All Forum Posts by: Paul M.

Is there a way to avoid the tenant forcing a payment on you?   (eg in a legal scheme to avoid an eviction etc).  

Personally I wouldn't list until I had the final inspection completed.  I know you want to get as much revenue as possible as soon as possible, but construction is too risky and unpredictable and it will cost big bucks if you are contractually obligated and can't fulfill that obligation.

As far as I can tell, Whirlpool is the *ONLY* brand of coin operated laundry machine available from Home Depot, Lowes and it is terribly reviewed.  Sears also has a Kenmore brand, also terribly reviewed.  None available from Best Buy.   The lack of choices is atrocious!   

You can get a coin operated timer to work with any machine, but those seem to be over $1k and it is not clear to me that there is any particular trusted well reviewed brand.

Yup, that is the forum I'm posting in!   I'm just saying a separate *property management" meaning people who manage property they don't own for an owner client, might make sense.   Since there are forums for real estate agents, contractors and bankers, this might make sense too.   

I did find another post on this topic since posting, but it is mostly sidetracked by a discussion of whether one should get a real estate agent license.

As a landlord, accountant and hands on rehabber, I've thought about becoming a property manager, in my market that would be for 1-4 unit properties most likely for now.  I'm looking for advice on the legal and insurance implications of doing so, or general advice.   I would have no employees, except someone to do things when I'm on vacation.   I notice there is no property managers forum on biggerpockets!

I charge $1, my goal is cut down on waste but not to maximize income.    You can fuel resentment if everytime they do laundry they are giving you money, and they may try to overload.   $1 is simple, cheap, convenient for them, and it will cover your costs. 

What was the scope of the renovations?  250k for a 4 unit gut job seems very low.

Does anyone else provide video tours of your rentals to prospective tenants? I've been doing it for a few years and I've found it to be a great tool for both screening uninterested (time savings-fewer wasted showings) and also for drawing in those who find the place a good match.

I've been taking these videos with my cell phone camera, which means they are somewhat unsteady. Is there a way to make them more professional? A tripod on wheels? (though you'd still have to carry it up stairs. Youtube does have a stabilizer tool that helps (though also makes it kind of weird too).

I have been using the Schlage locks on my personal residence for 7 months now, and it has been great. As tenants turn over, I'll be installing them on the rentals to eliminate lockout calls and so I don't have to rely on my giant key ring.

I won't use them for apartments where the front door is right on the street because neighbors could watch my tenants enter the keypad code, for those I'll do it on the back door.

I think if you can do something reasonably well, you should do it. It may depend on region (and that my day job isn't lucrative), but where I am hiring people is incredibly expensive. I'll hire for things I can't do competently (most plumbing) but it almost always makes financial self to do it myself. In a recent Saturday, I estimated the cost to hire out everything I did would have been $750-$1,000. I don't make that much in a day, maybe you do. Plus, I still have to supervise, let the person into the property, find the person to do the work, pay them, enter the payment into Quickbooks, etc. I'm not really saving time.

Also the first post seems to compare the pretax value of their time to the post tax cost of hiring people. If it is maintenance that is expensed on the tax return (and you don't have losses over 25k that you are rolling forward, then you should compare apples to apples post tax. For people with a fixed salary that have some extra time on the weekend that enjoy the maintenance and are decent at it, and don't have big family responsibilities, I don't think there is much opportunity cost. If it something you have to capitalize, then the advantage shifts to doing it yourself. For example, say I'm building an addition, and I have to capitalize it over 27.5 years. If I work less hours at work during that time, I'm making less by the after tax net amount of my wages. But I'm saving an amount that is almost the before tax amount of what I'd pay someone, because due to the fact that I'd have to depreciate the expense over a few decades, much of the tax value of the deduction from hiring someone to do the addition will be eroded by inflation. Finally, I have to pay social security tax and medicare taxes on money I earn, which will either not pay me back well or will do so at a time several decades from now when I have more money than I need due to smart investing!