All Forum Posts by: Curt Bixel

After doing some research, it seems like the company that gave me this estimate might not be one I use in the future.  They offer a "$93 or free" sewer line snaking service that seems to be a good deal.  I was not sure how they could make much profit by offering that sort of deal.  

It seems, however, that the "$93 or free" deal may just be a way for them to get in the front door and then upgrade people to more services at some pretty high prices.  I was first concerned when they showed me an estimate that included $238 for the replacement of the blade on the concrete saw they were going to use.  I do know that some concrete blades do cost that much, but the idea that you would have to replace the blade making two cuts across a sidewalk seemed unreasonable.  I would suspect that it would take less than 3 minutes to cut through the sidewalk, and I expect that a good diamond blade would be able to cut for many hours before needing replaced.  

I have another company coming out that feels confident they can clear the lines with hydrojetting for less than $1000.  

Just sat with a service tech from a plumbing company and watched the video from the camera they pushed down the sewer line in a 4 family property.  It is a 4 inch pipe, and there seemed to be a fair amount of what they called scale.  The bottom quarter of the pipe is mostly filled with scale with a small trench running down the middle.  The full length of the pipe they said needs to be addressed is about 60 feet.  

The suggestion was to clean it with a combination of hydrojetting and some sort of spinning chains with carbide tips to break down the scale.  They will need to dig a 8 foot by 4 foot trench just in front of the house to a point in the line 9 feet below the surface, and unfortunately, under the sidewalk and front stoop of one of the units.  

The estimate for the hydrojetting and spinning chain treatment is about $10,000, and if the line ends up being replaced, the estimate was between $30,000 and $40,000.  

I curious if this seems like a normal cost for this service and what other options their might be.  The line most definitely has a problem with clogging every few years.  

Is this just a straight 25% of gross rent paid by the guests or are their any deductions before the 25% is calculated?

excise tax? 

I am curious what the going rate is for management of an STR in Columbus.

I imagine it is in the range of 20 - 30% of gross rents with the owner paying for some of the utilities and perhaps the WiFi.  

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Recently, I had a break in at a short term rental I have in Columbus, Ohio.  The unit had only been vacant for two days when someone kicked in the back door.  I was lucky notice the break in quickly, as I just happened to stop by and check on the property within a day or two of them breaking in.  They had moved in a fair amount of personal belongings, mostly clothing, and had removed two televisions.  

The police asked if there was any security camera recordings, but when I contacted the management company, they said that there were not recordings because the memory cards had been removed from the cameras.  

Does anyone have any advice for this situation?  It seems like a design flaw to have a camera that can be so easily defeated.  Perhaps there are more expensive cameras that provide for more robust video capture?

I am having the locks replaced with ones that have an audible alarm if someone tries to force them, and I am improving the lighting on the property.  I have considered and ADT type alarm the contacts the police, but I have been told that the police are actually pretty slow to respond to those as most of the calls they get for these are false alarms.  

Dan,

I am not quite sure I understand what you are saying.  Are you saying that if the owner of the property, me, came to you and said you can probably cover the rent and then keep a reasonable profit for yourself, then you would just do what yourself?

I am curious if anyone has any input on how to structure a management contract for a STR. I think two of the options are to either have the management keep a certain share of the profits or to have the management sign a long term lease for the property, pay the monthly rent, and then keep any profits they earn above that monthly rent.

Setting the rent, in this case, would be a bit of a challenge, as a fair rent would find some sort of balance between the risk of a loss if the STR experiences low occupancy and the reward of making more profit should the occupancy be high.

I wonder if anyone who has wrestled with this decision might have some guidance.  

Does anyone have suggestions for ways to send out w-9 forms?  I suppose I could print a bunch out and put them in the US mail, but I was hoping for some sort of online system that made that process easier.  

I am attempting to refinance two rental properties.  My loan officer has indicated that my debt to income ratio is really close, and it is going to come down to being able to verify each and every rental payment.  

I have refinanced quite a few properties over the past few years, and this has never been an issue before, but several things have changed.  Here are the two main things that have changed:

1. 1) Out of 13 rental units, I have recently converted three of them into short term rentals.  Although they are making much more each month, my loan officer has indicated that the underwriters will not count this as income. (This, unfortunately, is about $4500 of income each month that the underwriters will not count.  

1. 2)  I am a teacher, and I took a part time leave this year to dig into real estate a bit.  This has gone well, but until next August, my salary is reduced.  

I don't have much worry about getting myself in trouble taking on too much debt, as I have plenty of savings to fall back on, I can go back full time in the fall, and if anything should interrupt the short term rental income, I can always convert them back to standard rentals.  My credit score is above 800.  

I wonder if anyone else has been in this situation, and has some ideas on how to improve things a bit before making the application.  Ideas I have had are:

1. 
   Put less on my credit card each month?  (I do pay it off completely every month without fail, but I could run up a smaller balance each month.
2. Raise the rents on the tenants I have that are due for a rent increase, and do this before applying.
3. Convert one of the short term rental units back to a standard rental.

I really don't have any other debt of any kind aside from the mortgages on my personal home and my rental properties, so there are really no other loans I can pay off.  

Any advice or hints would help.  (All legal and above board please.  :)  )

If I get a loan on a property, and the value of the loan is filed with the city, will the city use that information to raise my property valuation and thus my taxes?