My First Laminate Floor Installation!

Although I have had laminate floors in my rentals before, today was the first time that I have ever installed one myself. I always enjoy trying something new and therefore I went into town on a Sunday afternoon to install the laminate floor in the kitchen of one of my two bedroom houses. I spent every bit of 4 hours working on the floor. As with a lot of things, it didn't go as smoothly as it looked in the instructions. For one thing, this was an old house and there isn't one straight wall in the entire kitchen. The floor is also not level, although that doesn't seem to be a major problem.The next issue was that the tongues are more fragile than I ever imagined and are easily damaged. These laminate floors are "floating', meaning that they aren't attached anywhere. I found that the entire floor would move while working on it and it required a lot of care not to have it floating all over the place.

I finished the main part of the floor and am only marginally satisfied (I'm kinda reminded of my first attempt at laying carpet). The gaps between some of the planks are wider than I would have liked and I chipped the laminate surface in a couple of spots. Tomorrow, I still need to cover the basement door, which is flush with the floor. I also need to install the "quarter round" around the perimeter of the floor. I bought enough laminate to do at least 3 rooms and I'm hoping the next one will go better.

Drying Out

It was another very nice winter day here in Ohio. The temperature was nearly 50 degrees which made it a perfect day to work on a couple of roofs. So, I stopped at Lowes to pick up the roof cement; some metal flashing to use as a patch on one roof; and I also picked up some wood laminate for kitchen floors in two rentals. This worked out very well because the laminate was on sale for 77 cents per square foot and I had a coupon to get an additional 10% off the entire order. They only had 19 boxes of the laminate left, so I just bought them all. That should give me enough to do the two kitchens and have enough left over for another room. I've had laminate in rentals before, but I've never installed it myself. I'm looking foward to getting started (just for the fun of doing something new).

I believe that I was successful in repairing both roof leaks, but I won't know until we have a good rain.

After working on the roofs, I went to Walmart to get a new battery for my truck. The truck barely started this morning and I have never replaced the battery, so it was certainly due.

If I have time tomorrow afternoon, I may install the laminate in one of the kitchens. Our small group at Church is cancelled due to Thanksgiving and I'm anxious to give it a try! I'll let you know how it goes and I'll try to take "before and after" pictures to post.

Better Late Than Never

I finally got started working on my rentals for this week. I know that it's Friday, but at least I did finally get started. My main project today was to prepare a 3 bedroom house for the next renter. Today, I replaced 9 miniblinds; replaced an ugly toilet seat; installed a new shower curtain; installed new lightbulbs in the bathroom vanity; and did other miscellaneous projects. In addition, I measured the kitchen for new laminate flooring. This kitchen previously had an old wood floor that I painted, but I'm really not satisfied with the condition of the floor. Vinyl simply won't last in rentals and I haven't been having very good luck with commercial carpet in the kitchen, so I'm going to try some of this laminate. Lowes has it on sale for 77 cents per square foot and I have a 10% off coupon in addition to that.

After working on that unit for a couple of hours, I went to another 2 bedroom house to measure that kitchen for laminate also. This kitchen has vinly flooring that is about 3 years old. It is now in bad enough condition that it needs to be replaced.

I'm planning on working another few hours tomorrow. The project for tomorrow is to fix two small roof leaks. The temperature for tomorrow should be about 50 degrees, which should be perfect for roof work.

Update on the Homeless Dog

I haven't done a dog-gone thing this week. I've had a cold and sore throat for about a week and I simply haven't been motivated to do much. Additionally, this is Thanksgiving week and at this time of the year, all business just grinds to a halt. Why fight the trend?

For those of you that were wondering what happened to the dog from my last post, everything turned out well. The same evening that I took the dog home, I received a call from a local pastor. He wanted to know if I still had the dog. He said that my tenant was supposed to be baby-sitting the dog for a family at his church who had been involved in a domestic violence situation. It seems that the family had moved temporarily into a shelter and the Church was trying to find them a permanent home. The shelter would not allow pets, which is why the pastor had asked my tenant to baby-sit the dog. Anyway, to make a long story short, the pastor didn't know that my tenant had abandoned the dog and I took the dog to the pastor the next day. Everything turned out fine and the dog will be reunited with its owner.

