"You gonna get another job?"...

Oerdin

Active Member
Finally got the bitch out today. Our lawyer (sister and mine) made a deal for her to agree to over out, surrender the property, and I exchange we’d settle for just $2100 and not sue her for all the remainder. She did move out but never paid the money as we had agreed. So... When the courts allow it we will have to sue her in civil court (money owed is in excess of the $10k cap for small claims) which will be a pain in the ass. Luckily, legal fees and costs can all be rolled into that.

The next door neighbor gave us the keys and garage door opener, the two women were supposedly good friends, and told us the dead beat had been bragging about how she was able to buy an apartment with all the money she saved by not paying rent. So she probably thinks she was smart and got away with it all, however, she’ll be surprised by the lawsuit and subsequent lean we put on her shitty little apartment. Hell, she bought at the peak of the market too so she will quickly be underwater as soon as prices dip.

In the meantime she left the house in a filthy condition with a bunch of junk just left in the rooms. We moved all the stuff to the garage, emailed her lawyer to be sure she didn’t want any of it (we had already received the surrender letter from the lawyer and the keys to the property but it is always good to be careful), and then got down to documenting and photographing all the damages. Tomorrow we will start calling painters and cleaners to get prices because we want to turn that house around and get it back on the market so the rent money can start coming in again.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
One of the big real estate gurus (who happens to be local) advises one of the mistakes you can make is listening to advice from poor people. After a week of fighting with a leaking toilet at the rental, I finally had it beat. It's an older toilet, so it uses a lot of water even if it isn't leaking, so I told the tenant the hack of putting a bottle of water inside the tank to reduce the displacement. Next morning they called that the fill valve I'd installed was leaking from the gasket onto the floor. The tenant had decided that, instead of putting a water bottle in the tank, he'd "fix" the fill valve by monkeying with the height, which of course fucked up the seal in the process. At that point I just gave up, pulled it, and stuck in a new $90 store brand toilet.

Well I mentioned this saga over in my Blue Room thread at WF and the Usual Suspects chimed in along the lines of "Oh, if my landlord told me to put a water bottle in the toilet [possibly one of the most common water conservation tips] I'd be looking for a new place." These are the same people who were telling me how they'd never buy a rental property because it is too risky.
 

Oerdin

Active Member
Yeah, the usual suspects are stupid. We used to use the water bottle trick on an older toilet in the 1980’s before we moved and got a house with the low flow design toilets. It took designers around a decade to get the low flow toilet design right because the original designs used so little water it would often take two or theee flushes to get a turd to go down. That used more water than the original high flow toilets which actually worked first time every time.

By the late 90’s though you finally started to see low flow toilets which actually worked as intended. WRT the water bottle thing: Even our water district used to run ads advising people with older toilets to do that.
 

Chuckles51

Member
That’s what I love about my house is the older toilets, it only takes one flush and it’s gone. The apartment I lived in before I bought my house had low glow toilets and I think they were factory rejects at that because they clogged all the time , I hated those things!!!
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Yup. That's partly why I left the 1976 toilet. The one in my house has the 2 buttons. But even using the #2 button, it can take multiple flushes before the TP goes down if it is floating on the surface. An old toilet, you can put a bottle in it if you want to use less water or you can take it out if you want to use more. I tried to communicate that when I explained that the toilet just takes a long time to fill. If you start monkeying with the valve, even if you don't create a leak like this guy did, it's so much harder to adjust than just putting a bigger, smaller, or no bottle in the tank.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
A two-fer. I've got a rental. I could almost live on one rental--if I wanted to live on ramen noodles and sadness--but not quite. So I took a part-time job. At a factory. So twice a week I drive to a place and punch a clock and flip 1,600 doors and set them in a tray. Or shoot 3,200 screws. Or use a pneumatic press to seat 1,600 detergent fill receptacles while snapping a vent and screwing a plug into place. And a few days later I do it all over again.

BUT! If I don't want to do that, I could always develop rental properties. About that. After going at least $5,000 over-budget and months behind schedule, I rented it out. And even the things that I did right blew up in my face. Got a call just about right off the bat that the AC was suspect. I paid good money for a brand new AC because the old one was shot. Well the new AC had problems. Luckily they were covered and didn't cost me anything, but it was worries right away. Well when the renters got their first (2 month) water bill, it said they'd used 25,000 gallons. Of the 4 water bills I got while renovating the place, 2,000 gallons for 2 months was about as high as things got. So where's the 25,000 gallons coming from?

