All Forum Posts by: Jim Peckey

This must be a really tough spot to be in - I'm currently trying to rent out our first rental unit and I'm a bit nervous about running into a situation like this.  I'm the type to follow the letter of the law to the T, but surely there must be some creative ways to help expedite the removal of non-paying tenants taking advantage of their landlords.

Just a shot in the dark here - legally speaking, I know you're allowed to list the house/unit for sale/rent and show the place.  Would having a high number of 'showings' over a sustained period of time cause enough of a disturbance to the jerk tenants to cause them to look for housing elsewhere be 'illegal'?  There's a fine line there and I know 'harassing' your tenant is against the law.  Although, I'm wondering if it would be legal to setup numerous 'showings' to have legitimate buyers/renters take a look at the property as well as have family members, friends, colleagues, etc. join in on the showings to increase foot traffic through the house and at the most inconvenient times of the day such as early morning/late at night.  If it was bad enough, I would even consider using the current pandemic in my favor by having folks sneeze, cough, etc. while viewing the property to increase the discomfort factor.

As a rookie landlord, I haven't had to deal with this type of situation before and hopefully won't have to.  I don't mean to advocate for less savory methods in dealing with non-paying, jerk tenants, but we don't live in normal times and unfortunately some of these situations call for creative, albeit abnormal solutions.

I wish you both, Matt & Rachel, all the best and hope your non-paying tenant issues come to a quick, peaceful resolution.

If I were going to invest in real estate outside of my local area, I would first line up all the help I would need to support that endeavor.  

I'm talking identifying & vetting reputable property management companies as well as reputable general contractors.  Without this help in place beforehand, it's going to be very difficult to purchase & self-manage real estate from long distance.  

Good property management companies typically have contacts with reputable general contractors as well, so solving the property management problem could solve the contractor problem at the same time.

All the best and have a great day!

Many thanks for the responses @Kyle A. & @Ashley Kehr and nudge in the right direction!  I suspected I was in the wrong area when I spoke with a contractor from Albany, but thought I was on the right track given the company name and a different JS Property Management Services company popping up on a google search.  

I was able to get in touch with the right Js in Hamburg and back on track.  I'll be meeting with JS this week to take a look at our bathroom projects and talk more about property management services.

Thanks again for the insight, I really appreciate it.  Have an awesome week!

@Ashley Kehr  many thanks once again for the recommendation, although and after speaking with Jay @ JS Property Management Services, it turns out he's located in the Albany area and about 5 hours away from South Buffalo.  That said, it looks like this recommendation is a bit too far away - shucks!

May I ask if you're able to recommend any good contractors local to the Buffalo area?  If I've somehow called the wrong JS Property Management Services company, please let me know.

Thanks again and have a great week!

@Ashley Kehr  Most excellent, thank you very much for the recommendation!  I'll plan on reaching out to JS Property Mgmt Services tomorrow for sure.

Cheers!

Hi BP,

My wife and I just recently purchased a duplex in the Buffalo, NY area and have been doing a lot of the renovation work ourselves.  However, gutting & renovating both bathrooms is admittedly above our heads - at least from our position of having never done such a project before.

We're looking for a quality Handy Man/Contractor to work with us on renovating both bathrooms.  As much as we're interested in having the work done, I'm very much interested in working with the Handy Man/Contractor and learning the trade so to speak.

Are there any good local recommendations for what we're trying to accomplish?

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Hi G. Emerson Zollos,

I'm in the same boat with a duplex, where one of the units was occupied seems to be a chain smoker - the walls, ceiling & floor are just completely saturated with cigarette tar/smoke.

While I haven't begun rehabbing the 2nd unit, I've been doing my homework on the best way to tackle this project and what seems to be the most effective treatment that I've found so far, short of ripping out the drywall/plaster & lathe, I've been reading that using a TSP solution with warm water very effective in removing the "gunk" so to speak - once the walls have been thoroughly cleaned with TSP, use an oil-based primer (Killz) to seal the walls and then apply a few coats of paint. I've also read about people using an ozone generator to help remove the smell as well.

Priming/painting over the tar/smoke is not a viable solution in such situations, as it will just bleed through the new paint.  

You're off to a good start with planning the removal of all the fabrics/carpets & padding that contain the tar/smoke.  You'll also want to look into having the HVAC system/ductwork thoroughly cleaned out as well.

Best of luck and keep us updated on your progress!

@Sam Shueh, many thanks for the response and kind words!  We feel lucky to have gotten a property that will net a profit, that's for sure.

