upper medium income unit. What do you recommend putting in for flooring? Due to the income level of tenants in these units I may not be able to pull off a generic vinyl floor. What do you recommend for a durable floor on slab foundation that would be suitable for this income level?

This will also be my first insurance claim. I didn't want to pull the trigger on this, but after paying premiums for 7 years this damage is high enough to justify it.

Hello Lynn, I recently purchased a foreclosure in VB. Previously I have been buying out of state due to the price entry points versus rent, but as you mentioned, over the past year prices have become attractive in some areas. I pulled the trigger in VB a few months ago and was able to cash-flow decently. The demand was there also, we had a few walk-thrus scheduled within 24-48 hours of the craigslist ad and had a signed lease in a few days. The deals are there, but like you said you need the ability to move fast.

Molly, I have a similar situation where my close network of friends also want nothing to do with real estate investment for a myriad of reasons. I'm the lone investor in my group charging ahead with buying rentals. I still have a full-time job, but I'm getting extremely close to having the ability to support my family from rental income and other related investments if I lost my job.

I tend not to talk about RE investment with friends not in the business, but recently one of my friends did ask me why I put so much at risk buying rentals. He said it definitely wasn't for him. The funny thing was that this friend recently purchased a new truck for $40K. In 3 years that truck will have a value of about $18K. It's a mindset that some people will never have or get. Maybe they didn't have a mentor at a younger age to teach them cash-flow, or maybe the RE bubble scared them. Who knows, but it all makes sense to me, and over the past 6 years of buying rental property I haven't regretted any of my purchases. My only regret is that I didn't get started at a younger age.

We have not had any catastrophic events happen either, other than one or two bad tenants that have cost us a few thousand in repairs/rent, but these are lessons learned and were completed expected to happen at one point in this business.

Good luck, and I wouldn't let the lack of interest of your friends question your strategy and long term goals. Mitigate your risk by purchasing smartly and incorporating solid layers of protection from catastrophic and liability events and you will be fine.