All Forum Posts by: Gerald K.

I believe we have the same type @Marcia Maynard is talking about at our townhome rentals in Everett, WA. They were built with them. The knob and spigot is outside but the knob turns a rod inside the pipe that goes inside the house 18 to 24 inches where the actual valve is. There's an anti-syphon mechanism on the spigot that allows the water to drain off - so if it works right, the first 18 to 24 inches of pipe has no water in it and should prevent freezing/bursting of pipe. Those anti-syphon mechanisms need to be replaced once is a while as they do eventually wear out the o-ring seal and start to leak when you operate the spigot. We also put a styrofoam cover over the spigots when we do our semi-annual safety/maintenance check in late fall. Marcia, the water detector alarms sounds like a great idea. We've thought of doing the same. Are they battery operated? Water damage issues are the biggest problem we've dealt with and anything that can mitigate damage is definitely worth it. As for emergency repairs, we also show the tenants where the shut offs are. If we can't get a repair person out, like during the holidays, we try to at least get something done for them ourselves. Sometimes it just takes time to get someone to deal with it. It's the same whether you're a tenant or a homeowner.

@Marcia Maynard

Hi @Jenkins Ramon

Thanks for the midwest welcome. I spent a week or two in Sturgeon Bay years ago - that's as close as I've been to your area. Hope to see you around on BP and thanks again for taking time to welcome me.

If you do your own painting or provide paint, we always pick up the various sheens (satin, semi-gloss, etc.) when Sherwin Williams has a 40% off sale. t=Then we take it back to get it tinted to the appropriate color at a later date when we have a painting project. We also look for contractor packs at the big box stores.

Normally we don't supply curtains or drapes, but we have left curtains and sheers at times when we already had them there and asked the tenant to save them for us if they preferred putting up something different. We put up Lowes or Home Depot horizontal blinds for the windows and vertical blinds for the sliding glass door. We also put up curtain rods. We like to install those things versus having a tenant do it, possibly incorrectly, making it more work when we end up correcting it in the future. Ross, Marshalls, & TJ Max seem to have good basic stuff like that in our area.

Thanks for the welcome Marc, Paul, Phil, and Kimo. I've chatted briefly with Zack a while back. We're also interested in multi-family, which seems to be his expertise. Hey Marc, Vancouver, BC is one of our favorite places to visit. We always like to get up there at least once in the summer for the Celebration of Light fireworks show! Phil, glad to see someone from Kirkland! This expensive area makes it tough for buy and hold investors, but condos would definitely be easier. We've rented some townhomes in So. Everett that have worked out pretty well. Kimo, how about those Seahawks! I work Sunday so have missed out on the meetups so far.

Hey Brandon,

Thanks for the quick welcome! We sure would like to attend a BP meetup sometime. The last one conflicted with my schedule, but one day...

Hello, Gerald here from Kirkland, WA. I've actually been on and off the site for about a year now and have read the beginner's guide and searched through the site many times to find answers, post questions, but never formally introduced myself until now, so here I go... I have a full time job but have been slowly acquiring lower cost SFH rentals in better neighborhoods with good school districts over the past few years. There's so much great information on this site I wish I had found it a year before I started. Probably just like many of you, after listening to the Podcasts, I feel like I know Josh and Brandon. My wife and I are mostly buy and hold real estate investors and we have been mostly doing it all on our own - fixing them up, renting them out, and managing them. While we've learned a ton in the process, I'm sure we could have moved forward a lot faster had we reached out to others before now. When we first started out, we joined WLA - Washington Landlord Association, where we learned a lot. We recently joined REAPS - the local REIA in our area and we're looking forward to building our network with others there and on BP. We would like to continue accumulating as many rentals as possible so eventually we will be free to travel and do the things we like. We plan on attending the WLA winter conference Dec 7th, so maybe we'll see some of you there.

Hi Zack,

Yes, if not mistaken, that Fannie Mae rule is for single family or 2-4 unit residential properties, although there are probably some small local banks in Everett, Seattle, Tacoma area that are willing to do a refi as long as your reserves and LTV meet their criteria. Hopefully someone in the area has been through this and can share their experience. We're somewhat reluctant to pull out cash from a property with a great interest rate that is cash flowing well but it could make sense to use those funds toward the purchase of another rental. In any case, it would be good to know if and where that option is available.

Thanks for the invite to the Snohomish County REI meetup. We would like to attend. We checked the link you posted for it. I'm sure that Sunday meetup works good for most people, unfortunately that day conflicts with my current schedule.

Hello BP friends in Western WA (Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, etc.). We're Investigating the possibility of a cash out refi to put funds toward more real estate investments, however, if I understand Fannie Mae rules correctly, investor and second home borrowers with five to ten financed properties are ineligible for cash-out refinance transactions if not done within 6 months of purchase. Has anyone in the area found any small local banks or credit unions willing to do a cash out refi on 5th to 10th financed properties?

How about interest rates? I've found conventional 30 year fix mortgages to be .25% higher interest rate than primary for my first three rentals (4 mortgages with primary). On the 5th to 10th mortgage, I have only checked one program so far, and interest rates are .75% higher than a primary purchase, which I didn't expect. Based on that, today, if you qualify for 3.5% interest rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage for a primary, the 5th to 10th mortgage would be 4.25%. Does this sound about right or are there better deals out there?