what are your pain points?

Question

As the title says, what are your pain points? What are some things that you don't like to do but are required for your business? Potentially tasks that you could delegate to someone else but for one reason or anotheryou haven't yet.

John Matthews · Answer

@Mike H. Let me know if you end up going with a VA and if it works out. The $3/hr was based on this article: http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/07/24/using-a-virtual-assistant-in-your-real-estate-investing-business/ though, you're right, admittedly it does say for "some tasks.

@Simon W. Understood, I agree certain tasks are definitely best kept for those that are well qualified, especially considering the liability in messing up with the IRS, but as I understand it, some of the VAs are quite skilled, considering they do lots of real estate work.

For what it's worth, I did come across a piece of software that proports to actually interpret the receipt data for you...if I find the program again I'll post back.

Simon W. · Answer

$3/hr bookkeeper? I personally do not know why people would budget so low for a good accountant/bookkeeper to deal with their books. Are you hiring people from out of the country?

James Wise · Answer

Book keeping.

I just recently hired that out......whooo does it feel good.

Mike H. · Answer

My wife just got me the neat scanner. Seems to scan receipts and such pretty good. Much easier than putting it in my flatbad scanner- especially for the longer receipts.

Its not a bad idea on the VA. Gonna have to think about that. I'm sure they make more then $3/hr. But it would be nice come tax season to just have that stuff all done.

John Matthews · Answer

Thanks @Mike H.

What's stopping  you from getting a bookkeeper to handle the tax-prep? I'm not sure if anyone has any out of the box solutions, but if it were me, I'd get a cheap scanner designed specifically for that, have that automatically drop files into a dropbox folder that's shared with a $3/hr virtual assistant who inputs it all into quicken or the like once a month.

What about everyone else? What haven't you offloaded to someone else?

Mike H. · Answer

The make ready stuff is the stuff that I really want to get rid of.

Honestly, managing rentals is easy. Leasing is easy. And even the basics on new acquisitions (my wife does the painting and I'll do less skilled stuff like door stops, painting trim, and we'll both do the cleaning. Managing rehabs is easy. And who doesn't love looking at houses to find new deals?

But the one thing I really would like to dump off my plate is the make ready. Its tough spending all that time re-painting and cleaning a place that you know at once time looked perfect.  My wife and I can pretty much turn something around in a day and that includes painting, cleaning and some minor stuff (i.e. light bulbs, rekeying, etc).

So that is the one thing that I really want to dump. As it is, I've actually already gotten the cleaning piece off our plate. Just didn't make sense anymore. Cleaning was only 100 to 200.  And that frees us up to do the painting.

The painting will be next. Just need to find someone that can do it for about 25/hr. I'm convinced one person can do a typical, 1,500 sq ft house for make ready in a day or less - provided you aren't doing the entire house AND that you don't have to edge because the paint still matches. And seeing as how we use the same tan paint in every house we do, it typically does.

Outside of the make ready stuff, the rest is something I don't see a need to give up. Tenants pretty much all text me or email me now with problems. I rarely get phone calls (mostly because I rarely pick up the phone anyway and when they leave a message, I text them back instead of calling).

Most love it because I can get a text with a problem, text the contractor to find out when he can go fix it and text the tenant back within 30 minutes or less. Not saying the service will be there in 30. But I think it helps if they feel like someone is taking action to at least get the issue addressed.

And I actually enjoy leasing the houses myself so I don't see ever giving that up either.  Every once in a while, I'll get a house that has its share of no shows and that will burn me up a little. But I generally enjoy talking to people and I find that a chatty showing will generally be far more likely to turn a showing into an applicant.

I've automated all the mortgage payments so thats not even an issue. Haven't licked a stamp in years.

I guess one possible thing would be doing the tax prep for year end. It would be great to simply dump the box of receipts off and ask someone to have at it. I think I spent about 6 hours the other day and I'm only halfway done with getting everything ready for the cpa.

So maybe that would be one more item I wish I could get rid of....