All Forum Posts by: Andrew S.

no!

I don't understand why anyone would still use this method of payment (where you provide your tenants direct access to your bank account) when there are so many alternatives out there - many at no cost at all.  Personally, I use Cozy.co for this but there are plenty of others.

Hi Mary,

@Karen Rittenhouse   has been tearing it up for many years over in Greensboro - might be a good contact to touch base with.

I used to use Barry Scott at Scott&Co Surveying in Raleigh.  Good price and fast service, but I haven't had a need for survey work for several years  so I can't speak to what Barry's prices are these days.  Like many others, Barry offers a variety of services that come at various prices (depending on level of detail - just snap a line for a fence, vs a full survey, etc). 

 One reason for not having receipts is perhaps that the workers you paid do not wish to pay taxes on their income.  Please know that, by law, you are obligated to issue 1099Misc tax forms to each and every handyman/contractor you paid more than $600 to (in a given calendar year), UNLESS they are an incorporated business entity.

@Jason A.  you definitely (and urgently) have to find ways to lower those turn costs.  You can’t pay anywhere close to 4K to turn a unit that brings in $550 a month, unless your place doesn’t turn over but once every 10 or 20 years.  I shoot for no more than 1 month rent as a reasonable goal for a standard turn unless I also do a major update like all new floors or new windows, etc.  sometimes it’s more and sometimes it’s less, but 1x is the goal.  Yours looks like about 7x and that will be unsustainable in the long run.

Remember, your PM will ask for 0.5x-1x for finding a new tenant and then you will also have maybe 1-3 weeks ( or more) of vacancy on top of everything.

Most of my properties are <15 min away, but one duplex, while in a great rental location, is 40-45 minutes out.  Even that turns out too much for my liking.  I have done it for 3 years and even though I actually get very few maintenance calls, I’m tired of it and I’m going to put it on the market.

It’s very hard to diagnose things based on what tenants report - this leads to unnecessary trips and even if something IS wrong, you don’t tend to have the right parts with you to fix it... 3hours - don’t do it!

 Yes, I have done this many times and generally, it helps a lot.  Often, the last couple of % of the work is the slowest as the subs don't want to make the trip to the site just to take care of some finishing touches, so it drags on.  The "penalty clause" really helps in this case.

That said, you have to have enough leverage so the contractor accepts the clause upfront.  Sometimes, you can incentivize them to accept it by offering a higher price upfront.  Typically, I'd rather pay a little extra in exchange for more certainty on the timelines.

Yes, it's quite serious - I'm familiar with that article on Chapel Hill (I have a rental near UNC) - it is an extreme case, obviously, but there are a lot of occupancy violations going on, so the City tries to make some examples out of the worst offenders.

It’s probably the zoning department downtown.  I don’t have the specific links handy but if you google “occupancy limits Raleigh” you probably get what you need.  Or one of our local PM folks might chime in?  @Dawn Brenengen  @Tiffany Alexy