All Forum Posts by: Troy DeLong

@David Coric This similarly happened at one of our multi-units as well. Our Triplex had two vacant units upstairs with the lower unit occupied. During our remodel, one of the units kept smelling like weed, even after new flooring, cabinets, trim, paint, etc. Near the end of the remodel, we hired a company to professionally clean the ducts. In the smelly unit, the duct cleaning guys found wax cartridges for a weed vape pen in the living room duct. So when the furnace would kick on and heat up, so would these old wax cartridges. 

After the duct got cleaned, the smell went 90% away. 

Hey Rick, 

I'm an agent / investor / contractor in the Lansing, MI market. Just sent you a DM. 

- Troy 

@Amy Oltendorf This whole discussion would be worth $200 - $400 to have an hour chat with a local Real Estate attorney by you. Especially if you would like to collect thousands of dollars in damages from your tenants. All of the advice on here is great, but this definitely involves too much local / state law for BP members to give you the perfect path to take. You could definitely put yourself in a legal battle if you start "forcing" your tenants to pay damages. 

Once it's taken care of though, I agree with most people above. Politely part ways with these tenants... 

@TJ Harback Hey TJ. I'm in the Lansing area as well. I'm more focused on 2-4 unit properties but I'd be more than happy to chat with you and see if I couldn't partner you up with a couple colleague investors in the area who DO tackle larger MF properties. Feel free to reach out to me if you're interested. 

- Troy 

@Jordan Szabo Hey Jordan, pleasure to meet you and welcome. I'm a local agent / investor out of Lansing, MI. I'm a little biased, but I think Mid-Michigan in general is a good spot to park your money for now. 

Would love to do a call / Facetime if you want to dive more into the details of Lansing and OOS investing. 

- Troy 

@Skyler Heimer Hey Skyler. I'm a local agent / investor myself and would recommend you reach out to any of these three for Property Management help. 

Sandy Bailey Bristol (Sandy’s Property Management)
(517) 285-5509

Bree Garrett (Good Company Realty)
(517) 706-9294

David Johnson (Simply Live Property Management)
(517) 927-5003

@Catarino Perez Welcome Cat! I'm a local agent / investor in the Lansing area and would be more than happy to chat real estate with you. Feel free to message me if you want to setup a call one of these days. 

@Cris Collins Hey Cris! I'm a local agent / investor in the Lansing area and would be more than happy to chat with you about all of this. Feel free to message me if you want to do a 15-20 minute call one of these days. 

@Hunter Malott Welcome to Michigan! 

I'm out of the Lansing area and would be more than happy to meetup and grab a coffee whenever is convenient for you. Our local REI group also meets up twice a month. You can ask to join on FaceBook, 'Lansing Real Estate Investors' (It'll show about 2,000 members)

@Kevin Howard 

I would be upset with that change as well. Mini-splits have their time and place and I don't think their place is in your new build 3 bed / 2 bath duplex units in Florida. If you're contract and drawings state traditional HVAC then that is what I would expect to get. 

My best suggestion would be to 

1) Request a sit down with your builder and the HVAC tech / owner and discuss the situation as a whole. Why can't you do a traditional system in the attics? What is the major differences between the two? What is the performance and cost difference?

2) Discuss a cost reduction or compensation from your builder if these mini-splits end up being cheaper than a traditional system (it's 50/50 if I were to guess). 

3) Don't let this hold you up from getting the build complete and rented out. Majority of tenants won't care about this. This is more of a future maintenance / resale issue. 

At the end of the project, if you're still not happy with the way things turned out then you can just make that clear to the builder and hope they realize referral business from you will be a no-go. 

Best of luck on getting this squared away! 

- Troy