All Forum Posts by: James DeRoest

 Why should one tenant be forced to incur greater cost than the others for the same service?

You could easily cure this by having no specified space. Each tenant has access to one spot, and it's all done at random.

Sue, I'd argue that this was a fit for purpose issue.

If a designated parking space results in damage, and the landlord refuses a perfectly reasonable request for water to wash the car, then the parking space which causes damage to the bodywork is unfit for its purpose.

Why not just let the tenant wash their car and be done with it? Why does everyone need to be an *** about these things?

Bird poo is very corrosive on paint work. You want to allow her to wash the car or do want to have it resprayed? ;)

Personally, if she is getting a lot of crap on her car regularly, then she does have a valid complaint, no one wants to be seen in a car covered in bird poo, let alone drive it. I wonder if you couldn't find a car frame for that spot as they only cost $200 from Harbor Freight. 

I get laid into on this forum about collecting rents personally, doing yards, etc, and here is what happens when you run your investments at arms length.

Everyone wants electronic payments, charging for yard work to make sure the tenant does it, everyone is doing their level best to avoid their investment and their customer.

And then the tenant starts doing stuff that you don't know about and eventaully you get stuck with some huge bill and a huge pile of trash. Not only that, but the landlord now has the added hassle that the county inspectors will be on his back.

I've always used CPVC, but used Pex for the first time last week. 

Never touching CPVC again after that. Sooooo much easier in Pex. Using bite fittings, the only thing you should do is mark the pipe to the depth that the fitting should go to, then you know if you are fully connected.

What I will add though, is that there is money to be made in Baldwin County in the Spanish Fort and Daphne area with new builds. 

 He's right, you don't stand a chance round Daphne, Spanish Fort, Robertsdale and Foley. Pretty much the whole of Baldwin County.

And frankly, you won't be much better off in Mobile County, let alone Escambia (FL), Santa Rosa or Okaloosa.

The markets are stuffed with investors, and if you haven't got cash, you simply aren't in the game. Frankly, I'm surprised that anyone is able to make a living with the sheer number of people in the game right now down here.

You have to remember that these five counties, especially Escambia FL were hit really hard in 2008-2012, so it's encouraged a very aggressive market for investors during the recovery.

My own feeling is that too many people are now trying to flip in our area, margins are suffering, and the amount of available stock is being split too many ways.

If you head north to say Escambia AL then your problem becomes value of properties, there just isn't the rental market, and its a poor county compared to the other 5 I mentioned. A rental in Escambia AL for $400 makes $650 in Escambia FL (that was what our research showed 2 years ago when we looked).

 Totally fine with calling the cops. It's only criminal if she stays and defies the officer, who will no doubt give her a small amount of time to clear her possessions.

Now the officer may try and wriggle out and say that this is civil, that's when you start with a lawyer. And as someone else says, in another thread, if you get an eviction on your record, finding a new place will be that much harder. 

I've no idea why anyone is saying "evict them", this is straight forward trespassing of an unoccupied building without the consent of the owner.

This isn't a civil matter, this is criminal trespassing and is a misdemeanor.

Knock on the door and demand they leave.

Three years and the place gets repainted. As we use the identical paint each time, same make, color, finish and even product, then we get an instant match. To save time we won't do a cut in as you won't notice, and generally tenants never screwed up the paint at the top of the wall. Plus, a second coat isn't really needed as you won't notice the bad spots. Painting trim depends on how disgusting the tenants were, usually a semi gloss means they can be wiped down. Worse case scenario, paint them as well.

Probably takes 2 days to paint a house, at the most.