Sorting a rental property and saving the investor's money

[ohiofarmer 3,276]

  I have some rental properties myself, but decided to help out a new investor.  The house is solidly constructed and is easy to work on. Basements are much preferred as the core utilities are accessible and the foundation is nice and solid.  The new investor relied on a Realtor to manage the property plus charge for repairs. That has never worked for me as Realtors tend to compete against you by saving the best clients for themselves and just putting the first guy with a deposit in your property for a quick income base of 12% of the rent. true to form, he moved out owing a water bill,electric bill, cable bill, and a Rent to Own is out a $400 play station.

   I went in to check the conditions and thankfully there were few things left behind. The so called maintenance guys painted all the trim with ceiling white which after a year's lease were filthy. the oven was a disaster and took an entire can of cleaner and four hours of soaking. Refrig had old food and dirty and the floors all needed paint. they never should have been painted in the first place, but were not prepped properly before painting.Most of the walls responded to cleaning and we sprayed solution on them with a garden sprayer and washed them down.

  Then comes the opportunities to save money. The owner had a ceiling coming down 4'x4' in one bedroom that had a leak soften up the rock lath commonly used for thick plaster in the fifties and sixties. Roofers reported that thy could not patch the leak because the roof was too old. The particular section of roof was a few years old, but the roof vent had nails too close to the flashing and probably leaked from day one. Instead of spending 14K for an entire roof, i fixed it by heating the roof tar strips apart and repaired it with ice and water shield used as double counter flashing. Maybe $20 in material and a half day of labor. He will still need a new roof in maybe three to five years, but the mature trees in the neighborhood send the strong winds above the houses

  Patching the ceiling was no picnic. I could not find rock lath, even though i have worked with it in the past. instead of a brown coat of perlite gypsum plaster and finish coat, i was forced to use 5/8 fire code drywall and shims to level the ceilings together. even with some of the old work delaminating from the brown coat, i was able to use bonding agent to good effect and used non shrink Dura Bond 90 to good effect getting on two coats the first day with a final finish the second day. It will need no sanding at all before painting. The main problem is that the old plaster is so hard that it eats the teeth off a bi-metal sawzall blade in short order. Just a nasty mix of dirt, fiberglass insulation ,and holding my old man arms over my head. There is no reason that my buddy Jay could not do stuff like this on his own for the most part with me in an advisory position and maybe as a plaster/drywal finisher on occasion.

  One of the garage doors was a solid rigid unit that runs in a track and tilts in. of course the experts said it could not be fixed. We are fixing it by adding width to the spring balances with welded on metal tabs and drilling new holes in them to hit solid wood, Also on the garage, someone repaired the bottom plate and some wall studs with treated wood and then slobbered some paint over OSB panels that have green moss growing on them. Hopefully we can get full length steel roofing panels custom cut at a commercial siding supplier right down the street. If not, i can get my lumber yard from god's country to take care of things. This garage will not have beautiful repairs, but hardly any tenant has a garage available at this price point and a washer/dryer hookup in their own private basement. The owner is a pleasure to work with and he is very grateful that i can advise him of best bang for the buck repairs.The worst of it is over, and we will be able to send pictures of the place to the owner to post online.

Edited August 29, 2022 by ohiofarmer

[ri702bill 8,324]

I can relate to your situation - i have a 2 family rental that was my inlaw's house.  One thing I REQUIRE from a prospective tennant is that they provide clean  BCI (Background Criminal Investigation) check info, in writing for EVERYONE over the age of 18 in their family BEFORE they sign the lease at THEIR expense ($25.. per person here in RI). amazing how that tidbit can end an interview suddenly. Since it is 2 family, it is in the best interest of all involved. I also require notification if anyone in their family thereafter looses their "gold star" clean status...