All Forum Posts by: Scott J.

Great insight everyone, thank you very much.

Since I have an old house, we don't have wall insulation. It seems like a good idea to get that to keep the cold/warm air in the house. Do the Central Air installation folks usually do that or is that something I should handle on my own?

I'm sure the costs vary, but what is a ballpark amount for adding central air/heating to a 1300 sq. ft. 90 year old home?

There is currently insulation in the attic, but not in the walls.

What are some of the options available?

*Correction. I said highest loan in my last sentence, I meant the loan with the highest interest rate.

I'll leave a quick reply and will leave the in-depth analysis to the pros out there. Generally speaking, you want to put your money where you'll get the highest return.

Please provide the rate of your mortgage, student loans, and (God forbid) credit card debt if you have any. You want to pay off the highest percentage rate. I know you're thinking about the new property. But let's just say your highest debt rate if 8%. By paying that debt you are getting a guaranteed 8% "return" on your investment.

While better returns can be found in real estate. You NEED a safety net and don't want to be overleveraged with only $5k in savings this early on. In a nutshell, my opinion is to increase your emergency fund then pay off your highest loan, which won't be your mortgage.

Hi Richard. Would you mind PMing me about your property? We are in the market for duplexes in OC. We weren't planning on buying another one until the middle of 2012 (we are old school, buy & hold with traditional financing investors), however we may be interested if the price is right.

Do you have permits for the back rental?

Hi BPers,

I have a rental house that has a walkway behind it. I was doing some routine cleaning and noticed lots of cat poop back there. I already know the perps, who are a group of about three stray cats in the neighborhood.

The cats are loved by a couple of the older ladies in the neighborhood, so I'd rather not call animal services.

Does anyone know any tips to deter the cats from taking a dump behind my rental?

To put it simply, gold is pure speculation. While real estate, to most of us, is not.

My properties would still be good investments if the price stayed flat for ten years.

First of all, best of luck to you Rich and it's good you are excited to get into the real estate game.

The biggest issue is the free rent. If rent is $900, we're paying you $10,800 a year to take care of the property and collect checks. That's not a good investment. Even if you wanted to be a partner and put $100k down, I wouldn't let you take a unit rent free.

Investors want partners with skin in the game. You have no incentive to keep the property up, raise rents, or do anything else for the good of the property. If things get financially ugly, you are not affected.

Save up as much money as you can and consider starting smaller. Perhaps you could manage the property and take 10% of the gross rents (common property mgmt. fee) off of your rent to make it fair for all parties.

Chelsy, don't cut it down yourself. City's move slow enough to make a snail yawn... UNTIL you break one of their codes.

George is right, go there in person. Ideally you could mention some damage the tree is causing (roots damaging the sidewalk, whatever...). Also clarify that you will pay for it.

I'm actually getting a tree removed today and the city didn't respond until I mentioned it was damaging the roof of my historic, 90 year old Craftsman home.

Like Greg mentioned, I'm a big fan of requests being sent via text. It's a written record and time stamped by an outside company. When I have to go in and fix something I also text asking when is a good time for me to enter the unit.

Maybe this just makes me feel better, but it's easy to make dialogue look favorable for me in a text in case it ever had to be shown in court. An actual conversation I had last week about a broken gate latch was:

Her: The gate latch is broken can you please fix it?

Me: Absolutely, I'll fix it this weekend. I'm sure you already are, but just in case, please be careful about slamming the gate.