All Forum Posts by: Susan Tan

What a fun post! Thanks for sharing. Is this your first BRRR project?

On July 1, 2021, I fired Susan Gilbert who worked as a property manager for my 3 rentals since Oct 2019. Firing her was the best decision I’ve ever made in my real estate investing career. A number of glaring major issues came up while working with her for the past 1.5 years. This includes lack of end-to-end ownership in managing contractors to complete projects on time and lack of timely communication.

As the general contractor, she was late in completing 2 rehab projects on 2 different properties because she has repeatedly hired unreliable and incompetent contractors who are late on deadlines and under-deliver. A general contractor’s job is to project manage a rehab on time to save money. 1 rehab project was in Summer 2020 which is when she blamed Covid19 for having to fire/rehire new contractors. A 1-month rehab project that required electrical, plumbing, flooring, painting work took 4 months to complete. Another 2-week project took 1.5 months to complete. I was so concerned with the late project that I went on a flight to see the rehab project in-person and I was not surprised to see contractor Uriah’s incomplete work. The contractor has a very bad relationship with Susan Gilbert. The contractor Uriah even poured tile grout down the sinks to spite Susan Gilbert and caused a thousand dollar pipe damage on my property. I’ve seen unpleasant shouting matches between Susan and Uriah the contractor. This has been a recurring issue with many of Susan’s contractors who were late on deadlines. Since Susan does not charge an overhead admin fee for overseeing the rehab work and happens to live more than 50 miles away from Cincinnati, OH where my rentals are located, her priority as a property manager is not at all aligned with mine.

Communication with Susan has been very sparse and very poor. She didn’t inform me of completed nor future work orders. I am often surprised by the repair bills that come in from Quickbooks a few months later. I never get the receipts or invoices for scope of work unless I ask her directly; I expect a good property manager to send receipts of repairs and keep me informed of any repairs and when they’re scheduled. The tenants complain that their work orders are ignored. The grass & tree branches aren’t cut or the stove is broken for many months. When I did get repair bills several months later, I realized that the handyman had traveled over 50 miles away and the bill was high due to a long travel time. A property manager whose properties are almost all 50+ miles away from Cincinnati, OH is not going to manage properties in Cincinnati, OH effectively.

A tenant that Susan had placed in a 4-unit building is undergoing eviction for non-payment of rent. This tenant has 2 other friends squatting in the apartment and is a heroin addict who smokes cigarettes indoors with impunity. A good property manager should be able to screen tenants properly.

In short, please avoid All Roads property management company. I've learned a hard lesson in keeping a bad property manger for as long as I have. I don't know how to cross-post in the Ohio real estate forum too.

@Stanley Ezeadi I think that if you have the funds to do a 6-figure full gut rehab on a Third Ward property AND then spend money on all the furniture, you're already better off buying the $500-$600k retail price for a 3bed/2bath townhouse in luxury Midtown Houston WITHOUT all the hassle of managing contractors.

@Uche O.: I walked around 3rd ward in-person yesterday and it is indeed a very mixed area with run down properties with broken windows next door to nicely kept properties. I was the only non-black minority person walking around in 3rd ward on a cloudy afternoon. I'm not surprised by the quality of the tenants living at 2701 Isabella. I doubt any of the airbnb units are doing well in 3rd ward because there are broken damaged sidewalks that flood and bad areas that make the area not very safe to walk at night.

3rd Ward/South Central Houston is nowhere near the late stages of gentrification that Montrose has gone through.

Installing a Veken bidet in a unit that's beautifully designed is the 10x ROI item. The guest inquiries are impressed with the bidet.

On a rehab property, doing airbnb setup on your own does take a longer time than expected because you have to wait for the contractor to be done with the rehab. The garbage cans get filled up easily with the amazon packages. I went to home depot about 10-15 times a week to get hardware items to do finishing touches on my 1st airbnb unit. Costs of furniture, gas/Lyft/Uber, hiring handymen to assemble furniture takes a lot of money!

There are many real estate CPAs in the USA and general CPAs that also handle real estate taxes. How do you evaluate a competent real estate CPA?

I need to find a real estate CPA too and i recently moved to Houston, TX. Feel free to DM me.

My first condo rental's property taxes has doubled from $790/year to $1,580.2/year which is fair because the property's value went up by at least $10k+ in the last 1.5 years. I'm not going to contest any of the property tax hikes. The property taxes need to cover the state budget deficit caused by the massive job losses & loss of sales income taxes from the Covid19 pandemic. Maintaining public schools, parks, & public spaces are critical for increasing property values by making the area more attractive for existing & new tenants.

@Yaniv Yaakubovich How many deal analyses have you done if the Cincinnati  metro area?  Once you've done at least 10 deal analyses and they all went into contract in 2 weeks or less, you'll know what I  mean.