All Forum Posts by: Roy N.

Presuming you are talking about having both policies on the same property, the answer - here anyway - would be "No". Taking Steve Babiak example of a 4-plex where you reside in one unit. You would have "landlord" insurance on the property, then you would also have tenants insurance on the possessions in your unit.

There is a good chance this could be handled differently in Florida.

Ed Lee

If you have an efficient gas furnace already and the heat is forced air, you can add a central cooling unit into the plenum (with an external compressor like a heat pump) to provide central air to the building.

This should be a more cost efficient solution than replacing the existing system. Though, if the blower in your furnace is not a DC variable speed unit {i.e. an old single speed 75-100amp motor}, you should consider replacing the blower since it will be running year round and the blower tends to be the biggest energy consumer in older forced air systems.

If the gas furnace is older (only 65 - 75% efficient vs 95% in a modern furnace), you could always replace it with a hybrid solution ... natural gas heat with an electric central air cooler.

Welcome Ru,

Though I'm in your general area, I'm not in New England :-)

I do travel the 95 corridor to Portsmouth and Boston on a regular basis and have started looking for opportunities south of Auburn.

Brian Sorensen

We are in the midst of a back to the studs renovation of a 120 year old building (originally a single home, but a duplex for the last 60 - 70+ years)

It was quite common for these homes to have 2-layers of lath-and-plaster: The finish layer you see and a second layer, with lath fixed vertically, between the studs in the wall cavities. This inner layer was used as a wind break as the outside sheeting had gaps between the boards. If your house is of this construction, there is no practical way to inject/blow insulation into the wall cavity and you are left with the choice of either gutting back to the studs on the inside or removing the exterior cladding and applying housewrap and rigid insulation on the outside.

If you do go the interior route, be prepared to encounter hand-sawn timber with substantial variance in dimensions - meaning you will need to shim and plane, or strap, to create a plumb wall for hanging sheet rock {putting back lath-n-plaster would be cost prohibitive and, in our case (a rental), non-compliant with current fire code}.

Old buildings can be rejuvenated and made much more efficient, just factor in an additional 10-15% in your reno budget to address any discoveries.

Kirk:

That really depends on your locale. We live in a university town making September and to a lesser extent, May, our bigger lease start months.

That said, January is not terribly bad for 1-2bdrm units in or close to "universityville" ... it common that after the fall semester folks decide they want out of residence, or do not like their current roommates.

We've started putting electronic locks into our units {2 buildings thus far}. Each tenant gets their own unique "electronic key", when they leave, their key is simply deactivated.

Another nice feature is the ability to issue one-time-keys to service personnel or agents showing a unit. It also allows us to send an alert to the tenant (or sound the door bell chime) if the door is left ajar. Finally, the system keeps a log of all key uses - ie. Tenant A opened the front door at 01:00.

Wow ... mine seems pretty tame, but odd nonetheless.

I had a tenant bring his own water heater (electric) and ask to have it installed in-place of the gas water heater for the unit. He paid for the plumber and electricity ... I just drained the other heater and mothballed it as a spare.

Dave,

You'll be waiting a mighty long time for the temperature to reach 60F around here in February .... maybe 32F if you are lucky.

Ben Skove Very true! After all, we in the business of providing an accommodation service and our Tenants are our clientele.

If you received poor service at a restaurant, you may not stay; you definitely will not return and probably would not recommend it to others.

Why would it be any different for your tenants?

I'm with you on that one Al ... the only carpet remaining in any of our units are the flights of stairs in a couple of 2-story, 2-bdrm units. The underlaying steps are plywood treads & risers and need to be covered.

Each unit is schedule to get new stairs (treads & risers) on their next renovation ... the carpet will be forever gone.

Overall, we have had only a couple of minor complaints from new tenants .. in both instances, the units sat empty or a month or more prior to the tenant moving in and we were renovating elsewhere in the building. Our lesson learned now sees us send in our cleaner for a touch-up in the days prior to the Tenant moving in.