All Forum Posts by: Genny Li

Hey @Alex Bush! My advise is that if your looking to house more than 2 people that arent related to you to just look for investment properties in a neighborhood with no HOA. You also have to keep in mind HOA's can add and remove restrictions at anytime, so if your looking to rent out by that many rooms staying away from them is for best. I personally house hack my current home which is a 3/2 here in Missouri City with two buddies and I have no problems at all.

>I'm afraid not. With absolutely no disrespect, when you rent by the room, you're basically running an unattended rooming house with a full kitchen. This tends to work when you have a specific clientele (students, midterm professionals, etc) or in places with insane rent prices.

What's wrong with it? It is of course would be more work to manage, I understand that. 

>I wouldn't personally choose this model in Houston, as a more down-market clientele would be more expected since rents aren't that bad and with them comes the kinds of problems that you don't want in an unattended rooming house. Even Austin would be better. What exactly is your model there?

The problem is I can't find anything decent that would cash flow positively in this market. Average math turns out like this - ~$250k single family house, $1900/month average rent. This is not a sound investment to make as it would not cash flow positively (with property management company, reserves for repairs and vacancy, etc.). The criteria I have for searching for a house is more or less good condition, good neighborhood, and houses no older then 20 years old. These criteria due to my personal constraints on time (I have a demanding full time job as many of us do) and on connections/team/expertise(I'm not an expert at rehabs nor do I have a team for this yet).

So given all of that I am researching on other clever ways of hacking the situation and conditions I'm in to still come out ahed so splitting houses I purchase up into multiple "doors" by renting by the room is a natural conclusion. I am a "techie" and I am targeting other "techie" clientele - i.e. people who need a quiet place to work remotely (with great internet speed) or who are in the beginning of their IT/desk-professional-job career and need an affordable furnished place for a few months/years. Another group I'm considering target is traveling nurses. I very much do not care for turning this into semi-section-8 type of housing. And this is how I started to wonder about all of those stories of wonderful returns renting by the room.

Keep in mind two things:

1. Not all water heaters have an anode. Rheem Marathon do not have anodes. The tank is plastic and they have a life time warranty on the tank. They can last 40 years or more. I have a Marathon 80 gallon electric in my home. 

2. Another consideration is draining sediment from the tank yearly. Sediment can be especially damaging to gas water heaters. The sediment traps the heat from the burner and it can cause the tank to crack/leak. Gas water heater instruction manuals recommend draining yearly. 

In my experience a water heater can last 7-30 years. Newer ones are on the shorter end of the life span. Electric have a longer life, but cost more to operate monthly than natural gas. Electric tanks are also usually bigger than gas counterparts because of slower recovery time. The other advantage of gas is they operate when electricity is lost. In new construction, I would do electric, but most my houses are gas.

Heck I buy a new car when i need new tires.. so no I would just buy a new water heater  LOL..  

I've done maintenance and would gladly take the preventatives like changing an anode rod instead of fielding calls for toilet clogs and pulling dentures out of disposals! But that's someone else signing my check. 

As I homeowner I would gladly do it knowing that the best place to hide is behind a water heater, come out smelling like sulfur and earn myself a free Saturday to spend in the garage. I wouldn't make it a priority though. 

If it's a flip house, it would be getting a new WH, used for two years and moving out before the warranty ends.

Interesting question, the more I think about it. Totally understand your point and the logic behind it, but I don't see the financial gain, or the longevity in our disposable manufacturing environment we currently live in. 

$150 for the furnace seems like a great deal until it's broken down. I assume if any actual repairs come up those are out of pocket? And they almost always find something that needs to be repaired?! 

If I tap into the mentality of my paycheck to paycheck millennial counterparts, and assume that stoves and dryers will still last forever: 

Hey, I bought the duplex I live in for $45K cash, as I've often crowed about here on BP.  Took me forever to get it liveable, but I rent out the top unit for $930/month and live downstairs. For my cheap little heart, nothing is better than living free. Is it in a D-class neighborhood? No, it's a solid C-, in my book. A busboy named Da'Shawn got blown away in the back alley trudging home from work two years ago (the makeshift memorial really brightens up the block) and the convenience store down the main drag did have that drive-by three years ago...the clerk (who I know) heard the shots, then a guy stumbled in covered in blood.and screaming, "Dey shot mah baby!" So it turns out his pregnant woman was in the car with him and my friend the clerk didn't know if he meant that it was the woman or her baby inside her that got shot.

But I digress...cheap duplexes under $100K do exist, at least in some less-than-savory areas of our fine metropolis.

@Marshall Henry although it wasn't your intent, you created this problem. You took something the previous owner had done and changed it. You also handed out your phone number to use as a complaint line. I think you have three options:

1. Go back to the 90 gallon cans and train your tenants to bring out trash before garbage day. 

2. Tell him, sorry bud that dumpster isn't going anywhere. If you see it moved, move it back. 

3. Look for some option to help like putting up a small section of fence to obscure view.

My best advice is don't keep texting. Ask to talk about it face to face. People like to hide behind texting. If you can get face to face, maybe you can work it out. For what it is worth, I didn't consider his texts threatening. You may be overreacting a little bit. I wouldn't want a dumpster by my door either. Unfortunately if you are within code and city says it can be there, then there is nothing he can do. Tell him to contact the city if he has an issue. That won't do anything, but it pushes the problem to someone else.

When I purchase my first properties, I introduced myself to the neighbors. I thought it was smart, but half the time it just leads to complaints. Now I don't initiate any type of introduction. 

@Genny Li thanks for your reply. I’ll post a picture ASAP.

I could do two per unit. That would be $100 more in cost.

Some context: I disagreed with this logic because it is not any closer to his house than it is to mine. Also this is a back ally way (behind the properties on our street and behind the properties on the next street over if that makes sense) dedicated for trash pick up. There are dumpsters and trash bin all over this ally way (including his) because this is the ally the trucks use. 
I assume the reason for this is so that people do not have their trash bins in the front of their properties. 
Also if this is considered next to his property, then the bins are going to be next to the other neighbors’ property and off of my property completely because that’s where they were when I moved in. The trash was over flowing our first day in. That’s just from both tenants. I couldn’t imagine what it would look like with our trash added. 

However most of all, and probably my biggest frustration, he saw me earlier that day, we had a conversation. I saw him the day before, I said hello. Neither time did he bring up the issue with me. He chose to send a threatening texts. I think that’s absolute lack of respect.