All Forum Posts by: Austin F.

Quote from @Chris G.:

@Austin F. thanks for the reply, it was actually two different vendors. The first that said it was the coil is our normal vendor. Once I let the owner know the quote price he reached out and said he had gotten an install warranty with a different vendor back in 2019 so if we'd be moving forward to go with the one that would cover it under warranty since it would cost less. Hope that makes more sense. 

I see. I would still consider calling out a third tech if the first two companies didn't agree, especially when the fix is expensive and intrusive.
But also, if the second company will do it all under warranty then let them at it

If the same company had two different opinions whats wrong I'd be really curious to hear what companies 2 and 3 think.

Don't re-fi, but take out a LOC secured against the properties. Buy more, use the cash flow to rapidly pay down the LOC repeat. Very good idea. But be careful you will be super leveraged and can lose it all with bad choices.

Just go on the MLS and start at the top. You could even do 20 deals from 5 different markets so you get some variety and learn how to figure taxes insurance etc for different areas.

You can look at sold listings too to see if other peoples deals will work. Go on the deal diaries section here and do your own analysis, then compare that to the end numbers those folks ended with.

The first one, with the stairs visible, is almost certainly water damage.

The others can be fixed by a drywall guy really easily, shouldn't need to move the tenant out as long as they have proper dust collection.

The one thing I know for sure is that we'll only see it coming in hindsight.

How much could your current place rent for?

Refi, pay off debts, rent your current place, buy a van and travel around down south. Get an STR or a hotel when you like a place enough to stay a while. You have enough income to do this without selling your place.

Don't overbuy on the van and you can sell if for a large percentage of what you paid for it when you get back. Alternatively just go travel around without the van, get an STR for a month in a cool spot and switch towns a few times.

When I owned a plow truck plowing was one of my favorite things to do. Get up at 6 when no one is out, listen to the radio, push snow around, drink coffee; I love plowing snow.

As far as what equipment you should get, that depends on your vision for the service you want to provide, there are pros and cons for all of it.

Plow truck with a 9 foot straight, or a v blade would be great for plowing parking lots at multiple properties. Smaller blade for residential stuff, or a wide out blade. You can put a back blade on it to do residential driveways, or back drag if you don't get that much snow. It can easily drive at highway speed to each property, and you could put a spreader in the back, and or hand tools and blowers for walk ways.

The cons would be doing sidewalks, tight properties, or if you get a ton of snow it would be hard pressed to move snow as efficiently as a loader with a box, and you have to register and insure it.

Tractors and loaders are great for big parking lots and moving lots of snow. But they're expensive, and difficult to move around. If your properties are more than a few miles apart you'll spend more time moving equipment than plowing snow, unless you get a tractor for each property.

Same with a tool cat, but the tool cat can do walkways easily. I've never seen anyone doing parking lots with a tool cat, but walk ways and dive ways are easily done with increased maneuverability, and you can get a blower if there is nowhere to stack snow.

My personal recommendation would be a truck with a V blade. The v blade can carry snow better than a straight blade, but a wide out straight blade would be worth looking into as well, depending on what you want to do. I would stay away from diesel, and get a single rear wheel unless you're getting a spreader. Put 1500 pounds of sand in the back and some snow tires and it'll push snow as far as you want it to go. Do consider that plowing is really hard on trucks, so no need for anything fancy.

Brian, that's pretty much what we did today. The supervisor was very understanding and he gave us two options. 1. Do everything required to make it into a duplex. 2. Add an entry door between the two units and keep it a single family. This is as good as we could have hoped for. We're definitely going with option #2.

I was involved with a property that had something like this happen. Got built out as a single family with a door between the units, once the proper permits were approved the door got permanently shut and the property was a duplex.

In the future it may be possible to turn it into a duplex if capital and ROI permit. Good to hear you got a solution that works out the best you could have hoped for!

My city once sent me a very nasty letter threatening the wrath of various agencies if I didn't terminate my illegal STR immediately and send them proof.

After cleaning up my shorts I politely informed them that their google street view was one address off and that my property was completely legal.

That was the last day I ever considered flying under the radar.