Live & Flip

Phew what a ride

I gotta say its been a very crazy few months.  Between the little guy, rehabbing a new rental, and having 18 family members over for Christmas, its been a bit chaotic.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  So here is the long awaited (far to long) update to what is happening in this end of the real estate world. We got a rental property under contract just prior to my son's birth.  During the following weeks the selling agent was slow at getting us all the paperwork and did not even get the pro...

It’s a Boy

I'm proud to announce the birth of our son Tavin Richard Miller. He weighed 6lbs 13oz. 19 inches long. Jen labored for 8 hours and gave birth naturally at 10:22 am.    In extremely minor news in comparison, we got our 4th rental property under contract last week as well. The plan is to close by the 28th. I'll detail all that in another post.

Scary Close Call

  I got a scary phone call from one of my property managers yesterday.  A soon as I picked up, I knew this was going to be one of those calls.  I could tell from the tone of his voice. The water heater went out on one of my rentals.  Same water heater I repaired 2 years ago.  It didn't just go out, it sprung a nice big leak.  Total replacement.  Thankfully this tenant called right away to let us know of the issue.  No water drying service this time.  The water heater was not the s...

Sec 8 rentals

I have had a rather frustrating experience with sec 8 so far. For the most part, the tenants have been good. The entire struggle has been with the Denver Sec 8 office. Rather than focus on that, I will be focusing my energy to avoid the need for sec 8 in the future. That means once again, my properties need to shine. Also, If I have to lower rent to attract non sec 8 renters. It will save me money. Sad, but true. It is a powerful lesson though. Never ever ever allow your business...

Regaining Momentum

Never ever lose momentum.  My wife and I worked day and night on our new home.  We worked till 3am on several occasions.  Getting up at 5am for work was not fun or smart.  But, it was a fantastic learning experience.  I am very glad we went through it.  The problem with doing work on our own house and working full time is time itself.  We used every waking hour.  I dropped everything else in real estate.  I lost all my momentum.  I have been fighting like hell to gain it back.  Never lose mo...

Tale of Two Rentals

It was the best of rentals, it was the worst of rentals. Let me compare two rentals I have and share my mistakes and lessons learned. Rental 1 is a 1630 sq ft 4/2 brick with a 1 car garage. Fully finished basement. The lot is about 6400 Sq ft. Moderate traffic street, low end neighborhood. Asking rent is $1200. Rental 2 is a 1030 sq ft 3/1 aluminum siding with 1 off street parking driveway. No basement, crawlspace only. The lot is 6300 sq ft. Slightly higher than moderate traf...

Why Reserves Part 2

Needing a new property manager I interviewed 5 different companies. I spent quite a bit of time looking into each. I got the names from references and internet searching. I settled on a new company around mid August. I had the agreement signed and was planning on taking the info over after work. Around noon that day, they called to inform me one of their PM's quit and they could not take on any more clients. For one, I'm glad they did and am still willing to use them in the future, b...

Why Reserves part 1

Shae over at Good Faith Investing and Julie at at Life as Real Estate Investors recently wrote blogs on reserves here and here. This post is inspired by them and will hopefully emphasize what they are saying. Every landlord has a closet full of horror stories on problem tenant, property managers, houses, cities and anything else under the sun that may keep you up at night. This is my story. Around 6 months ago, my wife and I married and were off to our honeymoon in Napa. Shhhh, that's not ...

Property Manager part 1 “Finding New Property Managers”

Many of us have chosen to utilize property managers for our rentals. Its a pretty big industry that has a surprisingly low barrier to entry. This means that just about anyone can be a property manager. So how do you find them and pick the best one. Here is a small list my agent and I came up with. Its certainly not exhaustive. Finding a new Property Manager There are two main and very obvious ways. Google and word of mouth. Google can be very useful when finding information on pro...

Contractor Bids and Hard Money

I have been in touch with contractors on the Tree Times house. So far I have taken two contractors through the house. 1 just for electrical and the other for the entire job. I'm still waiting to hear about the entire job bid (broken down into sections), but the electrical bid came in higher then I wanted. I will need about 3 more whole house bids before I make a selection. Here is a copy of the scope of work for anyone interested in a sample. This does not include time lines or cost. Tree...