All Forum Posts by: Michael Shadow

Hello Chris, Welcome to BiggerPockets. I don't know anything about the CA market so I can't help you there. Someone should be along here soon that's from that area and could help you out with your questions.

-Michael

Awesome Joey! Welcome to BiggerPockets. What do you do in Real Estate?

-Michael

-Michael

It's just like providing the fridge or stove, if it breaks or quits on the tenant then you have to go out and get them another one. So if you get a place that has them in it and when you rent to a new tenant you should take the old ones out and provide it with no a/c, else you may find yourself spending 200-300 for a comparable A/C unit for them. This is spoken from experience.

-Michael

I use Quickbooks Pro and I have all my properties set up as classes so I can boil the reports down to see how well each of my properties is performing. All expenses get classed either business or property address. My tenants are my customers and I create automatic invoices for their rent on the 20th of each month that way they are there when I start getting rent checks.

-Michael

My thoughts are if it has black and red buttons on it then it is pretty old. All the ones I have seen in the past 10 years or so have had buttons the same color as the receptacles. The ones with the red buttons were when the GFCI's were first introduced so people would notice that there was a big red button that was begging to be pressed.

-Michael

I just wanted to say thanks to Josh for in my opinion creating the best forum on the internet.

I'm not just talking about real estate either, I'm talking about all areas. I have other forums that I'm a member of and frequent quite often and some of them are so hard to navigate and find anything on (even though there is good content) that it's frustrating (not to mention wasting my time). Many of them branch into off-topic flame wars that you have to weed through and five pages later you finally find that someone answered the original topic profoundly.

So thanks again Josh for running a tight ship here at BiggerPockets and I think creating a new standard and model for which all professional forums should look to to create a fantastic user experience. I get on those other forums and think "ugh, if only Josh ran this one too!" You are very deserving of that "Best Business blog" reward.

-Michael

I'm a contractor and I also do sub work. I never take pay or pay in cash. It's a big red flag and it has the potential to get you into big trouble.

Any contractor that knows what they are doing, has insurance, licenses, etc would be glad to take a check. It's the ones that are not legit that want cash payments.

-Michael

Hello Steve, Welcome to BiggerPockets. Please refrain from using all caps in your posts.

What have you done in the past with rentals, did you manage them, own them, or both?

Thanks for joining us.

-Michael

I let them, I ask them to stake out where they want to put the garden and take a picture of it then I let them do it. Some of my tenants have made some really nice gardens. I usually don't let them make one over 10-15 square feet at first. If they can take care of that one and it doesn't turn into a weed garden then I'll let them expand it. I've never had anyone ask to expand it though.

It usually makes happier tenants from what I have seen. Makes them feel more at home.

-Michael