All Forum Posts by: Ray Thorsen

@Marcus Auerbach Thanks. I think its awesome that you are renovating the buildings correctly. We need more publicity for landlords that are providing quality products.

looks great. Would you mind sharing the tub surround brand you use. I am looking for an integrated unit like that right now

I have been fortunate that the rental buildings I have purchased so far have been either empty or had great long term tenants. I am now buying a duplex from Auction.com and am trying to get a hold of the current leases. I close May 19 so I have some time to get the info but I am not counting on getting it early. I do not know if they are m-m or on yearly leases. I have no history on the tenants either. So I am trying to prepare myself for all situations. I know if they are on a lease I need to honor it. But if they are m-m how do I handle the transition to get them on my lease or out the door. Assuming the rent is due the first I would have 10 days to have them fill out my application to see if they meet my requirements before I could give them a 30 notice to vacate or have them sign my lease. Assuming the worst I could offer cash for keys.

I am looking to BP'ers for any advise on how you would handle it and if it gets to cash for keys are you just happy if they leave or do you put any incentives in your offer for making sure it is empty and or cleaned. Thanks in advance your input.

I struggled as well finding someone to clean walls. I had a tenant who lived and smoked in my unit for 40 years. Yes Four Zero! I also had lath and plaster walls. I ended up employing Mr. E. Grease, 2 boxes of tsp, 3 mop heads, and about 100 buckets of the nastiest looking water I have ever seen. My tip is do not forget to sanitize the cabinets as well.

As a follow up:

We had a conversation about how this escalated and apologies were handed out.

They ended up moving out "on time" and cleaned for 2 days after. They did a wonderful job cleaning, repaired a couple nicks in the walls left the unit as received. It was a happy ending for me now I hope they can still close on their new home. In the future I will submit a notice to vacate.

So I was watching an auction on an occupied duplex. The opening bid was 17.5k with a reserve. ARV is 105k. Rents are 550 ea. It needs some updates but livable. Bids were at 60k and reserve was not met. So I said why not and bid 61k. Thinking all along the reserve had to be set way higher. Low and behold I won!! Yeah!! But now I need to pay for it. I could empty my investment reserves and tap into my personal savings but was hoping the BP community could offer me some other opportunities. I will use the BRRRR method as soon as the bank will refi me but do not want to run that thin on capital if I do not have to. Any help with private financing, hard money lenders, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

I used it on on bedroom floor in my house. There was a spot that was worn through most of the finish. Like was stated above cleanliness and staying off of it are crucial. My results varied. Where the finish was not worn through it looked better but where the finish was worn through it just put a shine on a worn floor. We hardly used the room so I can not speak to how well it will wear in a high traffic area  but 3 years later we had the floors professionally refinished and you could still see the rejuvenate sheen.

@Luke Texidor Madison from what I hear is not a landlord friendly town but I have no experience.  Lake Geneva I had a duplex on the outskirts of town it cash flowed decent but required a lot of maintenance and my time. It was a converted school house. And since then I have stayed away from converted duplexes which there seams to be a lot of in lg. Genoa city interests me as well because there seams to be a fair amount of low priced sfh that could potentially cashflow. My fear is that it is far from the bigger towns and I don't know what the renter pool looks like. 

Congrats!! On your deal. I am glad the risk worked out. I am in south eastern wisconsin would be happy to help network with you.

 I would go with high resolution laminate with the full round or ogee edge with no backslash. Then add a tile backsplash. You should be able to do that for =or less than granite. The new laminates look good and the edges I mentioned also have laminate all the way around the outside edge so you have a less chance of spills swelling and growing on the edge.