All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Schola Eburuoh Hey Schola. I’ve found most of my tenants just disable chirping smoke alarms so I sent a letter to them all stating we would be enforcing a $250 fine if we discovered any disabled smoke detectors. In the letter we stated that we were happy to come out immediately and fix/repair any currently disabled smoke detectors. And that we’d be happy to replace batteries as needed. All of ours are hard wired but they will chirp from time to time if the back up battery dies.

Also I’m a relative newbie with only about 5 years under my belt. I’ve probably had about 60 sets of tenants thus far and I’ve only had 1 that’s been an issue. For months I fielded dozens of weekly texts and multiple weekly phone calls from this tenant. I finally told her I was done and to not contact me further unless there was an actual problem with her unit or the building. This has mostly worked and now I only receive 8-10 texts a month and maybe 1 phone call every 2-3 months. Just today she had an actual maintenance issue and my handyman joked afterwards that she must spend her time wandering around the unit looking for things to complain about.

I don’t have a reliable system for reporting issues, the tenants just text or call me or my handyman directly. This could definitely be improved upon in my business.

@Diego Mishler We do 1 year leases. Then typically go month to month after the lease end. Occasionally a tenant will ask to get renewed with another 1 year lease which I am happy to do.

When I raise rents I look at the going market rate for similar units. Then I take into consideration what I was previously charging the tenants. Then I adjust the rent to something I feel is reasonable but usually a little under market which increases the likelihood of keeping the tenants.

The only time I’ve raised rents by $250-300 a month was when I purchased a neglected property where rents were half market value. 2.5 years later the building is stable but rents are still at least $200 below market.

@Steve Balinski My insurance company does inspections of my property every 3-4 years. Increasingly every time they do an inspection I am given a list of things that are required to be repaired.

If you don’t repair the items the $30K was for and upgrade the kitchens you my end up finding yourself with a laundry list of expensive repairs down the road when your insurance company catches up with you.

@Todd McLaughlin We provide good quality appliances in all our units. I would not agree to let a tenant install their own as this would significantly increase the likelihood that our appliances would be damaged in the transition.

Occasionally we save older appliances for parts or to be used in an emergency after they have been upgraded.

@Joshua Parker I work with a fairly small regional bank, maybe 25 branch locations.

For my first few deals I went through the residential loan process with a Vice President as the principal loan officer but she had an assistant that was primarily my point of contact and as far as I could see handled 95% of the process. I knew of the Vice President through some Chamber of Commerce functions and local happenings but I’m not sure if she knew my name.

I have since started doing commercial loans with the same bank on properties of 5+ units. My point of contact is now a different Vice President and I’ve had to pivot slightly in my game plan as he is much more laid back and I have found it essential for me to stay in contact with him during the loan process to make sure the transaction keeps moving along at the pace I need it to.

Now that I’m a commercial client the second vice president often comes out to the lobby to chat about the business and properties when I’m in the bank doing business. I also now receive a Christmas present each year from him and just received a card for my birthday.

As the others have said it’s important to cultivate these relationships once you start to build them. Be sure to pay your mortgages on time as well as any other bills that may get reported to the lender such as taxes if they’re not escrowed and the water and sewer bills.

@Colleen F. My tenants prefer laundry in the unit. If you can get it done for around $3000 that’s probably cheap money for an investment that would get your unit rented.

I also charge at least $50 more a month if I’ve provided the laundry machines.

If you’re the lowest priced option you shouldn’t have trouble raising the rates to offset your expense of the machines.

@Aaron Svendsen Garland Mill out of Lancaster can design you top of the line architectural plans while integrating a Green lifestyle. They do high end work and know their stuff. They’ve designed stuff I’m familiar with locally that was so energy efficient it didn’t require a furnace, totally utilizing the Earths natural heating. (And not geothermal).

@Layth Alrikabi 28 years ago a friend got me to partner in 2 small owner financed multi family real estate deals. It turned out to be a disaster but I was hooked.

I bought the Carlton Sheets CD system and learned all about real estate.

After one more bad real estate deal I quit for 20 years. This is truly my one regret in life this far.

If there had been a Biggerpockets network at that time I could have gotten the encouragement I needed to dust myself off and keep going.

But now I’m 5 years back investing and doing great and learned a lot during those 20 year. I built up courage and confidence and a network of solid people to help me.

Lesson learned is to never give up your dreams. Keep dusting yourself off and trying again.

@Devin Daly I would recommend spending some additional time to become more of an expert on your chosen market. Whether that's the St. Louis market or a future STR market only you can decide.

By becoming an expert in my personal market I feel confident in correctly evaluating deals based on both their numbers and their location.

You’ve learned a lot in a relatively short period of time. So that’s a huge step in the right direction.

If you do decide to sell the St Louis property if at all possible I’d recommend finishing up the renovation prior to selling. I think a finished home would command a better price.

For what it’s worth I’m probably only averaging about $220/door/month across my portfolio of long term rentals.

So for you to start out where you’re at with your first two isn’t bad. Chin up!!!

@Nick Anderson Start small, 1-4 units and get your feet wet. Then after you have a couple of deals under your belt you will be better able to decide if going slightly larger for better economies of scale makes sense for you.

I started with 5 smaller deals and my last 3 have been 5-10 units. It’s a bit more tricky due to more tenants but after a while it just starts to make sense.

Currently I am willing to do any size deal from 1-15 units that makes financial sense to me.