All Forum Posts by: Scott Wilson

Originally posted by @Caroline Gerardo:

What does the lease say? Where are the before photographs? need: vacuum,  microrags, a pound of walnuts, a box of baking soda and 8 ounces of olive oil. 1. clean the wheels on the vacuum and clean out filter then vacuum all the floors. 2. with microrags on your knees and a spritz NOT a dunk in water clean all the dust. 3. blend up 20 walnuts and rub them into the scratches with the grain. 4. 1 part baking soda 1 part olive oil go back over the scratches that still show on your hands and knees with paper towels (you can use the microrags but they won't come clean you will need to throw them away) 5. dust again with dry rags and get up all the nuts and soda - wear glasses to see all the crumbs.  Some are from a heavy dog and some from high heels. This looks like 900 square feet and it will take you five hours to get it looking better but never new again. Refinishing is more costly and will take down some of the value of the life of the floor as then you are on thinner ice for next tenant.  What is the manufacturer's warranty? How long has this floor been on site? Can you claim defect in the finish if manufacturer is in the US maybe but if in China, nope. 

@Caroline Gerardo - Thank you so much for your advice.  I'll look into that treatment.  The lease basically says the deposit is refundable "less  any damage charges".  The tenant was responsible to surrender the property "in as good condition as received normal wear and tear accepted".  Thats about as far as the lease goes in describing the condition requirements.  It really comes down to what is normal wear and tear and I'm hoping to get some opinions on whether these indentations are normal wear.  To us it looks like 10 years worth of damage in 1 year.

Probably covered before in BP... but it's me and it's personal now ;) Ha! I've seen people say "eat the damage" and "take it outta their deposit"... wattaya think?

If I don't keep part or all of my renter's deposit, my wife will take away all my man points!  We rented our furnished personal home for 12 months and just moved back in. These floors are engineered hand scraped and cannot easily be sanded/re-stained.  Original cost was $12000 or so, and most (80% at least) looks like this.  Renter calls them normal wear (since they have an indoor dog). 

Maybe I was naive, but I think this is excessive and should be covered by their main (one months rent) deposit.  I took $1000 as a non-refundable pet deposit explicitly for replacement of carpet (due to wife's allergies).  But the floors are not called out in the lease just general damage. 

OK experts... give me your best advice... I can take it!  Thanks so much.  No pressure but my marriage is on the line and I rather like sleeping indoors!!  ;0)

Well hear we are 5 years later and (hopefully) almost post-COVID 19 virus!  I am a builder in the Austin, Hill-Country area. I just spent 2 days putting together a detailed budget for a custom casita client who brought me plans.  His plans and selections for his 714 sq ft casita has a slab, rock and stucco on the elevation, 10 sizable windows and fairly mid-range to upper range quality on finishes.  Just their appliance package came to $11K and that's without laundry.  Their full sized kitchen needs $15K of cabinets and they are real hardwood floors and tile throughout.  Their allowances for these items came to $59K and their total price is at $179K. That makes it about $250 per square foot in cost.  I think that is average but the homeowner, who builds pools for a living, thought it would be closer to 100K total.  Not sure if he was just posturing or if he was serious to start with .  But $250 in 2020 here in Texas seems like a fairly good deal considering.  Our builder fee plus some overhead reimbursement is about 16 -18% depending on the job.

Thanks for sharing that and congratulations... even for knowing your numbers as intimately as you do (not every investor does). I'm going to share this post with a friend of mine looking to invest in a buy and hold in your area.

Dripping Springs is partially in primarily in Hays county but partially in Travis. Both are known to have good school districts and are on the rise in terms of value. Happy to chat. Message me if you'd like to talk.

By the way... I would happily pay 10% for the right manager!!

We lived in Long Beach and bought in Maryland and Washington state. Little down at the time... the cash flowed for years with an interest only option.... we pulled $50k out of 3 properties to start a business... then market slowed down and taxes increased and we went about 5 years having a slight negative cash flow. We kept them through the downturn even managed a couple ourselves remotely and waited for them to rebound... one we made $70k additional on this year and it's waiting for a 1031 exchange now. Two others we sold at a loss because we had a couple bad tenants that were hard to evict and it happened at a time when we were moving across the country and had a lot of moving financial parts (with our businesses). All things considered we made good money on each of them considering our investment of about $5000 each with only a few years of negative cash flows. It's not for the faint of heart and we could have managed the properties better looking back.

Hey @Eric Barnett... We never got together for coffee?  We should do!!

I'll plug Austin Texas again, particularly hill country west of the city. I live in Dripping Springs but was planning on moving to Colorado for years (from CA) until I measured all the generally criteria that a family man with 4 kids would... and we are thrilled here for over 2 years now!!

Dude I am thrilled for you and wish you all the success. Thank you for your service! You deserve all the opportunity American can offer you!!