All Forum Posts by: David Santore

Originally posted by @Thomas S.:

Keep the oil and have your tenant set up automatic filling. If the burner goes out call a repair teck. and charge it to the tenants.

The heating is not your problem it falls on your tenants and is not in need of repairing or changing. You are doing too much babysitting.

I owner occupy, so I babysit on this by default.  My concern is when I move out and my 2 family becomes a total rental property what to do.

Originally posted by @Matt Nolan:

I own a duplex in Brighton that has baseboard electric heaters and is currently fully rented. The tenants have never complained of heating cost, and I’m getting top dollar for the units ($2,500 and $2,300. Both are 2 bedroom). 

When I initially purchased the home, I was planning on going with ductless mini-splits. Given how fast I filled the units, and the fact that I haven’t had any complaints about the cost, I decided to save the money and spend the cash elsewhere. 

Do all of your neighbors have oil?  Do any have electric heat?  Might be worth asking them what they do for heat, and see if it’s worth the effort of converting to electric. 

Most neighbors around me have a mix, but it's predominantly natural gas.  I'm the oddball who has a far driveway off of a commercial plot (I have easement access), so neighbors that have normal streetside plots generally have natural gas.

And Brighton - I used to live there for several years as a renter.  It was very easy to get roommate applicants!  This is my first tenant in Braintree, and it was a bit harder to find someone.

I also forgot to mention: they DO have their own oil service, and they do have auto delivery set up.  It's a 225 gallon tank vs. a normal 275 gal tank, so it empties out quicker.

I'm in MA, and my property has oil. Typical 1900s style 2 family with dumpy - if any- insulation!  

It's set about 300 feet back from the natural gas line on the street, and it order to bring NG in it'd be $7K to jus run a line to the house on top of the NG furnace conversion - ouch!

Issues with Oil:

- tenants pay oil and are responsible for refilling the tank.  Sometimes this lapses, and it can get too low and cause the furnace to flame out and I have to purge it.  Occasionally, a heating tech needs to be called.  This is a headache for me and an added cost, and for tenants it's something they don't want to deal with

- Oil has yearly maintenance due to soot, and it's a radiator system so there's pipes everywhere that could burst or rust out over time.

Taking into account distribution, energy, transmission, and other miscellaneous charges, it would be $0.14073/kWh for electric pricing.

Electric would give me 

(1) easy addition with an electrician running wiring, baseboard, and probably a new panel 

(2) no need to take care of an oil tank, and 

(3) no furnace to maintain at all, only a hot water heater.

My biggest concerns is cost to operate. I've read electric baseboard is inefficient, and that insulation is more important for electric heating.  I've read about heat pumps, and that's there's more to electric heat than before so I am not sure if electric heat has improved in cost efficiency?

Other concern is rentability and resale.  If I sell the home, would prospective buys run at the thought of electric heat, and do tenants also usually run as well?

@Christian Nachtrieb yes I did! Walter A. McKinnon Associates, Inc. Consulting Engineers 278 Washington Street Weymouth, MA 02188 They were good folks and helpful, though a bit hard to get ahold of initially.

I'm trying to rent my 2nd floor in my owner/occupy, but I'm running into some resistance on my heat utilities as I have oil heat/hot water.

Currently I am including water/sewage but tenant would pay electric/heat/hot water.  I'm wondering if including water/sewage/heat/hot water with the tenant only paying electric would be a good way to get around these hesitations?  I'd make up for it by charging a higher per month rate, around $150-200 more/month.  My unit is a 2BR/1BA 800 square foot unit, am I setting myself up for significant pain in the future?

Truthfully I can't even estimate the heat costs for that floor - this is my first landlord/tenant/house experience.

My renovated rental is not getting the responses that I thought I was going to get - 3 interested people, 2 of which flaked out and the other wants me to negotiate (a dog but I do not want dogs).  This is over a 2 week period.

I'd be open to speaking to someone with tenant search experience in the S. Shore MA area.

Originally posted by @Jay Helms:

@David Santore - I shoot for replacement value (just the improvements, not the land). You also want to ensure you have ample liability coverage since you’re renting out the other side. An umbrella policy is not a bad gap filler either. But CONGRATS on your duplex!

 I have $300K for personal liability - is that enough?  The rental unit will be 2 BR so theoretically 2 roommate tenants can live there.

Originally posted by @Jason Bott:

Thanks @Brie Schmidt

@David Santore

Is the land value high?  If not, then it sounds like your underinsured.

To determine how much you should be insured for, ask your insurance agent to run a Replacement Cost estimator.  This estimator will use local material and contractor pricing to determine what it would cost to rebuild the home. 

You can then set the buildings insurance limit to that limit. 

Good luck

 Thanks I'll make sure to as about that kind of an estimator.

Thank you for the help @Michael Plaks!

I closed on my duplex last year in MA, and I'm living in one unit and renting the other out.  My question falls on insurance for the Dwelling - should this cover the entire appraised value of the house?  Right now my Dwelling policy is 50% of my house appraised value, with an extended replacement cost on dwelling - this still doesn't cover my full house.

I'm worried I am underinsured here and if I should get the complete value of the house covered - help?