We had family Thanksgiving activities today and I was out of town almost all day. Tomorrow, we have more Thanksgiving activities planned. I may do some rental related stuff Friday - but I doubt it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another Abandoned Pet!

My project for today was to winterize 3 rentals. I have 4 units open right now. One is an upstairs apartment in one of my apartment buildings. It will receive enough heat from the apartment below and the apartment beside it to keep the pipes from freezing. The next is a 2 bedroom house that I'm just got back. I have been retrofitting all my rentals with PEX water line which easily allows me to put in quick disconnect fittings at the main valve in the basement. So, I shut off the water at the meter; disconnected the water line in the basement; and drained the lines. I also put antifreeze in the toilet bowl and all drain traps. I'm obviously hoping to have this rented for December, but winterizing is much cheaper than running the heat even for a few days.

The next unit is a 3 bedroom house that I should get back by the end of the month. Even though I don't have possession yet, the tenant is already living in their new house (that they bought). Unfortunately, I don't have a new phone number for them and they don't have cell phones. Anyway, I needed to be sure that the pipes weren't going to freeze (it's going to be 15 degrees tonight), so I went over there to see if I needed to winterize the house. The good news is that the heat is still on, so I won't need to winterize until the first of the month. With a little luck, I'll have it rented by then.

The final rental that needed to be winterized was a one-bedroom house that I just got back today. The tenant's father called me last night to say that his daughter took a job out of town and had moved out. He said that the key was on the kitchen counter. So, I went down to check on the unit and winterize it as necessary. As soon as I opened the door, I knew that the house wasn't completely empty because a dog started barking at me. However, as I walked in, I could see that the dog and a dog blanket were all that was left, other than quite a few piles of dog doo! From the number of dog piles, it looked to me that the tenant actually left 4 or 5 days ago. That instantly made me angry, to think that this scumbag tenant would abandon a little dog. The dog was obviously scared and thin, but otherwise looked healthy. I found a lid that I could use to give the dog some water and the tenant had left a container of dog food on the counter. Since the dog didn't seem to be in need of emergency attention (other than food and water), I proceeded to clean up the apartment. I cleaned up the dog's mess on the floor. I cleaned the stove and refrigerator. I cleaned bathroom sink. That was it. The apartment is ready to re-rent.

I brought the dog home and will take care of it until I can find someone to take it. We've already put out a call to several people and have e-mailed pictures of the dog to a couple of people.

A Time for Caution!

The United States economy, and arguably the world economy, is rapidly reaching a tipping point. While there has been a lot of talk on TV about the recession that we are entering, the reality is that there hasn't been much pain so far. It's true that the stock market and retirement funds are down, but that doesn't impact people unless they are now retired or otherwise need the money to live on. We've all heard about the credit crisis; the failure of Lehman Brothers; the bailout of AIG; and the bailout of the Wall Street Fatcat Bankers! However, once again, most people have not been directly affected by these problems.

Unfortunately, all of that is about to change. Job losses are starting to accelerate and will dramatically increase early in 2009. Regardless of what happens with the auto company bailouts, jobs will be lost and retirements will be ruined. As job losses accelerate, people will spend even less; foreclosures will increase; and credit card defaults will skyrocket. This will cause even more job losses and we will enter vicious circle. It is very possible (if not likely) that a depression will occur.

The point of this post is that THIS IS A TIME FOR CAUTION! Capital preservation is a must. If you have money, put it in the bank and try to hang on to it! If you decide to invest in real estate - BUY AT A HUGE DISCOUNT! This is not the time for wreckless speculation or excess risk. My suggestion is to carefully consider every dollar you spend and certainly don't risk your money on anything that isn't a sure thing.

There is a lot of hype about this recession/depression being an unprecedented opportunity. That is certainly true. People that know exactly what they're doing and who buy assets at a HUGE discount will prosper. People who lack knowledge and don't buy right will be destroyed. CAUTION is the word of the day!

Honey Do's

I didn't work on my rentals yesterday or today. My projects these 2 days were to do some Honey Do's around the house. The main project was to install a new tile floor in our half bathroom. I finished that up today and installed a fancy new faucet also. In addition, my wife needed new tires on her car, and I got that done today also. There were several other smaller projects that I also checked off my list. Hopefully, I'm buiding up some brownie points!

