The Successful Landlord Blog

So one of the rentals has been vacant for two months now as mentioned in this post. The main reason for the delay has been a shower stall repair that was just going awry. I almost had it completed myself but then I stopped and called in a professional for the following reasons:

• The repair looked like complete crap (for lack of a better term)
• It would have to be repaired again in a couple years
• Apparently the construction of the shower stall was unusual (according to my tile guy)
• The third remaining wall will need to be repaired sooner than a couple years time

Read the rest of this entry »

The reference to  the Love & Rockets song in the title not withstanding, recently I wrote about how two of my tenants left 1 month after renewing their lease and basically left the place in disrepair.

Well, it’s been a little under 2 months since they left but it feels like F-O-R-E-V-E-R and I just can’t get the place ready to show. It feels like there are just a million little things that need to be done. Here’s a partial list of what I can think of off the top of my head:

• Hang 2 sets of window blinds which they destroyed
• Remove their cheesy drapes from the patio windows
• Remove various stickers and decals they stuck to doors and walls
• Replace all the bi-fold door floor brackets (don’t ask)
• Clean the bi-fold doors (louvers)
• Repair shower stall tile in the master bath
• Repair a leaky A/C drain line
• Repair a bathroom towel rail
• Replace most of the light-bulbs
• Remove the cheap-a** ceiling fans they installed
• Repair most of the bug screens
• Clean out the rain gutters
• Cut the grass
• Trim the massive oak tree in the backyard

There are a number of reasons for the delay including: General procrastination, 90°F weather, various tropical cyclones, Work needed on other properties, the city turning off the water, etc.

I’m happy to say that most of the above items are done but in my opinion, I don’t think that the place (any place) should be shown to potential tenants until it’s good and ready. So, for now it’s a game of inches. I just wish it would go faster sometimes.

Recently a reader asked the following question about choosing a property management company:

I’m new to the [property investment] game and bought a 15 unit building in an affordable state far from my home & hired a property management company (PMC).
So far this year I have paid 40% of my rents towards repairs.  The PMC uses
its own repairmen (naturally).  I believe I am getting robbed but can find
no statistic that states the average amount a landlord should expect to pay
in repairs.  Needless to say I didn’t factor this big of a chunk coming out
of my rents and am having trouble paying my mortgage (although I’m sure my
PMC isn’t). Anyway does anyone have a guess as to what % is reasonable?

Personally, I have not had much luck hiring a property management firm for a couple of properties I was renting out while living out-of-town. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I was changing the locks on one of the rental houses because of this idiot and came across a new (to me) product by Kwikset called SmartKey^®.

Basically, it’s a lock which can be “programmed” to recognize a new key and forget the old one. Hallelujah! No more changing locksets! And it’s about freaking time too.

A while back, I wrote about something similar where instead of changing the whole lockset, you just change the actual lock cylinder. But these lock cylinders had to be special ordered and you had to keep the keys together with the locks.

Now, with this SmartKey system, you just have to keep track of the keys themselves. In case I’ve been living in The Whitehouse under a rock, if you’ve heard of these locks, leave me a comment and tell me to wake up and pay attention. Cheers!