All Forum Posts by: Robyn Henderson

For people in the Brooklyn area, do you have any cement/concrete professional that you'd recommend? My tenant informed me that a staircase and surrounding backyard porch is in bad shape and I'm looking for someone to come by and quote the job. The property is located in Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens area. 

If you know of any facebook group or other sites where people might share recommendations, let me know! 

My attorney advised me to put one of my Brooklyn mutifamily properties into an LLC. The property does not have a mortgage. I was thinking about filing for an LLC on my own and having the attorney prepare the operating agreement.

I understand that the LLC needs to be advertised for 6 weeks in a daily and a weekly newspaper. To keep costs down, has anyone filed for an Albany based registered agent and run publications in Albany newspapers even though the property is located in Brooklyn?

I tried looking for information about this but can't find anything.  Anyone offer any advice? 

The publication cost in Albany would be $300 which is a fraction of the cost of publishing in papers in Kings County. 

Thanks everyone for the solid advice. 

I'm going to investigate my options when the Spring comes. The boiler room is pretty small so I need to figure out my options. If you have any recommended HVAC/Plumbers who you've used before, send me a private message. 

I have 1 bedroom + den units in my building and am curious if you do two mini split units (one in bedroom and one in the kitchen/living room) as the configuration. 

I'm doing my taxes now and I pay for natural gas for the building (cooking and boiler steam heat) and it came out to $2500 for the year. Not terrible. It would be a big win if I can automate the system flush

@Ahmed Saad thanks. I was planning to just explore my options now but wasnt going to do anything until the winter was over.

The heating bills average $2800 to $3000 a year. Separating the system for each unit may make sense but I'd have to look at the cost vs benefit.

I was wondering if anyone on the forums actually did this and how much it cost them.

My family owns a 3-unit brownstone that has a boiler that is at least 60 years old. On a weekly basis, the first floor tenant checks the water sight to ensure there is enough water in the system and also flushes the system to prevent rust accumulation. The tenant has to empty a bucket of water each time. 

I just learned that the tenant has been doing this for years and if he ever forgets, the system will need a costly repair. 

Are there any other Brooklyn Brownstone owners who had a similar issue? Are there modern boilers that can automate this? How much would they cost (including installation)? 

I don't like having a dependency on a tenant to maintain a vital part of the building. 

@Andrew B.

The water shutoff, HVAC system, air filters have to be replaced every three months.

The water heater is located in the garage which is owned by another unit.

In another property, I recently had an HVAC system blower fail in the middle of the night spewing black smoke into a bedroom. That property doesn’t have this nonsense and I could turn off the system myself.

Imagine if that situation happened in this property.

I purchased an investment condo in a 3 unit multifamily building located in Northern NJ. The layout of the condo is strange where the hotwater heater is located in the garage (which is deeded to another unit(unit 3)) and the water and HVAC system are located in a utility closet in another unit(unit 1). I recently had an issue where the tenants had a leak and I had to turn off the water, luckily the unit 1 owner who has the water shutoff in his utility closet was home. I had a plumber come to fix the underlying issue and the unit 1 owner was attempting to force me to work around his schedule, even though it was an emergency repair. My tenants had no water to do daily activities for many hours.  

When I closed on this condo, I was told I had an easement to the other unit (and garage) to access my utilities. It seems like the current unit owner is only comfortable to provide access when he's around. 

What can I do? 

I was thinking of asking for a key or having the unit owner sign a document releasing me from any liability or damage that is caused by my inability to access the utility room.  Is there a way to enforce my easement rights? 

 The seller refused to offer additional credit at closing. Too much credit could also modify the loan. Based on the walkthrough, there's lots of unanticipated hidden costs.  At this point, the lender had denied the mortgage so it's too late.