All Forum Posts by: Nancy P.

Thanks for all your replies.  @Thomas S.,  not everyone shares the same investing goals or risk tolerance.   Clearly it seems a few people would find an ice maker a necessity,  but most would not.  Between that and the flooding risk,  particularly since it's a second floor condo and a leak=flooding someone else,  my husband agreed to the "basic"  new fridge.

THIS ^^^.  Not to mention the buyer subtracts the commission from his offer.  We sold our house in March.  We were thinking of downsizing when a renting neighbor knocked on our door.  They love the street,  their kids have made friends,  we live on the end of the cul-de-sac while they lived up at the cross street,  they wanted our house.   We had a townhouse we were remodeling for a rental and just moved into it instead.   The issues started with the disclosure forms.  Apparently only Realtors have the right form,  not my attorney.  Who holds the earnest money?  There was some further negotiation after inspection through the attorneys who really were just in the middle passing messages.  I got so frustrated I just went up the street and knocked on their door and worked some things out.  My own Realtor helped me out with the disclosure forms and some advice out of kindness (we do buy at least one property per year with her.)  But the price.....I feel sure they got half of that 6% commission off of the price,  at least.  A $400K house so still saved us significant amount of money.  But I'm not sure it was worth the hassle.

If you do show yourself,  be sure to use caution or to always be a team of two people.  Good luck.

If you couldn't be bothered to read the link,  maybe just go back and read Bo's relevant section regarding the law.  Actual Ohio law.  I don't know what states the attorneys you are quoting are licensed in.   Here it is again.  State Code 5321.04 Landlord Obligations Section 4 "Maintain in good and safe working order and condition all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning fixtures and appliances, and elevators, supplied or required to be supplied by the landlord".  LL supplied the a/c,  now he has to maintain the a/c. Other sections say he has NO MORE than 30 ays to do that.  For those of you saying "Go buy a window a/c".  Maybe $200 and installing a heavy appliance in a window is a huge ask of a military spouse.  In my experience military families struggle quite a bit financially.  It also presumes the windows open in such a way to allow a window A/C.

Call it "being emotional",  I still maintain that it is the law, and  it is doing the right thing.  I don't see tenants as people somehow less deserving of decent treatment than others.  (Which seems to be a common attitude on this site.)  I see them as human beings who are THE reason we are meeting our financial goals.  If my tenant is serving in the military,  damn skippy that makes them even more deserving of respect.   My own father was at Normandy,  I have a very deep sense of what that service COSTS.  Bo,  I hope the situation is resolved quickly.  Please see my private message to you.

When I lived in Houston the a/c would get replaced twice as often as the furnace.  At least.  I imagine this is also true in Cary?  I have a sister there and know it's pretty hot and muggy as well. So if it DOES go out I would not necessarily assume the furnace has to be  replaced at the same time.

 Yes,  please!  

Oh, yeah,  it's irrational to expect your landlord to OBEY THE LAW. Gotcha.  Gotta love the guy who cannot admit when he's wrong.  

And Bo,  thank you for your service.

Anthony,  sorry to say the laws in Ohio do not seem to agree with your opinion.   If you pay rent on a place that has things which work when you move in,  is it "whining"  to expect those things to continue working?  I truly don't understand the superior attitude towards tenants I see often here on BP.  They are human beings who are literally paying my bills for me.  Why wouldn't I treat them right?  Let alone this guy is one of those who stands on the wall for me...IMO he really deserves to be treated decently.

Paul,  it's the #1 or #2 refinery in the world in terms of size.  Interestingly enough,  prices seem to be the same for the two developments we were considering 16 months ago.  Really really interesting.  Husband says full employment there (when it's running)  is about 3000.  It's going to be at least a billion dollars to get it going again.  Salt air not so great for machinery.   The population of the three USVI is only about 150K people.  St Croix,  50K.  So it's significant.  Still probably won't pull the trigger---hurricanes can really kill your cash flow for very long periods...but will think about it.  You could invest in housing near the refinery or buy a home you'd like to retire to...housing will tighten up in both sectors.  Thanks for the tip!

I don't think you can delete the post but you can change the notifications under Settings. 

Paul, this fascinates me.  A HUGE refinery is on St. Croix.  My husband used to consult there,  we  actually lived there one summer. (2000).  But the refinery closed in 2012,  it was 1/3 of the jobs on the island,  and the real estate market crashed.  Are you saying that someone is reopening the refinery?  (H went to a different job so wouldn't know.)  If so,  it would be very smart indeed to invest in St. Croix.  Otherwise,  keep in mind that Cuba's opening to American tourism is likely to draw from other Caribbean locations for at least the next five years.  We have tried to buy a vacation home there  but the numbers do not work.  At least not anything near the water.  Hurricane insurance is something like $600 per month.  And as I said,  St. Croix has a LOT of vacancies just now.   We paid only $225 per night for a 3 BR over Christmas 2016.  Most of the rest of the place was rented by some Secret Service men,  it turned out Joe Biden's  home was just down the hill.  To see men in suits in the Caribbean was very strange!