Tomorrow, we're having our home alarm system upgraded to a state of the art, high tech alarm system. Of course, I can't give the details on the internet, but I'm continually amazed at how the security industry is advancing. I'm also trying to find a way to put a live security camera feed onto my website, so that readers can see what's going on at some of my apartment buildings on a real time basis.

Saturday Work

I spent about two hours working this morning, even though it is Saturday. When I finished replacing the broken toilet bolts yesterday, I realized that the Fluidmaster valve in the toilet wasn't working properly. It was getting late and I like to be home for the close of the stock market, so I decided to change the Fluidmaster valve today. So, after taking my new tenant's rent and security deposit to the bank, I stopped at Lowes to pick up a new valve. The valve only took about 10 minutes to install.

My next mission was to look at the two roofs that were reported to be leaking. These leaks have both been very difficult to find. I looked at the leaks about a week ago during a very heavy rain and neither were leaking. I asked the tenants to call me if the leaks occurred again. Both of the tenants called me this morning.

The first roof was leaking through an old stove pipe that a previous owner had apparently cut off inside the living room ceiling (no wonder I couldn't find it). The top of the stove pipe still sticks through the roof, so I just need to remove the stove pipe from the roof and patch the resulting hole.

The second roof turned out to be a metal roof that had a small rusted spot where there apparently had been a small patch. That should be easy to fix also.

The very good news is that I finally was able to discover where these intermittent leaks have been coming from!

That was it for this morning and I made it home just in time for the Ohio State Game. Go Bucks!

PimpMobile!

For the second time in three days, I was a stereotypical landlord today - fixing a toilet. In fact, today's toilet problem was exactly the same as Wednesday's - a broken tank bolt. Fortunately, today's project went much smoother and probably only took about 3o minutes to fix.

My initial plan for the day was to do some painting on the pink elephant. Today was forecast to be the last beautiful, warm day of the week. I did some painting on the pink elephant yesterday and I wanted to finish up some of the trim today. However, no plan survives the first call of the morning and this morning's call was from a previously screened applicant who wanted to rent a 2-bedroom apartment in the pink elephant. Therefore, my first project this morning was to sign a lease with my new tenant, and of course to get the money!

After completing that, I met another applicant who wanted to rent my last remaining 2 bedroom apartment. She liked the apartment and filled out an application. I did screen her application this evening and she passed. We are scheduled to do her paperwork on Monday.

When it rains, it pours... and today it was pouring - applicants, that is. Just as the applicant finished filling out her application for the last 2-bedroom apartment, I received a call from yet another applicant. This applicant wanted to see my only available 3-bedroom house. As I pulled up in front of the house, I began to get that uneasy feeling. There, in front of my house, was what could only be described as a PimpMobile. The shiny yellow Caddy with HUGE chrome rims shouted "I'm a druggie". In my experience, people dress and drive what they want to be. A older man driving a red corvette is likely having a mid life crisis. A person driving a PimpMobile is likely a druggie. As I approached the car, I noticed a relatively nice and normal-looking woman sitting inside - clearly not what I was expecting. She got out of the car and I discovered that she was well dressed and well spoken. I began to think that my first impression might have been wrong. I showed her the house and she wanted to rent it. She filled out an application and her Section 8 paperwork.

I checked her application this evening and was sorry to determine that my first impression was indeed correct. She had recently been evicted. The car belonged to her boyfriend, who had a lengthy criminal record. A previous landlord had nothing but bad things to say about her. She had an $800 unpaid water bill. Once again, my gut feeling was right - she was nothing but trouble and I'm not having any part of that!!! APPLICATION - DENIED!!!

The Stereotypical Landlord

I receive frequent criticism from wanna-be real estate "gurus" who make their living trying to convince gullible newbies that they can get rich "on autopilot". Of course, that means that the newbie can hire everything out and simply sit on their butt while the money rolls in. It's a completely ridiculous idea, yet literally millions of people have wasted money on guru courses that promise riches without work.

