All Forum Posts by: Dawn P.

@Austin Culp Zillow has a decent basic rental income/expense spreadsheet you can download for free - I've tweaked it over the years to suit me. It's a good start.

@Derek Okahashi Looks great! 

Septic tanks are pretty common in my area, I wouldn't pass on a good deal because of it. But definitely get it inspected!

I replaced one last year that was 50 years old!

I've bought only one HUD home - it was listed at $55,500, sat on the market for three months, and I ended up paying $50,800 for it. I put about $8K into it before I could rent it out.

I wish I could find a few more like that...

NO carpet. I put LVP/EVP everywhere (I occasionally tile the bathroom floors, depending on the house). I've had more than one tenant remark that they're glad there's no carpet, it's easier to clean and they can throw down an area rug for color and softness if they want.

@Philip L. Are the existing cabinets that hideous that they can't be saved with some paint and fresh hardware? Or maybe new doors? A lot of the old cabinet boxes I find in my 60's/70's houses are solid wood and built like tanks, so I try to reface them when possible. I'm not a fan of the Genuine Sortawood cabinets the big box stores sell.

But I have B to B- rentals, you  might be working on something way more high end. And SketchUp is a good program to try.

The HUD site has this, but I think it's for Section 8 rates. I just keep track of rents on Zillow.

2020 Fair Market Rents

In defense of the cheapo toilets (😂), I've used the $99 AquaSource Henshaw model from Lowe's in several houses and haven't gotten a single call about clogs or poor flushing. Plus, it's a bit higher than standard models.

@Zack Greiner Yes, I get an email as soon as the tenant schedules payment. The email also tells me when the payment will be deposited into my account.

@Zack Greiner I've used Cozy for several years also, never had any issues with them and it's pretty easy to set up on both ends. It takes about five days for rent payments to hit my account, but you can pay a small fee if you want them quicker than that.