All Forum Posts by: Roderick Carabott

Hi All, I got in the real estate business by "accident" 15 years ago and I never looked back.  I managed couple of investments in Europe before I moved to the USA.

I moved to the USA around 2009 and again ended up in real estate. My main interests are buy and hold investments. I love restoring old buildings and rehabbing properties for rental. 

I love to share ideas and learn about new strategies to solve problems. 

Thanks, Rod

Ibrahim:

I use a custom excel sheet. Very simple. I like the simplicity and flexibility of an excel sheet. If you want to get abit more elaborate you can create multiple sheets and summarize the results with a pivot chart. 

In my excel sheets i like to put a column with the description of the work, Labor, Material. Then i try to put the price per unit of measure ( example square feet, linear feet etc) and the quantity . After that i multiply the  price / unit of measure by the quantity. 

Once you have the total for each line item ( result of price/ unit of measure by quantity), just run an addition, and you get a total. 

I add contingencies to the bottom line depending on the project i am dealing with. 

Good luck. Rod

Sterling, 

As other noted, your best bet is getting references and introduce yourself to contractors. I   found a couple of good contractors by "luck" - My luck being keeping  a small notebook and write numbers i see on contractors' trucks when i am driving around. Then i start calling people.  

Another good source would be another investor or friend in the industry. 

Good Luck. Rod

@Cameron Skinner, you are right, finding the balance is the key.  There is a whole movement of social entrepreneurship that address this issue. Another great book is Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs by Muhammed Yunus. 

Take care Cameron, and I wish you all the best. If i am ever close to Panama City, I will message you. Please do the same if you are around the Chicago area. Rod

@Cameron Skinner,I like your perspective, and I think its great you are ready to share your experience here. I feel that our investments, wealth building and work should have a purpose in life.  That purpose  is different for everyone, but in my experience the closer you aligns the "business" purpose to your" life" purpose, the more enjoyable and productive one becomes. I think it also distinguishes one from becoming wealthy to building a legacy for subsequent generations in your family. Your experience is a testament to that. 

I don't intend to get into a "life" purpose discussion here, but one thing that people (me being the first one) tend to miss is "Why" we do what we do.  I consider my professional life as an extension of myself, so i always try and align what I do in my professional life to my personal life. For me listening to my "gut" feeling is very important, so  I value those gut feeling moments quite heavily. Obviously since my business is not a charity, I need to be competitive, cut costs and work efficient. 

I recently read a very interesting book - Start with Why by Simon Sinek, and he makes a very solid argument about how companies achieve business success when they ask the "Why" question. 

Good Job and wish you all the best. 

Samuel:

Laundry is a great addition to any property so we add laundry to almost every building or unit if possible.  Here are some things to consider.

Coin operated Laundry - You make money, but you have to collect coins and machines are subject to vandalism/theft. 

Card operated Laundry - There are card systems available, where tenants load the card at your office or online (requires internet connection, payment gateway). The cost of the software and hardware is substantial. In addition you are maintaining y software issues and hardware issues.

Free Laundry - You have to maintain the machine whilst not making money.

In my opinion, since you only have 4 units onsite, it would not make sense to have a card operated laundry system. There is too much upfront cost and maintenance of the software system and cards. 

Personally I don't like free laundry either. You have expenses to pay to maintain the machines and pay for the water, electricity and gas! Obviously each market is different and depends on what your competition is doing and the market you are in.

Coin Laundry: If you feel that vandalism/theft in your building is not an issue, then this might be a viable option for you. From my experience, coin operated machines are easy to maintain (vs card operated machines - I am not referring to the actual  machine, but the payment mechanism).  

You might also want to consider leased laundry machines, where a company installs their machines and  maintains them, whilst you get a cut from the revenue. I am not very experienced with this option but people I know always try to avoid leased laundry machines.  But anyways I mentioned it cos its another option for you.

Good Luck!

Mark:

I agree with most of the above posts. I think its definitely doable with a full time job. 

Here are some other thoughts that helped me:

1 Distinguish between different types of "problems" and dedicate your immediate  attention accordingly.

I usually prioritize between "urgent", "high", "medium" and "low" priority.

A good place to start in classifying problems is your local building code and laws. See what your obligations are as a Landlord and keep an eye of the items that can create a potential "urgent" or "high" situations.

For example: In Chicago Landlords are required to provide tenants with a certain temperature inside the units. So we always keep a close eye on the HVAC systems, especially when winter is coming. 

2  Getting to know your properties really well helps you make informed decisions efficiently.

I like to get to know the properties really well, understand how they are build and how the building was "put together". What i mean here is to know the essentials such as  where the water shutoff is, where the electric shut off is, where water pumps are and what kind of mechanics you have inside the building.

Take note of the model numbers, year of manufacturer of certain vital equipment such as HVAC, water heaters and so on. I like to take pictures and have some notes such as when it was last serviced and how to physically get to it. 

I found this to be really helpful because it gives me an understanding of what i am dealing with. It also allows me to answer any question my team have when dealing with problems. For example, If a tenant has no heat (for us in Chicago, this would be an Urgent "problem") i can send the details of the HVAC unit (through text message) to the team so they can take some replacement parts for that particular unit with them (igniters, high limit switches etc etc).

In addition knowing your properties will help you prepare better and somewhat anticipate problems. For example if i know i have a 20 year old water heater, I know that at some point this is going to fail. So when it does fail, i am prepared with information such as how much it will cost to replace and how long it will take to replace ( location of equipment can delay replacements)

This creates efficiency and you can manage such things from your phone, without the need to leave where you are.

3 Keep the building safe

As Peter Mason mentioned, make sure that you have smoke and Co detectors, fire extinguisher and other life safety equipment as required by Law. 

4 Have some basic equipment on standby so that you have options when your team cannot help.

I learnt this the hard way (couple of times!). One time we had a big flood in Chicago, and we needed a pump really bad to pump water from a basement. We ran to a couple of stores, and they were all sold out! I had the people to help me, but no one had the equipment.  On another occasion we lost heat in a building, it was one of those cold nights in Chicago, and my HVAC tech was sleeping and did not answer my calls. So I wanted some space heaters to keep the pipes from freezing and get through the night. All the stores were closed!! But luckily we had a heat tape which we wrapped around the pipes. Now i keep some space heaters, a pump, hoses and so on in storage.

I think at the end of the day its not as bad as i though it was when i first started out. Use common sense and allow yourself options so that you can make decisions remotely. Enjoy it and wish you all the best.

Byron: I use a simple Ms Access database that I developed. We used it to manage around 60 multiunit properties. Nothing sophisticated, it gets the job done. It's not connected directly to an email or web portal. 

We have the buildings and the units all listed in the database and when a workorder comes in we just fill in the details in a form , such as type of maintenance (plumbing, electrical, etc) and add pictures. I also use it to schedule Workorders to contractors/crew and can print or email the workorder directly. Once the work is completed we update the workorder database and change the status of the workorder.

What I like about this approach is that it allows us to trace back recurring problems in a building / unit. It also allows us to see what was done to solve the problem and how much it costs.

In addition, I use it to run simple reports to give me details that help us make capital improvement decisions.

As I said, it's very simple, no frills, but gets the job done. Also, it's very cost effective way of handling maintenance. no recurring charges for using 3rd party software. Obviously it has limitations but it works. 

So if you are somewhat good with Microsoft office products, this could be a viable approach.

Rod