All Forum Posts by: Jim Shepard

We bought a house this Spring that a smoker lived in for 16 years. Everything was coated with nicotine. Go to your local hardware store and get TSP. Put on gloves, mix in water and start wiping. You will be amazed at how it cleans the nicotine off. We used it on walls, ceilings, shower surround, wood cabinets, etc with great results. We then painted Kilz on the walls & ceilings. On the grout lines you are probably going to have to use a nylon scrubber. Might take 2 - 3 times to clean it. Lots of work - I hate smoke!

@Mike Dymski  I have commercial as well as residential so I will just give out the numbers for the residential.  My average price is around $70,000 for a sfh and they rent for $800 to 1100 per month.

I sure hope so because 21 of my 26 rentals are in towns with a population of 10,000 or less! No matter what the size of the town, people need to rent. You need to make sure that the town isn't saturated with rentals. How do you do that? Check Zillow & Craigslist for rentals along with their rental rates. Drive around the area and look for "for rent" signs. You could also put a false ad on Craigslist and see how much response you get.

I've got one in my personal house and really like it. No issues and it has been installed for 7 years now. You can set the temp on mine and it cranks out as much water at that temp that you want. Get a gas one because the electric ones won't keep up.

Here's how I look at it. When I was younger I had a lot of people help me along the road of life. I couldn't be where I am today without their gracious help. I was blessed to have the parents I had and the upbringing that I received. Yes, I have paid my dues, taken chances and then taken more chances. However those chances were "educated" chances because of the people that helped me in the past. Do some "suckers" cross the line? You bet and I drop them like a hot potato. I know that Steve Vaughan and @JD Martin have taught this old dog a few tricks! Hopefully I am giving more to the BP community than I am taking. With the state that this country is in right now, I am glad when I see a "snotty nosed kid" trying to make a name for himself! I just look in the mirror and say "that was me 35 years ago. No money but plenty of tenacity to make it happen"!

Shray as everyone has chimed in I too would hang in there and get your IT degree.  3 Semesters will be over before you know it and you will have that degree for the rest of your life.  They can take your money, property, etc. away from you but they can't take your education.  A degree in most fields will open doors that a person that doesn't have the degree won't be able to open.  I have a 55 year old cousin that has been successful several times in life that doesn't have a degree.  The problem is when her employer downsizes, goes out of business etc., she ends up going back to a minimum wage job. and has to start all over. 

Yes it happens all the time. People today have no concept of a courtesy call to say "I changed my mind". I now tell them that I will text them 30 minutes before the arrival time. No response and I stay home.

I think it is like any situation in life, you have to be careful. Yes, there are people on here with ulterior motives, but I think the majority of people are here to genuinely help a fellow "tribe member" - (I like that @mindy Jensen). We are told by so many of our family members, friends, associates, etc. that you can't invest in real estate - you'll go broke! Many of the BP contributors can offer their advice. Advice that they may have earned at a great cost and they are willing to give it to you no charge. In my case, I have had a lot of people a long the way help me with my success. I think of it as my way to payback and more importantly pass on information.

I own some Subway restaurants starting with one 25 years ago and now owning 8. It has been a great ride with its ups and downs like any other business. Any restaurant business needs the owner's attention. If you aren't going to be involved in it at least initially, then I would pass. No, at this stage of the game, I am not physically in my stores. I depend on my management team to be in the stores while I look at the numbers and take care of the problems they can't solve. As someone else said don't forget royalties for the franchisor as well as national advertising. This amounts to 8% & 4.5% respectively for Subway. That's off of gross and not the net. Here's a few things I would recommend you do before buying the franchise. 1. Talk to a minimum of 15 different franchisees to see how they like the system or not. 2. If you find a franchisee that you like and feel they run a good business, go work for them for FREE for 2 weeks. Yep 80 free hours! You will learn a lot during those 2 weeks that might help you decide the ice cream business isn't for you. You might also get a free consultant if you do buy the biz. You said this is in LA. How much is the rent and is it NNN? How many years are left on the lease? Does it have a kick out clause if things head South? The labor market is extremely tight right now EVERYWHERE. Wages are going up. Target announced today they are taking minimum wage to $11 now and $15 by 2020! The only two cost you can control in the food biz is food cost and labor cost. One last piece of advice I would give you is get a good camera system. Point the cameras towards the employees because that is where your thieves will be. Thank God I have only had 1 armed robbery. In contrast I had 13, yes 13 employees arrested in one year. Oh, and they knew the cameras were there! Good luck with your decision.

It's like any other type of damage / updating. You need to figure out an estimate and add some to it since the damage will be hidden behind the walls. One of my best deals was a house with termite damage that was fairly extensive that we found during our due diligence period. I put my estimate together and subtracted it from my original offer (about $15,000). I gave the owner the option of having the repairs done by a licensed contractor but they accepted my offer. My contractor did the necessary repairs which only cost me $8000. I won on that one.