ALL of the successful landlords that I know are very involved in their businesses. In fact, I am friends with many multi-millionaires and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has worked very hard to get where they are.

In my business, I do almost everything, including the management and maintenance. I do that because earning the management and maintenance expenses myself more than doubles my spendable cash each month. It is a great deal and an excellent use of my time. My critics will often have some sarcastic comment like "I'd rather spend my time finding deals than fixing toilets". Of course, that is absolutely ridiculous because it doesn't take much time to "find deals". Let's think about "finding deals for a moment". What could you really do each day to find deals? You could read the classified ads in the local newspaper to see if there are any new ads since yesterday. If you're a slow reader, that might take 2 minutes. Then, you could check the MLS to see if any new properties have been added to the MLS overnight. That might take another 2 minutes. You could drive around your target market area and look to see if any new "for sale" signs have popped up overnight. Depending on the size of your target market area, that could take an hour. Of course, in reality, you probably wouldn't drive through your target area every day. You could even spend an hour licking envelopes everyday so that you could send out a mailing. Even if you did all that every single day, that's about 2 hours a day. As you can see, this whole argument about having time to find deals is totally ridiculous.

Ironically, I find most of my deals by getting out of the house and meeting people in the normal course of my day. I'll chat with the guy in line at Lowes. I talk to neighbors near my rentals as i see them. I talk to city officials when I attend various meetings. I talk to my fellow investors at the REIA. I talk to other landlords at eviction hearings. In short, I tell everyone I know and meet that I buy property, at a big discount of course.

The point of this rambling post is that I actually was the stereotypical "toilet fixing" landlord yesterday! A tenant called to say that the toilet had overflowed and kept running. I stopped at Lowes on the way to the apartment and picked up a new Fluidmaster toilet valve. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the apartment, it became apparent that the problem was a little more involved. This particular toilet has 4 bolts that attaches the tank to the base. One of the 4 bolts had broken and this allowed the water to leak onto the floor. This would still not have been a big job, except that the 3 remaining bolts were severly rusted and I couldn't remove them. So, what should have been a 10 minute job ended up being a 2 1/2 hour job. I ended up using a sawsall to CAREFULLY cut the bolts off. Finally, I got all the bolts off. Then, it was back to the store for the additional parts and once again, back to the apartment to assemble everything. Fortunately, everything went together easily and there were no leaks!

So, yesterday, on that one day, the wannabe gurus were right - I was the stereotypical toilet fixing landlord!

Auction

Yesterday was just a routine (boring) early winter day. We're a month too early for snowboarding and a little too late for camping. I paid some bills yesterday morning and then did a little routine maintenance work on a 3 bedroom apartment. During my work on the 3 bedrrom apartment, I received a call from a tenant that said her heat was not working. So, after completing the work on the 3 bedroom apartment, I went to her apartment and found that someone had shut the gas off to the boiler. I relit the pilot light and checked that the boiler was working - no big deal. I also went to Lowes to get supplies for the one bedroom apartment that I'm getting ready to rent.

The most interesting part of the day occurred last evening, when my wife and I went to an estate auction. The weather was cold; there was a light drizzle in the air; and it was dark. I'm sure that the auctioneer didn't think about the light issue when he scheduled the auction (months ago). It was completely dark and there were no utilities in the house that was being auctioned. I think that we could say that was poor planning.

The house being auctioned was a very nice house in a low income area. It was a 2 bedroom house with a finished basement; a one car attached garage; a 2 car detached garage; and a large carport that was more like a shelter house. The floors were all wood and were absolutely beautiful. That was the good news. The bad news was that there had been a break-in and the waterlines were gone along with the A-coil for the furnace (and who knows what else). The other major detractor of the house is that it is literally 25 feet from a very busy railroad track. While I was there, a train went by and it shook the entire house!

I'm not really buying any more property (or at least that's what I'm trying to convince myself), so I had not intention of bidding on the property. The reason that I went is that there have been several auctions lately in our area where absolutely noone bid - not one person. The minimum bid on this property had been advertised as $12,000. My plan was that if no-one bid or if I was the only person to show up, I would offer them $5,000 for the house.

