All Forum Posts by: Michael Limjoco

 I don't think it ran for a few days, and it was just done by the Property Manager. I am going to look into a professional ozone cleaning service to see what they have to say. Thank you!

Many thanks to our fellow investors who took the time to quickly and carefully respond to our inquiry. It sounds like the response is pretty unanimous that the nuclear approach is recommended, so we will be proceeding cautiously through that taking everyone's feedback into account.

I've reached out to an attorney who was referred to me by another attorney in our network, and also waiting to hear back from the insurance company. 

Hopefully we will be able to recoup the costs somehow.

Thank you to everyone who responded and provided some extremely valuable feedback from your experience!

Warm regards,

Mike

Hello fellow investors and biggerpockets forum members, we are hoping for some guidance from other investors who have experienced a similar issue in the past. 

We have a rental unit where the previous tenant had pets. While we have had units rented with tenants who have had pets in the past, we appear to be in a unique situation where the previous tenant really let their pets run wild. The property owner is saying that the carpet and walls had animal urine on them, and there is a persistent smell that just won't go away (tenants claimed they had dogs, but property manager believes they may have had a cat that they did not disclose).

This is what the Property Manager has done to mitigate the smells thus far:

1) Brought in ServPro to mitigate the smells

2) Use "OdoBan" on all the walls

3) Brought in their own Ozone cleaner

The Property Manager is recommending the "nuclear approach" and replacing all of the carpet, flooring and painting the walls, and we feel this is quite excessive, not to mention extremely expensive!

Has anyone dealt with this in the past, and what have you done?

We filed a claim with our insurance company, but I my research has led to mixed results with this (sometimes it's covered, most of the time not).

We did document that the tenants had pets on the lease, so wondering if we can sue the previous tenant or pass along the bill for damages incurred.

Any knowledge the team can share on this would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Mike

@Elizabeth Colegrove That's certainly food for thought. You certainly know what you're doing. You guys are doing so well at your age, I wish I was in that position when I was in my mid twenties.

@Matt Devincenzo that sounds like what I could get in my area - far Northwest Suburbs of Chicago, closer to the border of Wisconsin. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of renters in my area. And you are right, buying one property for cash is a third option we're considering.

I'll probably set up a meeting with a mortgage lender just to explore what options we have for financing.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this.

@Brett Russell @Mark Whittlesey Thanks for the input. I was surprised there wasn't an easy answer. I always thought there was an obvious winner between the two choices, I did not consider the answer to be a matter of personal preference, but it makes complete sense given what you're saying.

@Elizabeth Colegrove My wife and I are in our mid thirties, dual six-figure incomes and generous bonuses help with paying the mortgages even without rent so we're probably ok with the risk portion - we know we can handle the mortgages just fine. It's more the "freedom" of being able to walk away from our jobs if we wanted to (though I like my current job) that drives us. One thing that I didn't mention was that we were also considering starting an absentee franchise business once we've paid off the homes.

@John Steele @Chuck Holland The only reason why I prefer to pay off the smaller mortgages is that I get the benefits of being able to save more money faster. By paying off the smaller mortgage, I instantly get to add the cost of paying that mortgage back to my savings, making it quicker to accumulate the next pay-down. But that was real food-for-thought. I actually ran the math on it because your advice really made me think about it. Turns out I can pay both rental units in less time and reap the benefits of not paying those mortgages quicker.

Based on everyone's feedback, I might go ahead and pay the mortgage off.

Out of sheer morbid curiosity, how many rental units could I Ieverage with $100K in cash?

Hi all,

I'm new to these forums and heard of it through Jaime Tardy's interview with Josh Dorkin. It was like the heavens have opened for me and here was this wonderful resource I had been missing all along!

I was hoping for some guidance on a matter.

My wife and I have two rental units (townhomes), and a primary residence. The combined mortgage on all three properties is around $438K.

Our household income is more than enough to comfortably cover all three mortgages, even without the rental income, although both properties have been rented for a long time and pull in good rents.

We have, over the last two years accumulated enough in savings to pay off one of the mortgages. This cash is separate from our emergency fund (which we don't touch), so this isn't something that would leave us without a lifeline.

My question is this: should I pay down the mortgage or use the cash to further leverage myself with additional units? Alternatively, I know I could use the cash to flip units, but I don't have experience with that at this time.

What made paying the mortgage off attractive was that if we did this, we would be able to free up enough cash flow to pay down the remaining properties within four years, and that point, it's a straight up cash game to purchase additional units. We also would be completely debt free if we did this.

But it's also a slow-burn kind of process, and interest rates are still relatively low that I feel like that might not be a smart thing to do.

I was wondering what everyone thinks because there are obvious pros and cons.

Thanks in advance.

Mike