All Forum Posts by: Scott Rogers

@Ryan Evans  Appreciate the feedback.  A closet probably would not work out.  Leaning towards removing it.

@Marcus Auerbach  Glad to hear showings are picking up.  Of course the PM always paints a rosy picture to me of "Interest is very high in your property, it is priced correctly and we should have it rented very soon".  Been the same statement for 4 weeks now.  Finally after constant nagging they passed along some feedback, "Oh yeah, some potentials have mentioned the large furnace in the living room as a reason for not putting in an application".  

@James Wise  Thank you for the feedback, I would agree that I don't necessarily want the tenant that took my unit because no other landlords would accept them.  And I do want the reputation of a good landlord with a good product. 

@Russ B. Yes, it is just heat and not AC.  The smaller unit manages ok with just electric baseboards so that is a direction I am leaning.  But you are correct that I would need to make sure all of the heat is not escaping. 

Thank you for the feedback.

Hello all,

My property management company is having some trouble renting out one of the units in my recently acquired duplex (It doesn't help that it is the dead of winter in Wisconsin, lesson learned).  Another of the detractors is the gas furnace in the corner of the living room (there is a minimal basement and mostly just a crawl space).  It is an eyesore, takes up some space and can be loud. The unit is a 3BR/1 BTH with about 1000 SQFT.  I have been weighing options.

1) leave it as is.  It will eventually rent at the right price and as the weather improves.  My concern would be tenant turnover (even with a 1 year lease)

2) Try and enclose the furnace.   I know this is a safety and efficiency issue

3) Remove the unit and just rely on the electric radiant headers in the baseboards.   The electric heat must not have been enough if they previous owner felt the furnace was needed.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you

@Pete Storseth  To me it's seems you have a couple choices.  The first is to postpone your dream of real estate and stay in the rate race longer and hope your fortunes turn (higher income, housing market collapse, etc). The second is to go "all in" and start building a "stash". This is extreme in that you would need to eat ramen noodles, sleep on a friends couch and have an entertainment budget of zero.  Also look for side hustles like bird dogging, cold calling for someone of another part time job.  No life for 2-3 years until you have $25k saved up to do a real house hack.  Most people can't do this.  And as @Chris Mason pointed out, most successful people on BP started with a solid foundation of six figure incomes, ultra low expenses and the extreme allergy of buying things that do not appreciate over time. 

@Derek Loda  Looking forward to it.  Thanks

 I can somewhat agree.  I have a rental listed for $800 with a PM right now and they tell me it's reasonably priced for that market.  It's been vacant for almost 2 months so that tells me that $800 is not the correct price.  I want it lower and rented.  I put a pair of end tables on FB marketplace over the weekend for $100 and had 10 hits really fast, that tells me it was listed too cheap.  

@Randy Reyes  For a straight cash flowing rental property $2,000 would not be enough for me (unless appreciation is a contributing factor). If it's a true house hack where you are using it to subsidize your living expenses then it might be ok.  Although I would prefer a cheaper price point that needed some forced appreciation through renovation. For the calculations, as @Jacob Sampson mentioned, 15% for vac/cap/maint is not enough.  I use between 20-35% depending on the age of the house, age of systems and management.  Best wishes.

Is this really a thing?  Why would a landlord purposely rent out a property too cheap unless they are forced to do so because of the rental market?  You would think it would have to be oversupply in those areas?