All Forum Posts by: Mike Giallanza

This is tough one in the each state handles contract law in a different manner. This goes specifically to "procuring cause" and I would find this clause hard to enforce...but I'm not in CA. If you don't have an attorney to bounce this off of, maybe you could call the Realtor association in your area and ask to speak with someone about this. 

Get his insurance information. Treat it just like you would with any other contractor. Maybe even a lein waiver signed by him too. 

I agree with @Kenneth Garrett. Give applicant A a tight window to submit the documentation...no more than the end of business day. It shouldn't take someone all that long to submit pay stubs, etc. If applicant A can't produce, move on to B.

LVP all the way, including the bedrooms. Just brought on a new property and one bedroom still has carpet. Black light test showed over 100 dog urine spots. Disgusting! If you want to have pets in your rentals, LVP will hold up much better & longer than carpet. 

In your shoes, I would be asking a few questions:

If I rented the home exclusively to college students, would the numbers be in line with house-hacking to random tenants? 

If rented above, do I have the funds to buy another property?

If I sell the home, what will my proceeds look like at closing, and will my return on investment lead me to want to do this again?

After selling the home, do I have enough proceeds to buy another property, move forward with some value-add projects, and sell again? 

I've used Promas, AppFolio, and Buildium. Every software package will have pros & cons, and keep in mind that AppFolio has a 50-door minimum. AppFolio is excellent, but the accounting portion is a bit odd if you're used to double-entry bookkeeping. Between the three, I've been happiest with Buildium. I can also tell you that getting customer service support is much better with Buildium vs AppFolio. You can actually talk to someone the same day - that ended with AppFolio years ago, at least for me. 

How easy would it be to install a microwave above the oven? Is there an electrical outlet in that upper cab? Otherwise, just leave it. 

Leave it as a 3/1. Going to a 2/2 - is that worth the cost when you factor in the rental rate? Probably not....

"My property manager went to check and says that the roof will need to be replaced."

This may be a problem. Is the PM a licensed contractor, with experience roofing? Roofs can be repaired, but oftentimes do need to be replaced. My roofer will provide me with photos that I'll send along to my clients. If we can repair it, we will. If it's shot, then it's time to replace. It helps having a highly-reputable roofing company in biz for 15+ years and hundreds of 5-star reviews. 

It's probably a setting in the PM software that needs to be fixed. If one of the tenants is pre-paying, the software needs to be set to apply this to rent. Not sure why it's not automatically doing that, but the answer will be based on when those two payments come in each month.