The basement is about 800 sq ft with everything we need and separates us from the main floor (kitchen and living rooms) and 4 bedrooms upstairs.

Too many cooks in the kitchen gets messy and most owners aren't familiar with landlord-tenant laws, Fair Housing laws, etc. which can cause problems.

Another issue that can be problematic and costly, are changes to floor plans that have been made to a home over decades, especially "conversions" where a large home is cut up into 3, 4 or more separate units, with kitchens and baths added for each, and often fireplaces blocked off or removed.

We plan to mainly focus on the kitchen and bathroom right now and do additional work down the road as the listing starts to stabilize. 

I will have all new plumbing installed, roof, kitchens, bathrooms, create laundry rooms for every unit, and cosmetically enhance the place both inside and out.

Purchase price: $270,000 Cash invested: $60,000 2nds property is a fixer upper which will require new flooring, paint, teardown of bathrooms upstairs and kitchen due to water damage as well as roof and siding down the line.

The basement is about 800 sq ft with everything we need and separates us from the main floor (kitchen and living rooms) and 4 bedrooms upstairs.

The refrigerator quit in the kitchen so he just unplugged it with the food in it and it was there 6 months later the day we got a phone call that he had died (in the unit - after we bought it where we were renting it back to him).

Replaced all flooring, painted top to bottom, new fixtures, new stainless steel appliances, replaced counter tops, added back splash, repaired sheet rock on ceiling in laundry room, new front door and garage entry door to kitchen, new garage door.

BrianNothing prevents tenant from running the water, kicking holes in walls and door, or other vandalism.However, these things seldom happen as retribution.More likely, a tenant fills up an inflatable pool every other day in the summer, or fails to report that the kitchen drain is leaking, or that the boyfriend beats her up every weekend and busting up the place, or that tenant lets a dog do his business on the carpet, or overflows the tub because they fell asleep.While a good tenant will agree to a fair water policy; the court will typically throw out the policy in an eviction.Keep in mind that you can get a leak notification from water department via “clear-reads” through the mycleveland water website.Usually bad tenants are multi-dimensional... they tend to follow a pattern... low credit score, extension criminal background hits such as driving with suspended license, expired plates, drugs, panning the rent late, refusing to pay the water, violating trash pickup guidelines, police calls by the neighbors, no-show for service calls, removing smoke retractor batteries for the kids toys, not replacing burned out lightbulbs, not taking care of the yard (in a single family”, busting blinds and screens, etc.