Painting Complete and a Liar Unmasked!

I made more progress today on my one bedroom apartment. I got the entire thing painted on the interior and it looks a LOT better. I also installed one miniblind; cleaned the bathroom (which was filthy); and made a punch list of items to finish tomorrow.

It was VERY hot here today and I brought my 3 foot "barn fan" along for some relief.

While I was working on the apartment, I received a call from someone who was in front of one of our few remaining rentals. She wanted me to show here the interior. Since I was busy, I asked her if she met our screening criteria. When I asked her if she had been evicted, she paused. I knew at that point that she had been evicted. After a short pause, she said that she had never been evicted. I told her that we would do a credit check and a criminal background check and asked her again if she had been evicted. She paused again and then mumbled something. I again asked her if she had been evicted. She finally said that she had been evicted from another apartment complex because her son had gotten into a fight. That was enough for me. She had been evicted and she had lied to me about it. I don't need a tenant like that!!!

Small Apartment, Big Mess

I'm officially back to work in my rental business. Today, I started working on my last available one-bedroom apartment. This is in one of the apartment buildings we purchased at the beginning of the month. Although it is a small apartment, it was a big mess. The previous owner had removed part of the kitchen ceiling to work on the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom. I checked the plumbing for leaks and then replaced the drywall, although I ran out of drywall tape, so I'll have to finish that tomorrow. Then, I patched all the nail holes that were in the walls. This is one of the worst apartments that I've ever seen for nail holes. I'll bet I patched 250 holes! After the holes were done, I vacuumed the carpet. It's a good thing that I vacuumed the carpet, because it looked like an extended family of cats had lived in the apartment. The previous owner clearly didn't even own a vacuum cleaner, as evidenced by the 5 or 6 containers of hair that came out of my bagless vacuum!

Tomorrow's mission will be to paint the apartment.

I Survived!

After taking the entire past week off, I am rested and ready to start working again tomorrow. We had a great time camping and I didn't receive even a single call from a tenant! I survived the week off!

We decided to come back late this afternoon so that we could have a family cookout. The timing was tight, as we arrived home at 4:40 pm and had family arriving at 5pm for a cookout. What a busy day!

At any rate, we got in a lot of bicycle riding and motorcycle riding. This afternoon, we attended a memorial day parade with some friends. The weather was picture perfect and we had a great time!

Tomorrow, I'm planning to do a quick rehab on a one-bedroom apartment that I have already rented for June 1st. I'm planning for this mini-rehab to take no more than 2 days. Then, later in the week, I may start the painting on our last unrented 3 bedroom house. The rental market is very tight and I'm confident that I can rent it as soon as it is painted.

Camping!

It seems like everywhere you go these days, there is a wi-fi hotspot. This week, we are camping at a state park that it really out in a remote area (at least remote for Ohio). I didn't think that there would be wi-fi, but there is! The campground industry really has kept up with the demands of their customers. There's probably a lesson there for us landlords!

Anyway, no real estate news to report. I'm still making money with my rentals and still managing all of the properties myself, even though I'm away from home. So far, I haven't received a single call from a tenant and I really don't expect to. Even if there is an emergency of some sort, I can take care of it from a state park here in Ohio or the beach in Hawaii. All I need is a telephone!

I've heard people say that they don't want to be in the rental business because they don't want to be chained to their rentals. I've vacationed all over the United States while managing my rentals by myself and have never had a problem doing so.

What Can I Say?

If you follow this blog, you may have wondered why there haven't been any new posts in the past few days. Quite honestly, I haven't made any posts because I haven't worked this week. I started out by taking Monday off and was planning to only be off a day or two. As it turned out, I just haven't gotten motivated to do anything yet. Now, it's Thursday already and we're going camping for the rest of the week and weekend (probably through Tuesday). In fact, I went yesterday afternoon to set up the motorhome at our campsite. We're camping about 45 minutes away at a state park. It's not a long trip and I'm looking forward to relaxing for several days. We'll be riding bicycles and my motorcycle. In addition, the state park has a shooting range and I'll take my pistol and maybe an assault rifle to do some target shooting! My wife and I both like to shoot.

While I don't have any real estate related info to post, this is still part of the rental property business. There isn't something to do everyday. Sometimes you just feel lazy (some weeks like this one). Then there are times where there really just isn't a lot to do. When everything is rented and you don't have much rehabbing to do, sometimes a day off is mandated by the lack of things to do.

