All Forum Posts by: Steve Fitzgerald

@Ronan M. Yes, that was the first thing I checked. 

According to my handyman all three of the thermostats I have in my single family rental property are no longer functioning and need to be replaced. Seems strange, but they were all installed at the same time 6 years ago so something may have shorted them out. I'm going to replace the thermostats. What's your favorite thermostat to use in your rental property? It's probably a class b property so no need for anything high end. 

Just to clarify it’s New Haven, CT.

Is anyone using a licensed handyman/contractor in the New Haven-area that they like? I have a property nearby and I’m trying to add another handyman/contractor to my vendor list to call in case of repairs.

I’m looking at buying in the Raleigh, NC market. There’s pretty good inventory of both SFH and townhomes/condos. The condos seem to be a little a little better quality for the price vs an SFH. In cities like Raleigh what sees to be more rentable an SFH or a condo? This is intended to be a cash flow property.

As I add additional rental properties to my portfolio I'm thinking about whether or not I should have security systems installed. Both as a feature for tenants and for me in the event the space is vacant. Is this a practice that most landlords with SFH rentals are using? If so, are you rolling it into your rental expenses or asking the tenant to pay if they want to use it?

I use Cozy as well and I'm generally happy with it. I do wish it had more robust features to handle things like maintenance requests and integrated with accounting software better. For a free product though I've found it to work pretty well.

When I first started renting out my SFH I was told by my real-estate agent that I should add landscaping maintenance into the cost of the rental. Is that pretty standard or am I an outlier for doing it? I have a long-term tenant in the house so I know I need to keep paying for landscaping, but I'm thinking about the next lease.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Just to clarify, the work is being conducted by a contractor not the tenant themselves. It’s work that I’m authorizing, but I definitely agree it sets a bad precedence. It also creates a situation where the contractor is working for the tenant and not me so there could be a conflict of interest. I appreciate your comments. Moving forward I’ll pay the contractor directly.

I have a sfh that I rent. The tenant that I have in the house wants to pay for mutually agreed upon repairs and deduct the cost from the rent. While the net income ends up the same it seems like it could cause some unforeseen issues. 

What do you all think?