All Forum Posts by: Richard Weinberg

@Jace Prozeller

I recently put them in a rehab house that had not seen new lighting in 20 years and the led versions offered great value. Home Depot and Lowe’s have Stacks of them. The new construction builder in our area puts them in starter homes.

Yes, you can decide to spend more or use other designs like flush mount leds but these boob lights worked great and are an easy and fast install. Good luck!

@Ian K.

Get an electrician in their and check bath and kitchen for gfis and any other code compliance updates. Good luck!

@Nathan G.

I have been doing something I think I’ll share that seems to make a lot of sense to me. When I have a tenant depart and new tenant about to come in, I want to make sure I do the due diligence to find out what is the fair market rent for my property versus my competitors and I can do that on different various sites by looking at homes that have been recently available and are available now and just like anybody else create my own rental comps and price my house accordingly. To encourage my tenants to sign a long lease I offer them the opportunity to lock in rent for the full length of that lease at the current rent. I save on turnover costs and they save on rent. That could save tenants a ton of money. A few years ago I did one with a four year lease and by the time the tenant moved out, they were $350 under market but on the other hand I had no turnover in that house for four years and had a great tenant and that was the deal. I reset the house at market rental pricing and that house now rents to a new tenant at market pricing. If’s tenants lease ends, I start my rental market pricing due diligence 60 days ahead of move out and if they would like to stay I offer market pricing using the same due diligence. That’s the same due diligence they will do if they choose to consider moving. So, we should be on the same rental pricing page. My taxes seem to go up regularly. My insurance goes up regularly and while I take great care of the properties there are repairs every now and then and I get no notice of the expense. This plan seems to keep me in the middle of a fair game and my tenants seem good with it.

Wishing you health and good luck.

@Cole Marsteller

Check out wade jurneys new construction homes in Winston Salem. They are the low cost provider , they will present you with a new place and no warranty and service issues and it will by you time to learn the market. They have some homes only 10 or 15 minutes from campus. It’s a great rental market but a tight housing market right now but I think it will loosen up down the road a bit. Good luck!

@Zachary Steidl

Good afternoon Zach and happy holidays, I am standing in one of our homes in Winston Salem North Carolina so I guess I will reply to you with some thoughts about Winston Salem. We first moved to Winston Salem in 2003 because the company I worked for has corporate headquarters here. I’ve come to realize Winston Salem is a great town and one of the reasons is its got a lot of old infrastructure, read that as old money and it’s got a lot more going for it than a town you would normally think for 250 - 300,000 people. In addition to that it’s spawned off a lot of great industry players, yes some of it them moved on to Charlotte and other places but a lot of it is still here. In addition it’s only about a half hour ride to Greensboro, 90 minute ride to Raleigh Durham, maybe two hours to Fayetteville and 75 minutes to the Charlotte airport. Since you’re on BiggerPockets I assume you want to work in real estate in some manner and that means you could probably live in any of those cities and get to any of them to manage any of your properties or any of your jobs in an hour or two. The weather here is great. They would like to tell you you have 12 months of golf... it’s not true!it’s 10 to 10 1/2 months but it’s really a beautiful climate. I hope that helps and wish you luck good luck with the move! Thanks for your service and have a great holiday!

@Joshua S.

Joshua, I experienced a very similar type of tenant payment situation and handled it, humanely, but poorly and when we ended up in court a few months later, the tenant fibbed to the magistrate and I lost in court. I learned and a few months later when the situation arose again with the same tenant, I won the case and the tenant was evicted. That’s how we learn and grow. Cut yourself a break.....but if you do go to court, handle it professionally and directly as others here mentioned be prepared to lose or have the case dismissed.

Magistrates were mostly by the book before the Pandemic, so you can bet they will be more so now.

I think if you can get a lawyer at this point, only because it’s gotten sticky and you may not have your paper processes in order, I might get the lawyer. If not, you may want to reach out to the tenant and ask if he realizes that under the cdc guidelines he still will ultimately need to pay in full and if he says yes...invite home to agree to a repayment plan that you put in writing, he signs, he makes a payment on, and you can postpone the eviction / court process and cancel for Wednesday. Then, if he defaults on any portion of your workout agreement, you can get your paperwork and communication right and file a fresh eviction in January, knowing you crossed your t and dotted your I.

Self managing can be a great thing and a profitable thing for somebody with a few properties and a W2job. You can do this and grow. Good luck!

@Lisa Kiu

We bought a house on auction that had heavy smokers. Of course, you typically can’t go inside homes bought on auction so we did not know till after we closed and then, its ours and it’s rehab time. We spent thousands with professional cleaning services and many, many hours of manual cleaning and lots of days of ozone use and there was still a lingering but lesser smoke smell. It was a dramatic clean up process but eventually the house looked great and smelled almost ok. I learned several important lessons....Be prepared to get it cleaner before allowing a painter to enter or adding any new flooring. Don’t accept somebody else’s idea of clean. ....use your own, because, if you add all the paint and finishes and it still smells smoky, you will not be enchanted and the expenses only seem to go up and up. One of the easiest yet time consuming processes and most important to do on every turnover is run the glass light fixtures, globes and such, through the dishwasher. Vent covers as well. Thoroughly wipe down the top of light fans, blades and such, even after your ....deep cleaning crew leaves. That’s when you can see and smell the difference between clean and clean. Good luck.

@Tone Church

Warning Will Robinson! (From Lost In Space!) We have security systems in most of our property’s to offer consumers, security monitoring with professional monitoring services and automation options....but no cameras on any systems with tenants. We think we could, you could set up the possibility of privacy issues, or, at least that’s been our fear. We have cameras in our personal homes but no cameras on rentals. The alarm systems help a lot with tenant turnover and prospective tenant showings as we can set and unset alarms remotely... but.. no cameras. Good luck!

@Carson M.

Nice job. Long term rentals are also turnover cost savers. I have been using longer lease offers at current market value to share savings with tenants and reduce my turnover frequency. I bring their lease to current market rent at next renewal Windows. it’s working for us delivering longer leases with less turnover costs and sounds like it can work for you.

Good luck.

@Kyle Daubenmeyer

I don't know which condos your referencing, but, typically there are very high HOA and country club mandatory fees. Also, often there are rental restrictions like no rental use for 1 or 2 years.

I have chased the ghost a few times.

Good luck!