All Forum Posts by: Chris Volkers

All of our buildings are pre-1978... Granted, I do not operate in an overly-regulated state like CA or MA, but the risk of lead exposure is extremely low.

We have a LBP and Radon disclosure tacked on to each lease. We don't have paint chips laying around and we usually advise our tenants to not eat paint. Also I have not been able to find credible evidence of anyone ever having ill effects from radon gas in their residence.

People will say a lot of scary stuff about it, but sometimes it's ridiculous. Few of our ancestors died of lead exposure, and they all had it in their houses. If your painter is using a heat gun to strip wallpaper and heats the paint to 1100 degrees... your building will burn down before his brain can swell. (Paper ignites around 450 degrees)

IMHO, the real risks involved with lead paint are legal, not medical. On that, you need to educate yourself on your local and state laws, not on a forum full of (often helpful) hear-say. Then you weigh the risks... and probably paint over it.

I have a garage and a couple of basements like this... maybe a little messier.

I always have a spare fridge ready and I like to be able to take advantage of great deals on flooring, appliances, etc. I never can seem to get my helpers to understand that latex paint needs to go in the basement where it won't freeze...

I also store furniture and housewares. We have orthopedic companies here that bring people in from all over the world on short-term contracts and they will pay a premium for a furnished and stocked apartment.

It looks doable to me as long as you are in a position where you could weather a few vacancies, don't need income from it yet, and you plan to manage it yourself.

With $0 down, it's not likely to prevent you from other deals.

If you could pay an extra $375/month on the mortgage, the property would be paid off in about 15 years.

It looked to me like the insurance and taxes must be included in the financing payment... 

$150,000 @ 6% 30 yrs would be a $900 payment

($1470 + $1800 + $1900) / 12 = 431

$900 + $431 ~ $1350/month

Is that where the number came from?

I have 2 banks with several locations in town where my tenants can make deposits. We put our savings account #'s on the lease and on magnets on the fridge. For your first building, it's easy to keep track of who has payed- all payments from Apt. # 1 end in $.01 all payments from # 2 end in $.02, etc.