I was absolutely shocked when about 30 people showed up for the auction. The very first bid was $15,000 and the bidding kept going until someone paid $29,000 for the property. I'm sure that the bidders were all potential homeowners and that was certainly a great price for a retail buyer.

I firmly believe that the economy will soon collapse and I think that there will be deals that will be almost unbelievable when that occurs.

Cleaning up

I got a lot of work done today on one of my 1-bedroom apartments. This is a unit that had a move-out this month and needed a little work to be ready to rent again. The tenant took almost everything with him, but did leave a couch and dresser. The couch was in excellent condition and the dresser was old (maybe even an antique).

I had another low income tenant that didn't have a couch, so I gave her the couch and the dresser. Her family came and moved it.

Once that was gone, I swept the floors and picked up the rest of the small things that are always left in rentals: an ink pen, pennies, some pieces of paper, etc. Next on the agenda was fixing a bad spot in the ceiling with a small piece of new drywall. That consisted of installing the drywall, taping it, and spreading the drywall mud on the new piece. After the drywall job was complete, I
painted the wood floors.

As I was finishing up, I received a call from another tenant who reported that her stove didn't work. She said the light was on, but none of the burners or the oven would work. That sounded like a blown circuit breaker to me and I told the tenant that I would stop by to check it out. Sure enough, the circuit breaker was tripped. I reset the circuit breaker and checked out the stove - all OK.

That was it for my big day today. Tomorrow's another day and I'm sure that I'll find something to do.

Tenant issues!

About a week ago, I received a call from my local Section 8 office. The case worker told me that a tenant called to complain that her heat wasn't working and that her apartment was cold. This tenant has been somewhat of a problem since moving in about 3 months ago. I told Section 8 that I hadn't received a call from the tenant about the problem, but that I would check it out. At that time, the temperatures were in the 30's at night and so I arrived at the apartment in the morning to check out the temperature in the apartment. As I walked into the apartment, it became apparent that the heat was working just fine. The temperature must have been 85 degrees! The tenant's first words were that it was warm enough today, which I found ironic since the night before was as cold as it's been this year.

My first task was to give the idiot tenant a piece of my mind! I explained to her that the lease required her to call ME if she had a maintenance problem and that she was not to call Section 8 unless she was dissatisfied with my solution to the problem. After that, I asked her how hot she wanted the apartment to be, as I felt 85 degrees was hot enough (as I started to sweat). Before we converted the apartment to electric baseboard heat, the apartment had gas heat. Therefore, I told the tenant that I would add a ventless gas heater to her apartment and she could keep the temperature at 100 degrees for all I care.

This entire last week has been very warm. That warmth came to an end yesterday, so I spent a few minutes yesterday installing the gas heater for her. I have several of these gas heaters that I removed from units that I remodeled, so installing this heater didn't cost me anything.

While I was in town yesterday, I also checked up on two rental units that allegedly had roof leaks. It absolutely POURED down rain yesterday and I went to both of the units during this heavy rain. Neither of the roofs were leaking, so it looks like my previous repairs are doing great.

After that, I went to one of my 1 bedroom apartments and began preparing it to be re-rented.

That was about it for Friday. Have a good weekend!

Winterization Day!

I honestly don't know where this week went. I had the Section 8 on Monday. Tuesday, I finished collecting this month's rent. Yesterday, I paid some bills and deposited the rest of the rent money. Today, the weather was beautiful and I decided to winterize our Motorhome and swimming pool. The motorhome winterization went very quickly. The swimming pool took quite a bit longer because I have to remove all the rails and the diving board; drain the filters and heater; blow out all the lines; fill the lines with antifreeze; and put on the pool cover.

I'm glad that this was all done on such a nice day. Usually, I put that off until the last minute and it is very cold when I finally get it done. Since I didn't have any pressing rental property issues today, I decided to do the winterization today while the weather was still beautiful.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to install a gas heater in one apartment and to clean up another apartment.

What Day Is It?

Oops! I made a potentially big mistake today. I thought that the Section 8 inspection on one of my 3 bedroom apartments was tomorrow. Therefore, I planned to spend part of today checking that apartment and fixing anything that needed to be done to pass the inspection. After picking up a few rents and going to the bank, I arrived at the apartment at noon. Before I could even get my tools out, the Section 8 inspector drove up. I asked him if he was a day early and he showed me his schedule that indicated the inspection was today. I told him that I hadn't even started to look at the property yet, but he wanted to inspect it anyway. Fortunately, I try to keep everything up to standards at all times, and the apartment passed!

