How many do you own?

Question

I'm curious to know how many rentals those of you that frequent this forum own.

And how many of you do 100% of the maintenance yourselves? I'm curious if the higher volume individuals have their own "maintenance man" on hand to adress repair issues.

I recieved a call from  a individual who did all the work on a apartment we just purchased and thought it might be good to have a guy available to do this. We're wanting to have 20-40 units eventually and I don't have the craftmanship to do alot of the work myself.

Frank Adams · Answer

At my "rental" peak I had 16 SFHs and generally did 100% of the work myself. I wasn't particularly handy but I'm pretty smart and can learn almost anything.

I had a neighbor who had been whacked from his job at a Fortune 50 company at age 50, he had 4 1/2 rentals and was looking for work. He was a great painter/cleaner/yard guy, did great work and was CHEAP. I used him during my busy summer turnover season.

Since A/C work requires licensing and is a bit specialized I once took a class at our JuCo on "A/C maintenance for the homeowner". It was one of the best $30 investments I ever made. The basic troubleshooting of electrical saved me several service calls and I changed out exhaust fans myself after that.

Carpet is something that with the right guy (hint, he won't have a fancy retail store) can be cheaper installed than if you do it yourself.

I've done a couple of dozen roofs too! My wife used to laugh at me because I did my first one about a year after finishing my MBA. I told her that by doing that roof myself I saved about 1/2 of what the MBA had cost me and that I was the best paid roofer in Houston. I did the roof early morning and late afternoon evening, the only time to be on a roof in Houston.

all cash

Michael Rossi · Answer

I have several dozen rentals and do all the management and maintenance myself.  Doing the management, maintenance, and rehab takes about 12-16 hours each week.

When I first started, I didn't know how to do this stuff either.   I bought a big home improvement manual at Lowes and followed the instructions (and pictures) in the book.  In no time, I was doing all the repairs myself.  It's not hard, if it was you certainly could not find a handy-man to do it.

If you're wanting to build a rental portfolio, paying someone to do the maintenance will just increase the time it will take you to do it.  If you hire contractors, that will significantly decrease your spendable income every month.  If you hire a handyman, you'll often get shoddy work; someone with a very iffy past; and someone that will sue you when they hurt their back on the job.  NO THANKS!

Good Luck,

Mike