Well I was there to do some other work and happened into the bathroom. I immediately heard the toilet running. How did they not hear that? Or did they hear it and somehow not understand what it meant? Anyway, after a miserable week of working on it, they wound up with a new toilet (because I got the old one working and then the husband decided he'd "fix" it). I feel like a leak in the supply line would lead to mushy ground in the front yard and tall grass. But this week I get to go back there, squeeze past their smoker grill into the crawlspace to shut off the water so I can open the meter access and see if the dial is spinning even with the water shut off.

But it all could just be that they're chowderheads. I dunno which makes me more nervous.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
You know how they say that last 2/10ths of a mile is the real cocksucker of a marathon? That's kind of how I feel right now. I own 3 houses. 1 is rented out. I'm fixing 1 up to move into because it isn't an ideal rental and it needs a lot of work before it is rentable (but if I live in it I can do little projects as time and money permit). I put together a listing for my current house and They say you should list a property 2 months before it is available, but I pulled the listing because I got cold feet. And I don't want to get sidetracked into showings and reviewing applications while I'm still trying to get the other place to where I can move into it.

Meanwhile, I fight with a dog that I seem to be making progress on her separation anxiety but every day is a new day so we'll see, and a cat that allegedly needs some obscenely expensive Science Diet food but after eating it for about a year, all the sudden the stuff is making her nauseous and giving her diarrhea, and my job (which is only part time, but still takes up more time than I'd like).

When I was going over applications for the first place, one of the criteria (and I think I've mentioned this before) was that an applicant had to have income equal to 3x the rent. This got me thinking that, if I only rented out houses I would want to live in, then I only needed 3 rental properties to support my lifestyle. Coincidentally, if you only own 3 rental properties the Equal Housing Act doesn't apply to you, so if you make some kind of slip-up or perceived slight, officially there's nothing they can do.

Property values have been going up nicely here. The place I got 3 years ago has increased in value by about 40%. The downside of this is that it is getting harder and harder to find houses that I'd want to live in at a price I can pay. That's how I wound up with this place. It's a funny big long narrow lot with no alley or other access to the back of the lot--just a 1 lane gravel path from the street. A few big, neglected sheds that need maintenance, and the house, which was once fairly nice but of late has been a kind of slum-y rental. I mean, not terrible, but lots of things done poorly, on the cheap, or neglected. I grabbed it up because I'm worried that I won't be able to afford houses pretty soon.

For various reasons I've managed to buy all these outright--free and clear--but I'll almost certainly have to finance the last house. So I'm trying to hang onto a job until I'm ready to get a mortgage, which brings me to the reason for this post: Also for various reasons I decided to take a 2nd shift job. But it's a kind of early 2nd shift job--3:45 start. Now a regular job, you get up, you go to work, you come home, and then you have your evening to yourself. A 2nd shift job is like being on death row. You get up, but you don't really want to get into doing something because it will probably take longer than you planned or you'll get sidetracked and then you'll have to hustle if you don't want to be late for work. Today I had plans to bring a load of attic/closet stuff to the new house. Or to visit the bank to strategerize on getting a mortgage. But then I realized I didn't want to tackle anything like that and then have to rush off to work. So here I sit, fucking off until it is late enough to eat lunch. Which should be right about...now.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Ugh. Friday. Work day. 2nd shift is always like being on Death Row. 1st shift, you wake up and go to work. 2nd shift, you don't really want to start anything significant because something unplanned might happen and you wind up having to hustle to make it to work. So instead you screw off and waste your morning.

Plumbing is basically in for the bathroom. Can't hook up the sink or the toilet until I get the floor tiled. Did some more prep work. Pulled old drywall nails. fine-tuned some of the framing. I've still got to put in the new door, which gives me 4 more inches of wall and some other farting around to make everything work. Then I've got to put the subfloor back in because they plumbed the toilet drain to the height of the raised floor that was in place. Hoping I can skip the 2x2s that were under it. Got the thicker Hardibacker and actual ceramic tile, so that will raise the floor a bit. We'll see. But probably not until Tuesday. Because I work tonight and Monday and I've got weekly chores like cleaning and laundry to take care of over the weekend.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
OK. Just need to vent a bit. I'll try to be brief and coherent. The East End is where the Rich People live. The West End is where the Poor People live. That's a bit of a generalization, but you can definitely buy a $2 million house only in the East End and you can only find a $20,000 house in the West End. I think I mentioned, that I'm a member of a real estate investor professional/social group. And that one take-away of membership is that I should be able to do fine at real estate investing, because so many people who do it are complete chowderheads but manage to get by anyway. Oh, and we have a Facebook group. And I live on the west side of town but only buy and rent houses that I'd want to live in myself. A lot of investors live in the East End and buy rentals in the West End. And then they'll post to the Facebook group: "Hi, my friend is looking for a place. They want a 3/2 brick ranch with a garage and a basement and don't want to pay more than $1,200--no West End." Meanwhile these very same people will post "I've got a 2/1 coming up. Garage available. $1,200."

