All Forum Posts by: Mark Hu

My best guess would be forget 2009 and look towards 2010. That's how I would act. But there is one thing about the future - it will always be very much a surprise!

And the cosigner must have a good job and good credit!

We often have cosigners for young people and students we rent to. We figure the parents can put pressure on their kids, because if the kids break the lease it will hurt the parent's credit. That's all we hope for, and sometimes it helps.
We just have the cosigner sign an identical lease with the tenants.
I can sympathize with the tough times you are going through. I believe many landlords are cutting corners and lowering their standards a bit in this darn recession.

Sounds like you're turning the house into an upscale hostel. Or a hotel with no privacy. Doesn't sound good.

Here is a personal experience I had with outsourcing work.

I hired a contractor to lay vinyl flooring for a kitchen, specifying a one piece floor. Fortunately I was there to see the work done. The subcontractor had the nerve to tell me that a multipiece floor was better. Better for him, it would leave more material for his next job, and I would have seams that would weaken the floor.
Who do you blame for this bit of cheating? The contractor? Or maybe the contractor did not know what his subcontractor was doing?
I have found an alarming large number of contractors or their subcontractors behave in this fashion or worse. I do have some reasonably trustworthy contractors I work with now, but I still have to keep an eye on them in case they succumb to temptation and 'backslide'.
My point is, I believe outsourcing any work inevitably comes with a large degree of waste and inefficiency. Of course sometimes you have to do it, but you will pay a big price.

Let us know if you have any trouble with the 'dont ask dont tell' policy.

Right now our policy is that we would tell any applicants about a suicide in a unit. Of course we would rather not...

After reading these replies I feel comfortable charging for damage obviously caused by the tenant. In our lease forms it states the tenants are responsible for damage directly caused by them.
I plan to start using maintenance request forms to document all our repairs, maybe I should use these to charge the tenant in case they, for example, clogged a kitchen disposal? And should I ask for a separate check or ask them to add it to the rent bill?

I believe that having someone to do your maintenance work and hiring contractors is only cost effective when you have a large number of units.
I've lived in large apartment complexes and listened to the complaints of handymen who worked them, which does not make me eager to be an employer unless necessary. Also I feel it is very difficult to find reasonably honest, fair and competent contractors. Boy some unethical contractors I have worked with!

Home Depo now sells lock sets that can be reset to a different key. This would be nice, to not have to change and throw out lock sets every time a tenant moves.

My question is, are these resettable locks reliable and safe? New tech sometimes has bugs. Has anyone had any experience with these lock sets?

My family presently owns a 5 unit building. It originally was a large house built @ 1949. It probably has been subdivided for the last thirty years. It is in a very good location (near the beach) but it is a great deal of trouble.

The electrical system is working but very old, and underpowered.

The water supply is a mix of all kinds of improvisations, but the basis is galvanized pipe, which of course is a ***** to work on.

The drainage is also a mix of old and new, but whenever I work on some of the old stuff I usually get unpleasant surprises.

For the roof, a contractor told me he could not give me a fair estimate to replace it because he did not know what 'surprises' he might find when he took the roof off, since the house was so old.

For the siding and windows, I've been hustling around repairing moisture leaks for years, and I seem to be catching up on them.

For the framing, who knows?

Does anyone have an opinion as to whether this place can be rehabbed? Some in the family want to keep the place forever. Myself, since I work on it, I favor tearing it down in a couple of years. But am I being too pessimistic?