Tomorrow is the last day of rent collections for the month and I'm planning to do a little painting in-between collecting the remaining rents. Of course, tomorrow is also a day of mourning, when we will elect our first socialist president (no matter which one of the clowns is elected). Even though the candidates are awful, I'll still be voting - either for Socialist One or Socialist Two!

Caveat Emptor!

One of the advantages of being a landlord is that you grow to be extremely skeptical. Tenants lie - early and often. Applicants lie about their background, jobs, and even their names. I have become so cynical that I just assume all rental applicants are lying until proven otherwise (and most of the time, that is correct).

So, when I see an infomercial on TV or some internet guru promoting the fad of the month, it is easy for me to be skeptical. Unfortunately, millions of people are taken in by these scams and lose a lot of money to these gurus.

These past couple of days, I've been feeling a little ill. I'm not quite sure what I've picked up, but many of the tenants have been sick and so I'll blame them!!! (If in doubt, the tenants are always at fault). As a result of feeling bad, I haven't been able to sleep very well. Last night, I found myself wide awake at 3am watching an infomercial about some magic internet program that would surely make you rich for only $40! This post is about the RIDICULOUS claims that this guru made and that many real estate "gurus" make also!

The first thing you'll notice in all these infomercials is that there are beautiful people, beautiful cars, and beautiful houses (mansions) in the commercial. In some extreme examples, they'll even show a private jet or yacht in the infomercial. The obvious implication is that if you only buy the guru's course, you too will have supermodels flocking to your side; you too will have a Ferarri; you too will live in an ocean-front mansion. Of course, this is totally ridiculous as it takes an income in the millions (tens of millions) of dollars to support this lifestyle. However, the guru is trying to portray to you that they are rich and that you too can become rich, if you'll only spend $40!

The next thing you'll notice about all these scams is that the guru claims that you can get rich with only a minimal amount of effort. As I said, the infomercial that I watched early this morning was about an internet business. Ironically, it never said what type of internet business it was. However, they not only claimed that getting rich was effortless, they also claimed that you didn't need to know anything about the computer or the internet. Can you imagine how gullible a person would have to be to believe that they could get rich in a computer based internet business without knowing anything about computers or the internet? Of course, this is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS, but that was the claim. This informercial claimed that the computer did all the work and that you would make money while you slept! Of course, if the guru had really discovered a computer program that would make huge amounts of money without effort, why would the guru sell this secret to you for only $40??? Of course, they would NOT!!!

Another common element that all these scams have in common is that they show customers that have supposedly made a lot of money with the course. My suggestion is to listen CAREFULLY to what they are actually saying. In the infomercial I watched, customer after customer came on and said that they made "up to" $X per month. Of course, when a person says that they made up to $100,000 per month, that really means that they made between ZERO and $100,000 per month. The infomercial is counting on the viewer to hear that they made $100,000 per month. Using that logic, I can honestly tell you right now that I made UP TO $1 BILLION DOLLARS YESTERDAY with my rental property business!!! Get it?

The other issue with claims of great riches is what does the word "made" mean? If I told you that I "made" $10,000 yesterday, does that mean that I'm rich? Not necessarily. You need some more information, and that information is conveniently missing in every infomercial I've ever seen. For example, is that $10,000 gross income or net income? For most people, making $10,000 per day sounds GREAT, but what if I told you that $10,000 was the gross income and that your operating expenses were $9,995 per day? That means that after all was done, you would only have $5 per day to show for your work. Doesn't sound quite so good now, does it? Can expenses really be that high? YOU BET THEY CAN!!! In fact, expenses can be MORE than the income, which is exactly the situation that causes most new businesses to fail.

This post is intended as a warning to new investors. I urge you to listen skeptically to anyone that claims that they will make you rich with little effort or money on your part. There is no free lunch. If you want to be rich, be prepared to work HARD for it. If it sounds too good to be true - IT IS! Caveat Emptor!