Lazy Week

It's a holiday week, so I'm not doing much this week. I took the day off today and am planning on taking tomorrow off also. I might work a little on Wednesday and Thursday, but then my wife and I are going camping Friday through Monday, (plus or minus a day or two).

What's that smell?

I took it easy this morning and didn't go to work until noon. My project today was to finish the second of three apartments at one of our new apartment buildings. There really wasn't much left to do. I had to patch a small hole in the wall; install 2 miniblinds; and make an access panel out of drywell for the water heater area.

The tenant had moved most of their stuff in yesterday. I knew that they had a small dog and cat, and had them sign a pet agreement when we did the lease. However, today I was a little surprised to find a PYTHON in the apartment. I guess I forgot to ask if they had any snakes from the Amazon! Oh well. I didn't get too excited about the snake and as long as they don't allow it to roam free, it's ok with me.

However, what wasn't OK with me was the smell when I went into the back apartment. This apartment is vacant and it's probably been a month or so since I spent more than 2 minutes in there (when I looked at the apartment before we bought the building). I had showed the apartment to the potential tenant who is going to rent it a couple of days ago, but somehow didn't notice how bad the smell was. I am accustomed to seeing and smelling some nasty things, but the smell today almost made me throw-up. It smelled like something died and was in the latter stages of decay. Opening the door of the unplugged refrigerator answered the all important question - WHERE. The smell almost knocked me over! I went to the truck and got an industrial trash bag and gloves. As I started cleaning the filth out of the refrigerator/freezer, I noticed that something was MOVING. I put my glasses on and realized that the freezer portion was full of live magots. YUK! I finished cleaning up the mess and then headed home. That was enough for one day. I'll probably have to spray some OdorX in the refrigerator on Monday. That smell deserves more than a box of baking soda!

If the rental business isn't glamorous, I don't know what is!

Back to Work for Number 10!

I am almost in shock! I headed back to work today and rented another unit. I have now rented 10 units this month - TEN! I simply can not believe it! This is exactly double my old record of five new tenants in a single month. Of course, many of these tenants went into the vacant rentals that we just bought. However, what shocks me is the demand for rentals. I've only been in business for a little over 3 1/2 years, but this is by FAR the best rental market that I've seen!

I guess it's about time. According to the old-timers, last summer was the worst rental market they had seen in 20 years. Whatever the situation, I'm truly grateful for all the new renters.

Today, I installed new miniblinds in the second of our new houses. I like to get the miniblinds up as soon as possible so that vandals can't see in. I also swept the floors on the first floor of this house.

After that, I ran back home to meet a guy that wanted to buy my old motorcycle. I purchased this Honda last year for $700, so that I could learn to ride. After successfully learning to ride, I bought a beautiful V-star Classic and therefore needed to sell my Honda. I spent about $200 on the Honda in the year I had it: new seat cover, new brakes, and new saddle bags. Today, I sold it for $1,300. Kinda reminds me of buying houses at a discount!!!

After selling the motorcycle, I went back to work. I installed carpet in the apartment that the couple rented yesterday. This was in one of my new apartment buildings and fortunately only needed carpet and a couple of other little touch-ups.

That was it for today. Tomorrow I'm planning to do some more work on the house where I hung mini-blinds today. That's my last 3-bedroom house and there is a lot of demand. I am anxious to get it done!

Sick as a Dog!

First, I'm NOT looking for sympathy or get-well-soon wishes. I am NOT a victim. However, I wanted to discuss today's situation to point out one of the best aspects of being a landlord.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with late stage Lyme disease (you know, getting bitten by an angry tick). I had a LOT of neurological problems such as numbness in hands and feet, pain in joints, slurred speech, dragging leg, randomly twitching muscles, etc. It's very disconcerting when it first happens, but I got used to it! (All of the sypmtoms finally went away after a few months of treatment). Unfortunately, there's not really a cure for Lyme disease and it can reoccur whenever it chooses. The initial treatment is several months of IV and oral antibiotics, but if that doesn't "cure" you, then further treatment for repeat performances is only marginally effective.

About a month ago, I started having a new episode. Many of the old symptoms reappeared, but I have been getting by and working VERY hard on all of my new rentals. I had absolutely no desire to go to the doctor or waste time with this silliness. Today, I was not so lucky. In addition to the pain, I also had EXTREME fatigue (another unpleasant symptom). I felt HORRIBLE! It was even an effort to breath! UGH!