Now that kind of burns me. Because I'm about to put my personal home up for rent. I got a place this fall that isn't a good rental and needs a lot of work before I'd be willing to rent it, but it could be a fine house for me and I can live in it and fix it up as time and money become available. The problem is, while my current house is huge, is in a quiet neighborhood, and has a big yard and a detached 2 car garage, it is only a 2/1 (2 beds, 1 bath). There's a Website called "Rentometer" where you can plug in an address and some details and it will give you an honest ballpark range for what houses like yours are going for in that neighborhood. And it annoys me a little, because my place is 1/3 large than my rental, 6 blocks away) but Rentometer says it should rent for much less because my rental is a 3 bedroom while my house only has 2. So I'm getting set to list it for under $800. Is location really that important? I went ahead and plugged the East End 2 bedroom into Rentometer. Rentometer doesn't care about garages (at least the free version doesn't) so I can't factor that in. And I don't, offhand, know the...nevermind. Zillow tells me it's 300sf less than my house--and it's an apartment. Anyway, my point is, Rentometer says a reasonable rent for this place would be in the ballpark of $900 a month. Not $200 a month more than my 3 bedroom rental. Be interesting to see if she gets it.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
OK. Looking at the ad again, in her defense, I misread it. It isn't "2 bed 1 bath, garage available", it's "2 bed 1 bath garage, available". An apartment with a garage is available. Not an apartment is for rent and a garage is also available for rent. Still, she's about $300 a month over what the market is asking for a similar place. We'll see.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
OK. Just a quick insight into the workings of my brain. I'm trying to get away from needing a paycheck. I might be able to do that once I get moved to the new house and rent this one out, but adding one more house after that would be a better plan. So in the mean time I'm working a part-time job. This is both so I have time to renovate the house and so my neurotic dog doesn't develop separation anxiety again (which is an ongoing battle). So I only work Mondays and Fridays--basically filling in for anyone who is out--which means I miss out on a good chunk of the week's communications. Furthermore, Kentucky is a right-to-work state so, while it is a union job, I didn't have to join the union. Thus, I don't get communications from the union. Now I guess because factories need a certain number of people to operate the assembly line, they just shut down the plant 2 weeks a year so people can take vacations. At some point I got a sheet saying when that was going to happen, but I can't find it anymore. Friday was Christmas, so no work. 99% sure we're not working next Friday because of New Year's Eve either. But I don't know about today. I feel like the plant is closed but I don't know.

Now a sane person would either call the call-in number and find out if the place is open. Or go on the Website and see if they could find it there. But what *I'll* probably do is drive to work and if the parking lot is empty, go work on my house and if it isn't, then I guess I'll go in to work.
 

Oerdin

Active Member
Honestly, I'd continue working as much as you can tolerate and stash the money away for as long as you can. I've been reading a bunch of Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) forums and it is unbelievable how many people retire at 40 and then lose their money because of divorce or bad investing. It is much easier to make mo ey in your prime earning years (40-60) than when you are 70 and broke. So earn while the earning is good and save away for the future.

Besides the extra income will help you qualify for more loans to buy more houses. Since you are in a real estate investors club remember that if you come across a good opportunity which you can't afford to buy yourself you could also try to work out a commission contract where you set up the deal for another investor in exchange for a contractually agreed fee for yourself. That is a good way to earn a bit of cheese even if you don't have cash to do the deal yourself.
 

Oerdin

Active Member
We had a second tennant move out in the 15th of this month but she gave us 60 days notice and even found us a friend of hers who wanted to rent the place after she left. They were both section 8 renters so the process was easy and the housing commission paid her deposit and will pay 2/3rds of her rent (she is a single mom with two kids) so that minimizes risk for us.

All we had to do was repaint it and clean the carpets along with the usual house cleaning. All in all not bad especially as the section 8 people seldom move (the previous renter had been there nine years and was only moving because her daughters got old enough that they could no longer stay on her section 8). The new renter has kids who are five and seven so my guess is she'll stay there for around 10 years knowing she won't find anything better. Besides the appliance are all about three years old and the location is prime in a good school district.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
This is likely going to be boring and redundant. I think I've said all this upthread. But I need to put it somewhere. And kill some time while I finish this Scotch. My Plan is to own 4 houses: 1 for me and 3 rentals, free and clear. I could write a book on wealth, but I'm probably the only person it would work for. I've literally owned stock since I was born--my aunt gave me a share in the company she worked for as a 0th birthday present. I never sold it. I reinvested the dividends automatically while chipping in money when I could. The utility in the town where I got my undergrad offered shares to customers so I bought some. Same deal. Dividend ReInvestment Program (DRIP), buy more when I've got money. Augmented that with a no-load index fund IRA from Vanguard. I did inherit modest sums from an uncle and aunt and a less modest sum from my Mom. But instead of blowing them on trips to Europe and tattoos and PS5's, I got degrees and bought more stocks. I did take a vacation with my money from the Iraq War. And got eye surgery.

