All Forum Posts by: Paul Cijunelis

Quote from @Parmesh P.:

My experience is similar to Colleen's experience. I stay away from LG and Samgsung. The samgsung seems to have problems with the ice maker and circuit board in general. I have two Maytag in my rentals for about 7 years now with no problem. I bought them from home depot. This is the model # at home depot. MRFF4236RZ

I'll add to this as well. Samsung are garbage, won't buy another. Maytag and Whirlpool are good imo.

I personally also avoid ice makers and water dispensers. Why? they are largely unused by me, and I believe also tenants. They are far more common now and harder to find models without but:

1) these add cost to the purchase price
2) they don't bring a lot of value
3) they can leak or detach and damage the property

I own around 50 doors and I cap off the line at the wall or in the basement with a valve and a cap so the potential for leaks is 0.00001% :-)

Quote from @Nathan Gesner:

Quote from @Ryan Raven:

You can usually be a property manager without a license as long as you are a direct employee of the owner. Contact the real estate division for confirmation: https://idfpr.illinois.gov/dre.html

In illinois you must have a license. My business partner and I just opened up our property managment company in the Chicago/Chicagoland area and it is not easy to do this the "right way".

Honestly you can get yourself into some serious trouble if something happened with a tenant, an injury, anything and they sue and find out you don't have a license. Please consider this if you move forward.

Additionally, you need to have a broker on payroll in illinois and three separate bank accounts with the security deposit trust account located in illinois. There's a lot to this and illinois will not approve you without these things in place, as well as some others.

Good luck.

Quote from @Dennis McNeely:

Ask the judge - point blank and on the record during a court hearing - to take action.

Great advice. Ask the judge what criteria you have not fulfilled and if all is satisfied ask on record to have the eviction executed immediately and perhaps throw in a comment about failure to act providing damages.

Quote from @Matthew Crivelli:

 NY is very tenant friendly. 

Herein lies the real problem.

I agree with Evan. Less revenue never makes sense imo. These are investment properties. How will less revenue attract more buyers? This is an investment property. run a proforma and use cap to determine the value. Maybe do a bit of rehab and increase rents, divide by cap and you see how much value you add to your property's "ARV". example

4 units - $1000/unit

ARV $500k

light rehab brings $1200/unit

$200*4*12 = $9600 / let's say 8 cap = $120k additional property value ARV $500k -> $620k

Add appreciation, gentrification, more depreciation, refi.

BTW a LLC is like $300 if you do it yourself or $500-600 if you hire a lawyer. $700-ish out of state.

Quote from @Steve Gardiner:

I just bought a new property and I was wondering if I was going to rent this out, what repairs should I make in terms of the roof and should I add an addition?

Steve, typically it is not worth it. however it depends. What township? What are the permitting requirements? The costs to build? (i.e. labor, materials, etc) What are the values of homes? What are the values of homes with your new config? (i.e. 2-1 to a 3-1 or 3-2)

So many unanswered questions but usually the answer is no. Now, that said, if you can add a bedroom within the existing floor plan or a basement bathroom those are usually very good for higher ARV, rents and refi. Make sure you understand your code requirements. If you add a brm in the basement, here you must have 80" of floor to ceiling, an egress, a wired alarm in the room, etc. Good luck.

Quote from @Nate Herndon:

If you plan to take full control of the property, you could refinance in your name/entity alone with a cash-out and pay your partner off with their equity share. The max LTV available will range from 75-80%.

I assume you guys likely created a new LLC and set it up with each of your ind LLCs as 50/50 owners? Read your documentation to see what was agreed upon at the time you formed it. As Nate said, one of your options is to take over the property completely.

Another option is to educate your partner. Your situation is unique and so is your partner's and we don't know what it is. Does partner have more cash money than you? Older and less interested in risk/debt? Etc? What is your unique situation. Figure that out and approach your partner with the goal of education and discussion rather than argument. Why does partner wish to stick with cash only? Discuss COC return, run a financial analysis for him and a performance chart showing the ROR after multiple properties have been acquired and cashed-out... good luck.

Quote from @Christian Bland:

If you've used a sprayer before, it's so much more efficient. The longest time with the sprayer is taping everything down, but once that's done it's pretty easy. 

Rene, Christian is correct here but let's figure the entire setup and tear down. A sprayer will need to be cleaned and you will likely use a brush and roller as well because the paint will not be the same everywhere.

You will probably want to use flat on the ceilings to hide imperfections. The door trim, window trim and base will want to use semi-gloss. the walls will be an eggshell likely so you can wipe away most dirt. 

Typically you want to cover all floors and windows and items to remain unpainted like ceiling fans, etc. This is bagging and taping.

Then spray the ceiling and the floor trim. Then cut in w brush and roll the walls.

It's up to you what to do but educate yourself on the setups of spray. Most DIYs will simply use a brush and roller due to the simplicity. The 900sf is not massive so I don't thing spraying will benefit much imo. Good luck and congrats.

Quote from @Carini Rochester:

Quote from @Paul Cijunelis:

Thanks Paul! Yes I have done one cash-out refinance and it worked well. I currently own some properties I don't want. Wrong part of town. One is a four unit office use in a 200 year old house. The offices are difficult to rent and the building is . . . old. So I feel like I could redeploy the equity on better properties. Excellent point that you make!

 When and why did you buy these terrible properties? Selling is a cost. A buyer of said property will buy it to monetize it. Yet, unless you experienced a huge depreciation in value, the property is worth more today than at the time of your purchase so consider looking at them from a buyer's perspective. What can you do with them that a buyer would do? Again, a 100% cash refi from a lower acquisition point will net you an infinite return. Ask yourself how will you match that with a new acquisition? I have many C properties that are "ugly houses" or whatever, but they cash flow very well because they were acquired many years ago. Rents have gone up considerably. Additionally with every rent payment the principal also gets paid down more today than in the early years. So many benefits to buy and hold.

Quote from @Carini Rochester:

I use DSCR more than conventional. The banker I use has gotten to know me. At my last closing he told me how easy it was to approve me. (Really, to approve the deal. Plenty of rent money to cover the PITI.) I have been getting loans that change interest rate every 5 years. All my rates will (I predict) go up at the 5 yr date. That's bad. Or is it? This will incentivize me to sell and buy a better, more expensive property (1031 exchange.) In round numbers, I bought a property for a little under 300k a few years ago. 60k down payment, 240k financed. After five yrs., my equity will be my down payment + mortgage paydown + appreciation, say, 60k + 45k + 75k = 180k. There will be realtor's fees and closing costs. I could take 150k and use it as a down payment on a 700k property. Sure, I could sell and scale up even if I had financed with a conventional, fixed rate mortgage. But I find the pressure to do so at about the five year mark helpful.

 You might want to consider the costs and work of simply selling and acquiring new property. "the best rental is a rental you never sell"... someone once said. It's better to refinance and pull capital out than to sell and acquire. You have seller commissions, acquisition costs, marketing costs/time, inspections, etc.