Now here's where we get to the good part! I decided that it was finally time to go to the doctor (who says I'm not right on top of things?) Since I am supported by my rental business, I did not have to go to work today. I simply took the day off. I didn't ask anyone or have to call my boss. I just decided that I was going to be OFF today. After all, the rents still come in whether I work or not and there was nothing so pressing that I had to work sick. If I don't feel better tomorrow, I might take tomorrow off also and maybe the whole weekend.

By evening, I felt a little better, and went to my local REIA meeting. I didn't have to worry about the boss seeing my out and about after calling in sick, BECAUSE I AM THE BOSS!

Another great thing about being in the rental business with this type of disease is that I can work whatever number of hours I desire. I am not lazy and I will get back to work shortly no matter how I feel. (What am I going to do, stay home and watch soap operas all day?) However, if this turns out to be a major relapse, I may once again experience the extreme fatigue like today. The great thing is that I can continue to work at MY PACE. If I can only work an hour and then need to lay down for 15 minutes, I can do that! THAT IS HUGE!!! Not many employers would put up with this for long, but I can do it without a problem! In fact, i can do whatever I want!

I LOVE THE RENTAL BUSINESS! There's nothing like having the freedom to do what you want to do, when you want to do it! IT IS WONDERFUL!

Again, I will definitely be fine! I don't want sympathy - it's no big deal.

Mike

Number Nine!

I worked a full 8 hours Monday and then took yesterday off (except for picking up the rent for new tenant #8 of the month). Today I headed back to work and started out by putting the finishing touches on one of the houses that we just bought and already have rented.. After that, I walked next door and started working on the second house that we just bought. This house needs more work than the first one. The entire interior of the house will need to be cleaned and painted. In addition, the garage needs to be painted. It clearly hasn't been painted for at least 50 years!!! The good thing about that is that there isn't any flaking paint - it's basically back to bare wood. After all the painting, I also need to do something with the garage door as part of it is off the track.

I'm estimating that the work on this house will take about 4 days total. I got a little surprise on this house today when I called to have the electric turned on. The electric company said that the meter had been vandalized and that the meter base would have to be replaced before they would turn on the electric. I do almost all the work on my rentals myself, but I don't do the main electrical service. Therefore, I have a call in to my electrician.

Late this afternoon, I got a call from a young couple that looked at one of our new 1 bedroom apartments about a week ago. They wanted to take it and move starting tomorrow. Since they hadn't yet filled out an application, I met them at the apartment and had them fill one out. Then, I went home to my office to do their screening. Their screening was clean and I then went back to the apartment to sign a lease with them and get their money. That makes the 9th new move in this month! The rental market in our area is absolutely on fire!!!! I also had another applicant fill out an application today on the 3 bedroom house that I haven't even started working on. WOW!

I've already got a deal to buy another duplex and plan to keep on buying, although not at the pace of this past month!

House Complete!

I worked hard today and got a lot done. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that a tenant with a scumbag contingency lawyer was trying to extort money from us. Today, I got the morning started by writing a response letter that my attorney will use as a guide to write a letter to the tenant's lawyer. Basically, the letter says that we will not give in to extortion (a threatened lawsuit) and will fight all the way. Most of these scumbag lawyers are looking for a weak landlord that will settle with them or give them their insurance information. I have absolutely no intention of doing either.

After writing the letter, I went to work on one of our new rental houses. Although it took nearly 8 hours, I installed two large rooms of carpet and painted the kitchen and stairs. In addition, I mowed the grass at this house and the other house that we just bought. When I returned home, I called the new tenant and told her that she could move in tomorrow.

I also heard again from the landlord that wants to sell me her duplex for $42,500. She wants to get the property under contract and I agreed to meet with her later this week to get that done. I am buying the property for $42,500 and it will have gross rents of about $925 per month.

Back to Work

After a 2 day forced vacation caused by my ailing pickup truck, I finally got back to work today. I started out by mowing the grass at a couple of my apartment buildings. Then, I went to one of my new duplexes to finish up a little electrical work and plumbing work. After finishing the duplex, I went to one of my new houses to rip up the old carpet. I plan on finishing this house Monday by installing 2 new rooms of carpet and painting the kitchen. This house is already rented and I'd like to have it ready so that the new tenants can move in on Tuesday.