But I'm rambling. The point is, I piled up some decent savings that were making more money for me at a pretty decent clip. But not generating any cash flow. Back in my 20s I tried to run a paintball field. Paintball was huge then and I had a valid plan. But I woefully underestimated the NIMBY factor and had the misfortune of having the Oklahoma City bombing happen between when I ordered my gear and when it arrived. But I did make a nice pile of cash when I sold the land off in 2007. I also almost tripled what I paid for my Portland house that I got in 2010(?) when I sold it 7(?) years later. Then I moved to a place where you could buy 2 houses that were twice as big for that kind of money (or 10 houses if you wanted to buy them in the War Zone).
Unfortunately moving cost some money and I screwed around for a bit so I missed out on having 2 free-and-clear houses right off the bat and am now playing catch-up. But I've got 3. And 1 is rented. Need to list the 2nd this week (and get the 3rd habitable so I can move there). I'll wind up needing to finance #4. This just about gets me back to my initial point: I want 3 rentals because the rule of thumb is that a tenant should have 3x income of the monthly rent. Ergo, if I only buy houses I would live in and I rent them at a fair market rate, I only need 3 houses to pay for my lifestyle (2, arguably, since I don't have any rent to pay myself). Furthermore, Equal Housing laws only apply to people who own more than 3 rental properties. So technically, I could stick a sign in the yard that said "OK, we'll rent to the cupcakeers and the chinks, but WE DON'T WANT THE IRISH" and it would be totally legal. It would also be totally stupid, because you'd spend all your time and money fighting legal actions. But technically, I'd be in the right.

I forget where I was going with this. And I'm out of Scotch. Time for bed.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
OH! Yeah. Property values are going crazy. I'm getting nervous that I was too slow. Soon I won't be able to afford a house I'd want to live in here.

Other thing: The current house has an acre of land and parking for 6 cars (when I get the buildings in shape. So there's added income in storage rental and either raising livestock, renting pasture land, or growing farmer's market produce.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I'm apparently too old and weak to work a full 8 hours on renovation--even when I have a day off. Rule of thumb is to list a property 2 months before you want it rented but I'm a little chicken and would rather have the new bathroom remodeled before I list my old place. But I also want to list it by Jan 1. So I may need to make a choice. Meanwhile, I have a van but The Dog hates vans so I take the car when I got there--unless I've got something too big for the car. Each trip, I bring a load of stuff--old files, old clothes, etc--stuff I rarely use. I'm down to 2 bedroom closets, the linen closet, and some kitchen cabinets I use for storage. And of course the garage and my TARDIS shed. So maybe "down to" isn't the right word. But once I get through all that, it's about time to make the actual move. I could clean out bookcases and the dresser drawers in the guest room, but when it gets to that point, might as well just do the move.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
"My ice cream's too cold and my diamond shoes are too tight."

The problems some of us have.

Listed my rental yesterday morning. Not planning to move until March but I've heard it's slow this time of year and that you should always list a place 2 months before it is available--if possible. Priced it lower than Zillow suggested but significantly higher than Rentometer did. Took my dog for a walk and came home to a dozen e-mails to see the place and 1 application. By the time reviewed the application, showed it, and we made a deal I got 3 more applications and 32 other requests to do a walk-through. So now I get so send 35 form rejection e-mails--with 3 of "sorry you blew $30 on an application."

I'm glad I've never worked in HR. I couldn't handle all the "Thank you for your interest..." letters you'd have to send out (to say nothing of sitting people down to tell them they can't masturbate in the break room).
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
*WAS* coming into the home stretch on this bathroom reno. OK, maybe not really, but I felt like I was making progress. About 2/3 of the way done tiling the tub surround. Of course there's still the grouting. Then I needed to plaster and tape the rest of the drywall so I could paint and hang towel bars and such. And I still need to finish up the door, but it was looking like a bathroom. But as I was cleaning up at the end of the day something made me decide to go check the backside of the wall. Sure enough, everything past the knobs on the bathtub faucet was leaking. Not badly. I could ignore it, finish the tiling, and fix it from behind. But then if I wind up with a different faucet setup or the spacing is different, the pipes and knobs won't line up with the tile work. So I guess today I get to shut off the water, take stuff apart, and head for the hardware store. :(
 
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