All Forum Posts by: Zee Abbas

IRR looks ok, barely edging the S&P but the negative cash flow until year 10 would be a no go for me. I would add payout time to your metrics, I try to recover my initial cash investment as soon as possible to reinvest (through earned cash flow, not appreciation). I would also suggest to account for inflation in the appreciation portion of your analysis. Good luck - I didn't realize the property taxes in Utah were so low.

Nothing you listed should take more than a week to complete. Maybe ordering carpet and HVAC can have a 2-3 week long lead. As an investor cash flow is key, you cannot be bleeding cash for two months while your property is sitting vacant. Find a new property manager or hire subs yourself to take care of these things.

Lowest cost option is to do exactly what you said, you control the temperature. Plenty of apartment buildings have a heating controlled by a super. You’ll have to make sure you have communication with the thermostat to do that though, if you don’t plan on being at the premise. For the bill, you can have the tenants split it based upon volume OR include heat into your rent and raise the rent accordingly. Not an ideal situation, so I would negotiate the sale price. 

Personally, HVAC is the only system I do PM on appliance wise. The other appliances don’t really have PMs or it wouldn’t make sense to pay someone to do them since the 5-yr cost to do it would exceed the price of a new appliance. The exception to this are stoves/ovens that can extremely greasy and dirty if not taken care of, which will cause problems with igniters, and gas valves. Cleaning dishwasher strainers is another thing i do when there is tenant turnover. The only commercial level appliance I have is a 36” range, it’s kind of hard to justify having anything else in a regular home. Parts availability for appliances is hit or miss, commercial or not. The parts I needed for my commercial oven were discontinued so I had to adapt similar parts from other brands to make it work.

Appliances are almost always worth replacing rather than repairing. If it’s your fridge, you should just replace it, especially if it’s over 10 years old. 

I don’t see a need for compensating them in any way. Repairs take time, they can’t happen with a snap of a finger. There are plenty of coin operated laundromats available for their usage for the 1-2 weeks it will take to deliver and install a new washer. The advantage of having a washer at home is convenience, not necessarily cost. Being inconvenienced for a week or two is standard when there is a repair underway. How do you compensate for inconvenience? It seems like your doing your best on honoring all the other requests. If the hot water heater went out (a bigger inconvenience) and it took a week to replace, would you compensate for that too? I wouldn’t, and as a former tenant who has had to take cold showers for a week, I didn’t expect to get compensated for that either- it’s part of life.

I would not feel comfortable with tenants being responsible for anything more than basic maintenance (ie. filter change, replace thermostat batteries). The reason is that it invites tenants to either a. Perform the maintenance themselves or b. Hire someone that you have not worked with to perform the service. Both of which can lead to more harm than good. I would lose record of what maintenance has been done on the equipment. Furthermore, the premise essentially opens up the opportunity for the tenants’s HVAC company to create a deficiency when there might not be one, because the tenant believes there is. In a worst case scenario, someone (including the tenants) could tamper with your system in order to create a job for themselves. 

Firstly, you have to clarify with the tenants what they mean by efficiency. Are they referring to energy efficiency or performance efficiency or cooling efficiency, etc.? Secondly, I would note their comments and have my HVAC company address it during an upcoming seasonal maintenance, if their clarification is not impactful to the life of the system. If they clarify and explain a legitimate concern, I would have someone fix the issue before failure. Ultimately, you will have to come out of pocket if your unit fails, not the tenant- despite assigning the maintenance expectations to them.

@Allison Hodges if you’re remote and don’t have contacts in the state to give you recommendations, google is probably your best bet. I usually visit my local showrooms to check out what style I like and get rough pricing- so that when I place an order, I’m not making a blind purchase. For LVP, I bought it at Home Depot through their Pro bulk discount program.

@Allison Hodges I’ve had good results with LVP (installed for $4.50/sq ft total). I did my kitchen and flooring together to make the colors properly contrast each other. If your doing the kitchen, I would recommend a local wholesaler, they can give you competitive pricing and better quality than Home Depot. It’s a do it right or do it twice situation with Home Depot cabinetry/counters. For bang for the buck, I would do LVP and maybe do a low cost/DIY refurbishment of the kitchen (paint?) with the expectation that it will not last for more than a few years (esp with students). 

@Peter Morgan most likely the duct above it or the connection between the duct and vent is not adequately insulated to prevent condensate from forming. You can try patching with insulation tape.