On my last blog, I talked about the 7 unit apartment building that another investor offered me. I went to look at it and decided it was more work than I wanted to take on. The numbers were good, but it was a huge building and the rehab could have easily taken 3 months. While I was talking to this investor, she agreed to sell me her 2-unit duplex for $42,500. This is an excellent deal and will have gross monthly rents in excess of 2% of the purchase price. I will take this deal. I'm taking tomorrow off. I'll be running the projection at Church and then we're having a big mother's day cookout at our house.

Life is Always Interesting!

Today started with my pickup truck biting the dust. That's bad news because all of my tools are in there and I depend on it for my rental business. It all started a couple of weeks ago, when the "check engine" light came on. There were no problems that I could discern and I was in the middle of rehabbing the rentals that I had just acquired. Therefore, I decided to wait until my schedule improved to take the truck to the shop.

Within a few days, the RPM began to act erratically when stopped. Then, the speedometer would occassionally drop to zero and the odometer would become all dashes. I continued to hope that I could complete my rehab work before losing the use of my truck. A couple of days ago, my ABS (anti-skid braking) light came on and the brakes would intermittently pulse as the brakes were applied. Things rapidly got worse and I was forced to take the truck to my local Ford dealer for $987 worth of work. I'm hoping to get it back tomorrow.

In the mean time, I rode my motorcycle to work today. My project today was to run a new electrical circuit to the new water heater in one of our apartments. I was able to carry enough tools in my saddlebags to get the job done.

After all my recent work, I had hoped to take a couple of months break before buying any more property. However, I received a call today from a successful local investor who had a property she wants to sell. I really wasn't too interested until she said that the 7 unit apartment building would be leased to the government for $3,800 per month and the sale price was only $105,000 (and it needs about $20,000 in modifications). That means that the monthly gross rents are more than 3% of the acquisition cost! That is a hard deal to pass up. I'm going to look at it tomorrow! I'll probably do something with it even though I had hoped to take a break.

Back to Normal!

This past month has been extremely busy. We've added 12 rentals and 8 tenants. That's very exciting, but it has also been quite a lot of work. Therefore, I took the day off today. A little time away from the business did me wonders and I am ready to get back to work tomorrow. However, the long days are over and I will be getting back to my normal schedule of working 3-4 hours per day.

That's what I like about the rental business. FREEDOM! I can work hard when I want to and I can take a day or a week or a month off when I want to. It doesn't get any better than that!

CLOSED!

I closed on the last 2 houses today. That brings the total number of rentals purchased in the last month to 12! After the closing, I met new tenant number 7 for the month and got her lease signed. Then, I met new tenant number 8 and got a non-refundable deposit from her to rent one of the houses that we just closed on!

That was enough for me for one day and at 1pm, I headed home to take the rest of the day off. I'm planning to take tomorrow off also and then get back to work on Thursday. Things are rapidly returning to normal and I look forward to working my normal 3-4 hours per day. I anticipate that will happen by next week.

I have no plans to buy another property in the next month or two. My plan is to finishing rehabbing the units I have and get them all rented. Of course, if another GREAT deal comes along, I may change my mind.

Another One Rented!

Well, it looks like the count for May is going to be 8 lease-ups. That's a record for me! That includes one house that I've just rented and we're not even closing on it until 10 am tomorrow! WOW! The rental market is really hot. Many of the new tenants are homeowners who have been foreclosed upon and are going back to renting. I don't think we've even started the wave of foreclosures that will occur in the next couple of years.

Yesterday, I installed a new electric water heater, new carpet, and a new bathroom cabinet/sink in one of our rentals. Today, I paid some bills and showed some rentals. After the long hours I've been working on the rentals these past few weeks, I took most of the day off today.

Tomorrow, we are closing on the two houses that I just acquired, so I'll be going to the bank in the morning. After that, I'm planning to take the rest of the day off. I'll be ready to get back to the rentals on Wednesday or Thursday. I need to install 2 rooms of carpet and do a little painting before the new tenants can move into one of the 3 bedroom houses that we're closing on tomorrow.

Nothing's Ever Easy!

I started today working on a plumbing problem. One of our new apartments which has not been occupied yet has just been rented and the water turned on for the first time. Unfortunately, there was a BIG water leak in the wall. After a little troubleshooting, I discovered that the leak was coming from the drain line for the sink.

I started out by knocking a small hole in the wall so that I could visualize the drain line. After I found the line and its connection into the main drain, it appeared that the line was in bad condition and was in a very difficult location to access. Therefore, I decided to "T" the sink drain line into the nearby bathtub drain line.

