All Forum Posts by: Zack Thiesen

@Marco Morkous Are you talking about 'passing' in terms of your lender's criteria for a loan? Inspections just give you a rough idea of the scope of work that has to be done. If it is constantly more than you are wanting to chew on then now you are just that much better at knowing what a house that needs too much work for your margins looks like. 

If a bank keeps refusing to lend on properties you find, then other lending options and funding sources are potentially possible. 

@Mitchell Chingay I wish more people understood the difference between a crash and a recession and that crashes are very rare.

I also wish more people understood that if you know what you're doing you can thrive in any stage of the market, even a crash.

@Brenden Mitchum @Brenden Mitchum it's really not. I did the same thing with my first house that was a house hack. It was zero work for me. I made it the seller's responsibility to serve notice and just waited it out. I did not mind the extra time to close. But that was at a time when it was a buyer's market. If you asked a seller that now and also in an especially hot market they might just say "ok, next.." but I'm just putting it out there since i dont know how motivated this seller is or what their situation is.

Having your own tenants that you pick - to me - is much more ideal. Or wait the lease out and implement it, as you said. In any case I would not bother with sub metering in this instance.

@Brenden Mitchum The easiest solution would be to make the sale contingent on the current owner giving notice to all current tenants and start clean with your own people who you can work out RUBS agreement with.

@Nancy P. I'm sorry for your experience with that, I would be so furious.. that is awful. But yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about!  

@Account Closed Those ideas sound great, and if it could work in real life I would be all for it. I never said the old system is perfect, just that it is the way it currently works. I would rather have the compensation be performance driven in as many aspects as possible, like many other jobs. You have to be careful what you incentivize however. People often hire PM companies because they're remote. If you give a year-end bonus for no issues, how do you know they're not under-reporting or ignoring incidents to get the bonus? You could be paying out years of higher percentages and bonuses for an equal or worse result than the one you were avoiding. Of course across many other industries there are managers who are managed remotely with better results. But that's because those businesses are set up within an entirely different structure where they are compensated with appropriate salary and benefits that are a viable portion of annual income for the company/owner. It just doesn't work the same, but like I said if someone came up with a better way I would hear them out for sure!

@Account Closed 

"The system needs to be changed to where there's a good compensation for a manager for creating a good profit for the owner."

The good profit for owner comes from the numbers in the original deal on the property and the market rent prices. So from where else, if not the owner, would they be getting the good compensation in this new system? And if it's from the owner, why would I be paying them anything outside the scope of what's involved in the numbers I originally ran to make my property cash-positive? 

Okay Okay hold up... I get he is unlicensed and uninsured, that it was a mistake to hire him. But before we get too far into stiffing the possibly innocent guy, how are you going to do that without proving they stole anything? Stiffing someone who did work for you for reasons not based on their work is pretty low... If it's not possible to know either way, I would do what OP did and just eat the cost myself for hiring someone uninsured. 

Hypothetical question for all you stiffers out there: I am licensed and insured and if I did this work and left, then got an upset call from you, came back and this was the scenario.. how do I know you're not a scammer and moved your appliances into the locked garage in the back and want new ones off my insurance for your unit next door? Are you more right because... why? You need proof of something when you accuse them. 

For all you know someone saw it was vacant/empty and broke in, casually hauled the stuff into their truck in broad daylight like they were movers and are currently selling the appliances a county over on Craigslist

@Yaniv Sigler The suit is totally baseless and fishing for settlements if work being done is not in the unit they signed the lease FOR. How does this even make sense to your friend? 

@Ree Somes I've had plenty of crazy experiences with hiring other contractors myself. Same as anyone else, I find lack of communication to be the top problem. If you maintain ordered and timely communication between all involved parties, have excellent interpersonal skills, are business-minded and un-stubborn with eternal patience for customer interaction and able to remain calm and professional in any discussion environment, then you're a cut above most of the field.

As far as growing into top-tier, decide what demographic that means in your community and break into it. 98% of my work is client referral and over the years I've moved past the "hungry" phase of doing anything for anyone, having my hourly be sliding scale, etc. and into being busy with work that I actually like doing and what I want to be doing. Like REI, you find your niche, and there is no shortcut to the networking that will get you there.

In the end, there's no use preemptively investing in systems, multiples of tools, employees, workers comp and all the overhead to take your business to people who will low-ball you or haggle or just want a guy who has a license who picked up a day laborer/helper to get it done quickly and satisfactorily. There are plenty of other people who do that and it sounds like you want something different. Not saying it won't be landlords. It might be, there are tons of investment property owners who want nice finishes in their buildings and are willing to pay a premium price for premium work. I have several great working relationships with landlords and work on their primary homes as well, and actually got into REI after talking about it with them.

But before you pour your heart and soul (and $$) int building a business up to where you dream it can be, identify that client base and make sure they're really there to support it. 

@Ree Somes