Thank God For Dumb Criminals
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I'm a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to remodeling my units between vacancies. Recently one of the units I was remodeling was broken into. Unfortunately the criminal broke a brand new window that I had only installed two days previously. They grabbed a four year old TV I had for my daughter to watch when I can't find a sitter. The TV was maybe worth $50. Luckily, this criminal mastermind left my Dewalt cordless drill, my super nifty folding ladder, a brand new paint sprayer, an expensive vacuum, a circular saw, and a jigsaw (any one... continue reading >>
Hard Work Finally Paying Off (Deal #2)
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If you don't know me, a year and a half ago my wife and I bought our first Tri-Plex that we plan on holding for several years. Every step of the way since then has been filled with headaches and drama. We've learned a ton from our first property and were excited to do more.
Except now we had no money. The Tri-Plex took a ton more work to fix up than anticipated, including some frozen pipes last winter that caused a whole mess of damage. We got through it all and re fairly proud of what... continue reading >>
To Sell or Not To Sell?
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So I've got an old hosue that was covnerted to a Tri-plex. I got a good deal on it and put a lot of sweat equity into it so i think it would now sell for substantially more (but not huge amounts more). I've got some credit card debt that came with buying supplies to fix it up.
I know this isn't the best time to sell; but this property is only bringing in $250-$350 a month when its fully rented (after expenses). But I've got a partner wanting to invest but their capital alone doesn;t... continue reading >>
A Year's Worth of Frustration...
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So I thought I would share some of the bad times I've had on my fiurst deal. Don't get me wrong, I am still passionate about real estate. But I need to vent about some of the problems I've encountered because of my own lack of knowledge.
Just under a year ago my wife and I bought our first investment property. An old home converted into Tri-plex that appraised for $137,000. It was in pretty sad shape. At the time, none of the units we're ready for renters, however two of them really needed just... continue reading >>
Why can't I do this?
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About a year and half ago. I convinced my wife that we should start investing in real estate. We're both young. We were still in college at the time. We have a young child and very little savings. We had managed to own our own home but really we had very little in the way of possessions. We had a little over $15k in various bank accounts but it was supposed to be earmarked to pay off our studnet loans.
So we decided to invest in rentals. We figured we couldn't... continue reading >>
Looking For Advice on Meth
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I've been all over the web and then all over this site looking for information about Meth. I had some bad renters (which a PM company got for me) they were there for three months after paying for one (thanks again to the PM company for not getting them out sooner). They left a bunch of trash, stole all the working lightbulbs and left behind this brown residue on the walls. Some of the PM people thinks it is nicotine, others say Meth. To get a pro to inspect is going to cost me about $200... continue reading >>