For the smoke damage in the upstairs unit, we've been researching the heck out of the best ways to deal with this issue - without tearing down the old plaster walls to the studs - and have found lots of good info. At this point, the game plan is to use a TSP-based solution to wash the ceilings & walls as thoroughly as possible to remove the nicotine/tar buildup, two coats of oil-based Killz primer on the ceilings & walls and then paint. We're hoping that does the trick - in a few weeks time, I'll be able to share some results.

Thankfully the unit is all hardwood floors, so there's no carpet or other soft materials to deal with.  I've been contemplating on refinishing the hardwood floors all together (sanding & sealing), but may just resort to a vigorous cleaning and resealing - we'll see how that works out once we take control of the property.

Cheers and all the best,

Hello BP,

I'm writing to post an update to this post, and share the details of our first deal.  

We were originally looking at a triplex in our local area (linked post), although the seller wasn't willing to budge on the price - even after making 2 offers with the second being a bit higher, so we walked.  Fast forward a few weeks, we found a great duplex that we were able to get our offer accepted on - we're pretty excited!

The duplex we found was listed for $75k, built in 1900, was fully rented and is a 2/1 down and 1/1 up.  During the initial walk-through, it was pretty obvious that it needed some work - our REA told us it was an investment property that just wasn't getting the regular maintenance that it needed.  The downstairs unit is in decent shape, however, the basement & upper unit need some work.  In the basement, there's a section of the wall, where the upper 3rd (above ground) is being pushed in - it looks like the wood has rotted out.  In the upper unit, the tenant has lived there for a number of years and smokes inside the unit - it's definitely going to need some work to address the cigarette smoke/tar build up.  There's a relatively small list of minor/cosmetic repairs that will need to be made, but that doesn't bother us so much, we're willing to put the work in.

The house had been on the market for just under a month and after the initial walk-through, we made an offer the same day at $65k with a home inspection contingency.  The offer was accepted the following day.  We scheduled the home inspection a few days later, which came back clean & had listed the issues we had already identified during the initial walk-through - it was extremely helpful having a REA that also invests in real estate, manages his own properties and knows what to look for during a home inspection.  Based on the home inspection report, we asked the seller for a $1,200 concession, which they agreed to.

So we've managed to snag the duplex for $63.8k.  We we plan on putting $8-10k into it and will be able to gross $1400 a month in rents (800 for the lower unit, 600 for the top).  We plan on house hacking the bottom unit while we do the repairs and within the next year or so, purchasing another multi-family property to wash, rinse & repeat.

Financing was done through Navy Federal Credit Union, where we were able to put down 15% on a 30yr conventional @ 4.5% interest rate - with closing costs, we're looking bringing ~15k cash to the table.   In BP fashion, here's a snippet from the numbers we ran via the buy & hold calculator:

We joined the BP community late last year and have learned so much from the webinars, podcasts and from folks here on the forums - for that, we would like to express our gratitude and appreciation for all those folks who've helped us along the way!  Within a few months, we were able to literally spring board into Real Estate Investing and we're extremely happy with how things are turning out at this point.

Cheers,

@Adam Gollatz - I definitely agree with the KISS philosophy and seems like a great approach here as well.  I currently use Navy Federal for my primary banking and have been depositing checks via their mobile app for years - it works very well.  I'll explore different options with them for sure just for an ease of processing check-based payments.  I'm also a huge fan of spreadsheets and have been working on creating one for property expenses/rents, etc.

@David de Luna - This is excellent feedback and like what I'm seeing with cozy.co so far.  I'll definitely keep looking into that option - I see that they also support Fidelity as well.  As far as using Fidelity, what type of account(s) do you have with them?  I've been looking at the Cash Management Account & Standard Brokerage Account options, where it looks like the Brokerage Account can also be used to store money in a Money Market account as a form of high yield savings, so to speak.  Also, do you have multiple accounts to separate out funds, or do you use a single account for rents, repairs/capex, security deposits, etc. and separate out via your spreadsheet?

@Oleg Shalumov - The more I read about cozy.co the better it looks and there seems to be no shortage of good feedback/recommendations on using them - we're heavily leaning towards using them at this point.  Would you recommend any particular organization to open 3 accounts?  (Fidelity, Ally, Navy Federal, etc.)  I take it you have monthly rents deposited into the Operating account and then future repairs, capex, vacancy, etc. moved into the Capital Improvements account?

Many thanks for the responses folks, we really appreciate it! It's always great to see how the pros are doing things and making their lives easier through REI - we couldn't be happier to be a part of this community!