All Forum Posts by: Chris Szepessy

I think State Farm will cover "dangerous breeds." A tenant of mine had her own insurance to cover her dog, which you could require of your friends.

I would certainly remind them that it's their responsibility, then I would offer to have a landscape company take care of it at their expense if they would like. With the grass being 2 ft. tall, chances are they are going to have to call a professional in anyway since most tenants/homeowners don't have equipment capable of cutting grass that high anyway.

That's awesome that you bought an investment property at 19, so congrats on that! Not knowing what your goals are, I would live in the duplex for a year, since that is usually what is required, then repeat the process on another 2-4 family using 3.5-5%. down. You can do this over and over again for 10 years and probably "retire" by 30. 

I also have Central Hudson and converted to natural gas from oil a few years ago. The process was really easy with them. They had a program where they handled everything. Removal of the old furnace/tank, running the new gas line, and installing the new furnace. It was probably 5 months before it got done, but that was because it was winter when I first called about it and they told me they don't dig or run gas lines when the ground is frozen, which makes sense. They were extremely eager to get me switched over to natural gas, so I find it odd that you are having such an issue. Maybe next time you get someone on the phone, just tell them you are going with propane if they don't give you a time frame to get it done. Not sure if that will be of any help, but it might.

I would prefer natural gas especially if it's a rental. If you have to evict a tenant and they leave the propane tank empty, that's less money that you'd have to try to collect or be out of pocket on before you can collect from them. 

I work for USPS. What everyone said is right. Just right "Return to sender...no longer here" and leave it in the box. There are times that a substitute carrier is on and may not know all the names on the route. You could also put a label on your box with the names that should be getting mail there. "These names only..."

I'm looking for something similar as well. My DTI is high due to 2 private 10 year mortgages. @Chris DeMello, how did borrowing the money from a friend lower your DTI? Or did the bank just look at the money as a "safety net" so to speak? I don't have any rich friends/family, but that's certainly a very creative way to get what you wanted.

 Where abouts in the Catskills? I live in the Village of Catskill, but realize "the Catskills" spans quite a distance.

I don't think it's a policy you could really enforce anyway. You'd have to do a thorough search of an entire apartment in order to see if there is a gun in there. And since you have to give 24 hr notice before entering, they'd just take the gun somewhere else for the time being. And someone who shouldn't/can't have a gun legally, but still does, isn't going to care about their LL's "no gun policy" anyway, so you'd mostly just be keeping good law abiding tenants out of your rentals.

You could probably get better cash flow in a lower end part of town, but better tenants and less complaints in a nicer part of town. Right now, I prefer nicer areas.

You could rent the land during hunting season. I see quite a few people on CL or FB marketplace looking to rent land for hunting purposes. I don't know if you'd actually make money, but it would at least offset the cost of owning the land. 

The AirBnB might work. I've talked to people who said they've rented cabins/houses "in the middle of nowhere" just to get away from it all for a while. I'm sure the market for that type of rental is much smaller than the one for people wanting to be next to attractions/other things to do. I say put a cabin or two up there and see what happens. At the very least, you have a place to stay and relax. lol

You can contact ATV groups and see if they'd be interested in renting/using the land. They may even have their own insurance, but you would certainly want to look into liabilities and everything else anyway.

What was the original plan for the land when your father bought it?