All Forum Posts by: Tara G.

I have consistently found eBay/Froogle as good source from small sized supplies. This varies from drip pans, CO and smoke alarms. For large appliances such as Range, Habitat for Humanity is an excellent resource.

Home Depot/Hughes and Lowes are good for only few things. Home Depot is better for large volume. I have also been getting quotes from Sears commercial but deals are not that good.

For pest control, I have ordered supplies from
http://www.kill-fireants.com/restaurants.htm. in part because they have excellent information on what to use when.

Has anyone looked at B2B exchanges like Alibaba.com? Are they any good? Yesterday, I asked for quote on refrigerators. I am waiting to see their response. Can people post their experiences with suppliers in terms of price and quality of products?

-Rye

Has anyone changed a water heater here on this group? Are there any online links on step by step process?

HVAC seems to me as the most expensive component to date. I am trying to find out what all do I need to do to reduce costs. Today I am handling problems one at a time.

Here is what I have heard so far but I am looking for more meat on these:

1. Do preventive maintenance before summer and winter. I am looking for what needs to be covered in these maintenance works. How much should this cost? I have received quotes as much as $80/hr of work and low as $30 per unit for preventive maintenance.

2. Here are some of the issues I have faced in one off work orders:
a) Broken solenoid
b) Unclean valves
c) Over heating on upper floors (I have been told that I need to have been told that I need to do rebalancing. I have 2 floor town homes with single HVAC unit).

I use them to run credit and criminal check. Setting up with another company will take a few days.

Who do you use for doing these checks? Are they good?

Thank you,
Rye

you are doing the right thing.

I am still trying to figure out what is effective. Here are some of the things I have tried:

1. Internet savvy tenants: Craigs list and rent.com. Both are excellent.
Number of leads from rent.com is huge. 2-3 emails a day.

2. Local news paper: Print ad did not generate any leads.
But response from their online classifed section was excellent.

3. Local free publication: No leads at all to date.

4. How to reach section8 tenants? I have not figured that out.Any ideas?

5. Local flyers:No leads

Is there anyone on this group in Triangle ,NC area? Let me know if we can exchange ideas on what works locally?

Thank you,
Rye

Is anyone on this group having problems with Landlord411? Are they still in business?

I have run up against a brick wall with Landlord411. I am not able to run any new reports. I have not been able to get any response back by phone or email. Today an email to their [email protected] bounced back.

Thank you,
Manu

I have been able to get a lot of propects to either visit property or schedule an appointment. But I am having trouble converting them into tenants. I have tried a few things:

1. Push them to make an application on their first visit.
2. Get them into personal conversation to make it diffcult for them to make an excuse for not signing.

Also, I think that my property does not have good curb appeal. I hope to fix that in a week or so. But I have very strong factors such as location and low rents.

Any suggestions?

Rye

LoL.. That sounds awfully lot like our situation. We have 33 units, have been in the SFH market and have an office at the complex but dont want to spend more time than is necessary there.. Believe me, the problems the tenants want you to help out with.. NOT FUN!

Will be checking in here for some responses..

So you guys really get 1000 $ in rent for a 50,000$ unit? Wow. In my neck of the woods, we'd be lucky to get 500$! I know some units that cost 150K and rent for 900/mo- not mine:-) Thats worse than the rule of 1%. :crying:

Can you folks share where you are located to be able to make that kind of money from rental? Maybe we should pack up and move to your part of the woods :lol: