All Forum Posts by: Kimberly T.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

Just seemed like a new rental agreement would be cleaner, based on what I've read about adding someone. Yes, rent will stay the same.

We may be selling the property this year or next, so I want it to be clear who is a tenant and who is entitled to the deposit when they vacate.

Background: we had new tenants move into a 2 bedroom unit about 6 months ago on a month to month agreement. It is a woman and her adult daughter (both listed as tenants and contributing income toward rent), plus the woman's minor child as an occupant. Been good, clean, quiet tenants so far.

Got a call yesterday that the woman wanted to pick up an app for her husband to be added to the rental agreement. We met with them and he filled out an app, and his credit and background came back fine, and no evictions, so we're ok with him. His "job" is that he buys storage units and resells the stuff at the swapmeet, so no W2 type employment. No idea why he didn't move in originally.

So... I'm thinking we'll draft up a new agreement for them all to sign. No issue there. But for the security deposit, is it ok to just write 2 receipts like this: one receipt saying we returned the deposit to the 2 current tenants, and another receipt saying that all 3 of them gave us a deposit (so they are now all covered by the deposit)? Just seems easier than having them give us a whole new deposit and then us refunding the original deposit to the current 2 tenants. Is there a better way to show a paper trail for the deposit now being covered by all 3 tenants? Do we actually even need a paper trail, or will the new rental agreement cover that just because they're now all listed as tenants with that deposit?

Thanks!

I haven't been around to post much here on BP lately because I've been a bit preoccupied with being pregnant (yay!).  My husband and I are expecting our first child, a boy, in late March.

I've been working as an engineer for almost 10 years, since I graduated from college.  We got married and bought our home here in Orange County CA in 2008, and since then, we've bought a triplex here in CA, 2 fourplexes in AZ, and a fourplex in CO.  It's been a big sacrifice obviously; while friends and family were off having nice vacations and buying lots of material items, we used vacation time to go work on rentals and saved our extra cash for down payments on rentals.  However, the reward is huge, as we will now be able to afford for me to be a stay at home mom in a high cost of living area due to the net profits we make from our rentals (plus my husband's salary).

So, I'll be taking the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy off, making today my last day at work.  I like the people I work with (well, most of them), and this will be a huge transition, but I'm excited!  And nervous, and happy, and sad, and lots of other mixed emotions.  Looking forward to this next stage in my life!

Thanks guys.  Yes, we'll definitely get a couple of bids before blindly proceeding with the bid this plumber gave us, and we'll see if other plumbers think they can get it unclogged without having to remove a tub.  The plumber yesterday said that he could try hydrojetting through the roof stack, but that it probably wouldn't help.  Using the snake through the roof stack would still put us at the same clog.

I don't know if it would be possible to open up the access panel and try to disconnect the drains that way and get something in the pipe to try to grind out the corrosion.  The plumber yesterday seemed to have the opinion that going through the access panel wouldn't help anything.

Hi all, I haven't had time to post here on BP lately because I've been kind of preoccupied with being pregnant (2 more months to go!), but we're having a potentially major issue with one of our properties and thought I'd look for some advice.

We own a triplex (built in the early 1960s, all one story, slab on grade) near us, and got a call on Sunday that the tubs in 2 units were backing up and draining very slowly.  Nothing else is backed up, and flushing the adjacent toilets didn't cause water to back up into the tubs, so it's definitely just a localized drain issue at the tubs.  These tubs are back to back (the bathrooms in these units are mirror images of each other).  These tubs have occasionally backed up before, but we've always been able to get them unclogged with either drain cleaner or snaking.

We had a plumber come try to snake it yesterday, and he spent an hour or more trying to get a 1/2" snake down through the T where the 2 tubs' drains come together.  He said in his experience with 50+ year old cast iron drains in these back to back situations is that those connections are the first to go, and the only way to fix it is to remove one of the tubs, cut out a small piece of slab, and replace it.  He said a camera won't be able to get through the clog, and hydrojetting only works occasionally.

Anyone have any experience with this scenario before?  Any ideas/thoughts on our options?  We're planning to sell this property in the next year or two, so dumping thousands of dollars into it is not terribly appealing to us.

Thank you all! Appreciate it.

Our PM seems pretty trustworthy, and from my research online in addition to what you all have said, it sounds like this is a very reasonable price.

Thanks for the feedback.  We aren't considering vinyl at this point, but honestly aren't that used to siding.  We're from CA, where almost all houses are stucco.

Yes, this is the painter that our PM has a working relationship with.  We've used this same painter to paint a few of the interiors of those units, and their price was right in the ballpark, based on my research, so I was assuming this was a reasonable price too, but I just didn't know.

Thanks guys.  The property is in Colorado, if that affects price at all.  Yes, the quote includes the supplies.

I'm looking for our PM to get more bids, this is just what we got first.

Ok, we own the above fourplex and we're looking to have the exterior repainted.  It's a big rectangle building with wood siding, probably about 60 ft wide, 35 or 40 ft deep, and 2 stories.  Those garages are directly attached to the building, so there aren't exterior walls between the garages and units that would also need to be painted.  Also, there is a small balcony off each upstairs rear bedroom (1 balcony per unit) that need to be restained.

Our PM got a quote of $4400 to repaint the exterior.  That includes power wash, caulking, primer, and 2 coats of paint.  They gave a separate quote of $1400 to power wash and restain the 4 balconies.

Do those seem like reasonable prices?  How do they calculate a price to repaint an exterior?