The bathtub is an antique claw foot tub and had a cast iron drain line. After using a Sawsall to cut the line, I attempted to insert the "T" using rubber boots. Unfortunately, I got a little too strong and broke the thin drain line at the tub. So, a job that looked like it would take only a couple hours ended up taking 6 hours. I ended up replacing the entire line from the tub to the sink and into the original line. Although it took longer than expected, at least it's done. I checked it thoroughly and NO LEAKS!!!

Tomorrow, I'm going to install a new electric water heater for this apartment and install one room of new carpet. Then, I'll be going to church in the evening, hopefully riding my motorcycle. I'm hoping things go smoother tomorrow!

Record Month!

This last month has been a record breaking month for me. The 12 rental units I acquired was the most I have ever taken over in a single month. Seven move-ins was the most move-ins I have ever had in a single month, eclipsing the old record of five. Needless to say, with 12 new rentals, this is the most rent I have ever collected in a month.

Although not an all time record, this was also the hardest I've worked in the last year. What a busy month and a great month! After another couple weeks of relatively hard work, things should get back to normal.

Lawsuit, Home Invasion, Drug Bust - BUSY DAY!!!

You never know what's going to happen in the rental business. Take today for example. Who would have predicted that I'd be threatened with a frivilous lawsuit; have a tenant that was the victim of a home invasion; and be standing 25 feet from a major drug raid? Almost unbelievable, but all of this was part of my day.

I started out this morning by going to the post office to pick up the mail. In the rental business, it's never good to receive certified mail. Unfortunately that was exactly what was waiting for me. The letter was from one of those scumbag contingency lawyers (lower than snakes if you ask me) who is representing one of my tenants that is trying to extort money from me. A couple of weeks ago, the tenant claims that she fell into an open water meter hole and was injured. I don't have any idea if that is true or not, but it certainly isn't my fault. This tenant was already totally disabled and is claiming that she re-injured her already existing back injury, which is a typical claim for tenants who are trying to hit the landlord lottery! As we always do, we will aggressively fight this frivilous claim.

As I was working on one of our rentals, I was listening to the radio. The big news locally was about a home invasion that had occurred in our city. A few minutes later, I received a call from one of our better tenants. Last night, he had awakened in the middle of the night and was walking downstairs. Unfortunately, as he was walking down the stairs, a criminal was walking up the stairs. My tenant was the victim of the home invasion that was on the radio! The tenant ran back to his room; grabbed a stun gun; and chased the two criminals out of the house. His wife called the police who then became involved in a foot chase with the criminals. The police reportedly caught one of the criminals. Fortunately, no one was hurt and the tenant will be putting in an alarm system tomorrow.

Later in the day, I was in front of one of my apartment buildings. Suddenly, an all black van pulled in across the street. The back door quickly opened and several swat team members carrying assault rifles jumped out. They went straight to the door of the duplex across the street. One swat member shouted "Police" as another hit the door with a battering ram. Then, a concussion grenade was thrown in the door and there was a large flash. The swat team entered the duplex yelling "Police, get down, get down!" It was just like watching an episode of cops, except up close and personal, instead of on TV.

Enough excitement for one day!

Working Like a Dog!

I can honestly say that I haven't worked so hard on my rental property business since I started. In the last month, I have added 12 rentals to my business which is a lot for me. I certainly hadn't planned on adding so many units in such a short period of time, but I don't like to pass up great deals when they present themselves.

At any rate, this has been a LOT of work. Starting a month ago, I had a huge duplex that needed painted so that I could rent it to a Section 8 tenant with young children. That took an entire week. Next, I turned my attention to another duplex which needed a rehab. I finally have that finished.

Things have gone crazy this month with a HUGE demand for rentals. It looks like we're going to have 7 move-ins this month!!! I worked 12 hours yesterday and another 12 hours today. The question is whether all this work is worth the result. So far, I've worked very hard for a month and in all reality, I may have to work a lot during May getting everything rented and stabilized. So, what will I have to show for my two months of hard work? At $100 per month per unit, the twelve units will generate $1,200 per month positive cash flow for the next 20 years and then a LOT more when the mortgages are paid off. In addition to the cash flow, I will do all the management and maintenance myself, which will earn me at least another $1,200 per month. So, for two months of hard work, I have added at least $2,400 per month ($28,800 per year) in additional spendable income. In addition, I've added a bunch of equity; the tenants are paying down the principal on the mortgages; the government is allowing me to depreciate the properties, and I will pick up appreciation over time. Is that worth 2 months of hard work? YOU BET IT IS!