All Forum Posts by: Lj Smith

Never had a problem with lockbox showings. Prescreen well first though.

No problems with squatters in our area.

Water is the only utility that I keep in my name. If not, it costs too much at turnovers to get the water back on for such a short period of time. I include an average priced water bill in the rent amount along with a dollar amount that the tenants can't go over without being charged extra. I will text a warning the first time they go over and start charging after that.

3rd generation tile guy here. Many years of experience.

Typically I will follow manufacturers recommendations but I will not thin-set under cement backer board. If you have ever tried removing thin-set installed backer board then you will know why. You will be taking up the floor down to the floor joists if you ever want to remodel. 

Just screw down and tape joints like manufacturer recommends. Install a quality porcelain tile with a "flex" type of thin-set.

All the problems I've seen have been when a cheap ceramic tile was used on a dimensional lumber sub-floor. Doesn't matter how well it's installed, if you use cheap ceramic over a wood subfloor you will more than likely get cracks in the tile.

It is a primary residence. We called around all day yesterday to banks listed as offering the homepath loan on homepath website and could only find one that actually offered it. We are thinking maybe the one hasn't caught wind of the changes yet. Most were trying to just get us in a 5% down loan but it needed an appraisal and mortgage insurance (not homepath).

We put in an offer on a Fannie Mae homepath house. Mortgage guy originally qualified us with a homepath loan but called us yesterday and tells us that the program has been cancelled by the government and that they will no longer be doing homepath or homepath renovation loans. Has anyone else heard of this?

Service Magic is now Home Advisor. As a contractor I have used their service for leads. They make sure the contractors they list are insured and also run background checks.

We use the UPS store box. We had one crazy tenant that did google the address and call the UPS store asking if the person she was speaking to worked for our business name. The UPS store worker that answered the tenants call told tenant that she worked for our business. UPS store worker tells my wife all about it when my wife goes to check box. Thought it was nice of them to do that. Technically she does work for us because we do have a box there. The tenant never caught on that we just had a box at the store. Tenant had also called our local apartment association. We are happy with the UPS store box and recently paid for another year and a half of service.

One option would be tiling over the existing. It's an acceptable method of installation as long as the glaze on the existing tile is scarified and a latex modified thin set is used. Those old tile mortar "mud" beds are far superior to the installation material/methods used today.

No, because by the time sea levels rise that much we wont have the right to private property with the way were going. If we still have that right then the government will have taken all the profit out of investing.