All Forum Posts by: Peter Tverdov

We are always transparent and tell them we can send someone over, but they're responsible for paying for the bill. Not every maintenance request is 100% on the owner. It varies sometimes. 

We always increase unless we know the rents are at the top of the market for that particular apartment (rarely are). We aren't increasing rents on one building - because we are planning to bulldoze it the moment the Fed fund rates get in the low to mid 4s. 

Who is managing the property? That is arguably the most important factor. They're driving the bus and can make or break your investment. 

I would strongly suggest finding another PM. Trying to learn on the job with a 200 door portfolio will likely cost you a lot of tenant turnover, stress and headaches. 

I'm not a fan of the discounted or flat fee PM model. All they do is fee people to death IMO. I like to include those fees in a percentage based model and then have ancillary fees on top (thanks NARPM!). 

 We manage over 300 doors in NJ. 80% are built before 1978 and probably 50% are 100 years old. Biggest thing to look for is structure, if the structure is sound your biggest problems are going to be older plumbing (stacks, water lines, waste lines) then there is likely knob and tube wiring in those places but most of them are still functioning fine, just obviously outdated. 

Latchel is for PM companies. I would not recommend using it as a retail investor. 

HOAs are a pain in the ***. We hesitate at times to take them on when clients ask us to manage a condo or townhome because the HOA laws can harrass the tenant or some of the losers who live in these communities and have nothing better to do than to tell you to quickly bring in your HelloFresh groceries because its a HOA violation. Managing the communities is even worse. No interest in dealing with the boards, a lot of financial mismanagement and angry board members or association members.

Good luck OP. 

OP will learn fast and his method will change.

99% of the time a toilet or sink is clogged we let the tenants know they will be responsible for the bill.

The most common repair we find is plumbing issues with leaking pipes, joints, boiler piping etc but thats because we manage a lot of old housing stock (100 years old).