Rental house I’m working on hasn’t had power connected in almost a year. Requires an inspection. Failed because a tab that holds in the electrical meter has been cut. Fixed no problem. re inspection 60 dollars. After begging the city to send in the paperwork today that it has passed and pleading to hook it up today as opposed to Monday, I finally won. Meter guy comes out and puts in meter. I throw all the breakers on, nothing. Crawl under the house…guess what??? Every freakin wire has been ripped out for the copper under the house. I immediately turn off the breakers so I don’t burn the house down, as a lot of the wire has been cut crudely. Funny how the “through” inspector totally missed this and failed a stupid latch that has been cut by the electrical company on every other house on the street.
Realtor calls…house next door to the one i’m under contract with has hit the market, i’m working just down the street, he comes by, picks me up and we go look at it. It’s a dump overpriced, I say lets lowball. Anyways thought I would look at my house I have under contract next door, guess what? The neighbor hood monkeys have stolen the nice A/C unit in the past few days. Yeah I’m pissed. This thing wasn’t more than a few years old and no baseboard heat so I can’t use window units…Bank who owns it now says they will pay get an estimate…not that big of a deal I guess…
Get home, my car that I park in front of my vacant units to make it look occupied has been towed by the city. I keep it in working condition and it currently runs well and is far from an eyesore. In fact, it keeps my houses in bad areas from becoming an eyesore.
So I start drinking beer tonight, because I also get a voice mail from the city of Raleigh saying there is no way the are going to pay for another house of mine that has been damaged from a next door tear down they farmed out to the lowest bidder because it was impossible for the machine they use to do the damage to my roof. What they don’t understand, there was a light pole behind the house they tore down that fell on my roof. That is how the damage happened. I am dealing with a certain level of competence that only the city of Raleigh would hire. Anyways I fixed it today myself and my co-worker after cutting out the damaged plywood underneath and putting down new paper and shingles, documenting everything, this is after repairing a sub floor in a bathroom and laying VCT on top of it which was my only goal for today.
Then just about 30 minutes ago, I hear a sound out on my porch. I go to the door only to discover a black lady quicly walking away down the sidewalk. After screaming stop for the 3rd time, she says WHAT??? I said what were you doing on my porch? She says petting my cat. BS. I have had stuff stolen before and I called the police. Of course they just tell me they will call an officer…
This city has grown too fast and has some backwards thinking here…
There are places with less crime than that. Have you considered moving?
What would be the FUN in that? Everyone gets into the landlording business for the excitement, thrills, and of course the glamour. (I know that because I saw it on an infomercial).
MIke, I am starting to have a few doubts about those infomercials.
I have been doing this for years and I still am not sitting on a million dollar yacht in the carribean, sipping umbrella drinks with chunks of fruit in them.
So when do I get to stop working and start living like a rock star without putting any effort into it?
(on the plus side, at least I can afford the fruit, if I want to cut it into chunks myself.)
I can see your problem very clearly. Don’t feel bad, I’ve probably seen more infomercials than you. Now, please don’t tell anyone this, but I know the “SECRET” to instant riches. The Secret: the less you do, the more you make. So, if you want to be rich, and I’m talking FILTHY, STINKING RICH, AutoPilot Rich, Carrying Your Money to the Bank in a Limo Rich: Do Not Do Anything (other than go to the Marina). In no time at all, your ship WILL come in! Again, please keep this quiet.
From an outside perspective I can say these stories are just some of the reasons why I knew I couldn’t be a hands on landlord…I hate the thought so much that if I owned a rental property 10 mins from my residence I would pay for management…
My property manager calls me today as I’m eating breakfast…Super nice guy/hard worker…Anyway…Goes on to tell me how on one of his managed properties he went by to collect a late rent payment (2 days) and he knocked on the door and the yard sale broad that lives there answers rudely…She goes on to tell him that his knocking woke her baby and continued on with BS…She pays the due rent as she has been for years and slams the door…He then tells me his cellphone rings and it’s the baby’s daddy and he is angry to say the least because yard sale started complaining…Long story short my PM tell’s the guy in a firm but nice voice “You have to pay on time and you never do,I do apologize for waking your son I just need my rent on time”…No problem end of story ,everyone is happy…bye…
Point being I could never deal with what you guys do or my PM does…I can get into the construction end and enjoy rehabbing but once the human/money/living under my roof factor comes into play , I’m done…I can’t stand to hear BS…I’m a calm person by nature but i do remember when I was looking for properties in my area many a times the PM was greeted with an attitude…
First and foremost…everybody knows everything they tout on those late night infomercials is true, I just do not understand why they run them late at night and in the middle of a work day, and always real estate.
Why don’t they point to the Aston Martin DB9 and the Yacht and say "I got all this in just a few short month’s after taking Dr. Drillhead’s two week seminar on Dentistry (Surgery, etc.)
“Why I made $250,000 in lower case amalgam fillings in the first month”… :cool
And furthermore, none of the houses the “Flipping” teams do on the cable channels are staged, it’s all true as are the profits… :rolleyes
jb_bak…Simple solution…just get a bigger cat for your porch…
Thanks guys, today and yesterday was defiantly better than before. Although today I got to remove around 2 pounds of feces from the bathtub and toilet of a house I just bought. But I bought it that way so can’t complain. It was actually not that bad, and was a huge reason I got the house for about 45 cents on the dollar.
I sympathize with your troubles. I live in Florida and every night on the news in Orlando the business parks are being struck with people taking A/C for the copper so they have been bolting them down and hanging them 10 feet off of ground and still getting them.
The best one is the State/DOT has been having people steel the electrical copper wire in street lights on the highway so to catch them they leave the lights on all day and when one goes out they know it’s being tampered with I forget the cost but it’s like double what normally cost to run these lights. I just find that totally crazy.
I to think you should move on to another area.
I use to work years ago in the city and owner was robbed and they offered to sell his stuff back to him and he did it because the insurance wouldn’t give enough to cover replacing it.
Yeah I’m ready for the excitement as well. I’ve worked in retail for the past 8 years and tell myself that this job wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the people. I feel like i’m ready i know how to talk to people and tell them what they want to hear. Bring it on.
Why doesn’t it matter her race? He used 2 words to describe her. Two things he knew about her. When will the Politically Correct @#$@$ end. This is so stupid, if you have nothing useful to contribute that relates to real estate why not just be quiet.
Back to the original topic:
I hope you can look back some day and say it was worth it.
Mike
Ok, smart guy. What was the purpose of mentioning her race? I’ll answer that. None. The issue was that some woman was on the porch that is all that mattered. No one needed to know whether she was black, white, Hispanic. As a matter of fact, you must feel some kind of way about it because you replied to me.
What is stupid is you say if you have nothing useful to contribute that relates to real estate why not be quiet. I’m searching… but I don’t see anywhere that YOU contributed anything. Oh, my fault, you said “I hope you can look back some day…” Oh, great advice. You should take your own advice and be quiet. I’m done with dealing with low intelligence.
If you giving him a hard time because he said the lady was black how come your not giving him a hard time because he said it was a woman?
All he is doing is describing what happened and who was involved. He could have said someone was walking away and it would have told the same story. All he was doing was giving a better description of the scenario that had happened to allow other to better picture it.
If your going to make a big deal about him mentioning someone being black why not make the same argument that he did not need to mention that it was a woman.