Archive for the 'Home Repair' Category

We’ve Got A Guy: When You Need Help on a Minneapolis Duplex Repair

November 7th, 2008 categories: Home Repair

One of the greatest challenges for any first time investor or homeowner is finding reliable handymen and contractors for repairs or home improvements. And while I am always happy to pass along names and numbers of service people either I or my clients have been happy with, sometimes I don’t have the right person for the job.

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Bailout Bill Helps Minneapolis Duplex Owners Go Green

October 20th, 2008 categories: Home Repair

While it hasn’t received a great deal of media coverage, The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the $700 billion bailout bill included several incentives for investors to go green.

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Simple Repairs Can Improve Duplex’s Cash Flow

September 4th, 2008 categories: Home Repair

As we head into fall and winter, it’s easy to remember that heat is one of the biggest expenses any Twin Cities landlord faces. That is, of course, if a property has a single boiler or furnace. Another expense, however, which can inexplicably jump and cause diminished cash flow, however, is water.

I learned this the hard way. Which, unfortunately, seems to be how I learn best. In my 23 unit apartment building, my water bill inexplicably jumped from $800 per quarter to over $2000.

Of course, I immediately called my handyman, and we went through the building one unit at a time. We checked the usual for the source of the spike: dripping faucets, running toilets and more people living in a unit than were reflected on the lease. We found some small drips, but nothing that could account for such a radical jump.

So we asked some questions of the tenants. Guess what? One of the three washing machines on the premises repeatedly filled with water, drained, and then repeated the process: over and over again. Ad infinitum. We simply unplugged the machine until the appliance repair company could come out. The next month, the bill dropped below what it even had been in the past.

My lesson? It doesn’t hurt to do regular apartment inspections to find water issues.

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Know the Duplex Next Door

June 5th, 2008 categories: Home Repair, Selling A Duplex

I had a unique experience the other day while showing properties in one of my favorite “secret” neighborhoods. Well, I don’t know if it’s a secret exactly, but I do think it’s under-appreciated: the Riverview/Cherokee area of St Paul.

The neighborhood is a quiet little strip across the river from downtown. It has many of the amenities people look for in other, more well-known areas, including walking/biking trails along the river, parks, big old trees and most relevant to this blog, a beautiful and diverse selection of early 20th century architecture (woodwork!) . The prices, however, tend to be comparatively reasonable.

I was first introduced to this area years ago by a client. Since then, I have helped move a lot of first time home and duplex buyers to the area.

My client and I looked at two properties, exactly next door to one other. From the outside, one appeared to have been built late in the Victorian era. The other looked more like a Craftsman. Both had very good cash flows and long-term tenants with solid rents.

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How to Make Money Using Irene’s Rule of Real Estate

May 26th, 2008 categories: Buying A Duplex, Home Repair

Since it’s Memorial Day, a time when we remember people we’ve loved and lost, I thought it would be nice to write about Irene and her Rule of Real Estate. Have you heard of her? My clients have. And she’s earned them more money than Carleton Sheets ever has.

Irene was my grandmother. Irene Balle. She would want you to know that.

My grandparents were part of America’s Greatest Generation. They grew up on western Minnesota farms, survived the Great Depression, relocated to San Francisco during World War II to build ships for the Navy, then returned to Minnesota where they bought their first (and only) home.

Thankfully, there’s some longevity in my family. As a result, I had the great privilege of getting to know them as an adult. I marvelled at them, really. They stayed in their home well into their 90’s; even surviving the tornado that swept through St Peter, Minn., in 1998.

I came home and visited them the summer after the tornado. Most of their windows had been blown out in the storm, scattering shards of glass everywhere; even embedding it in the carpet. When I stopped in, the old carpet had been removed. And for the first time, I got to see the absolutely pristine oak hardwood floors that lied beneath.

Grandma was agonizing over carpet choices. I was incredulous, and said, “Grandma, these floors are beautiful! Don’t cover them with carpet!”

Irene gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “But we wouldn’t want people to think we were poor!”, she exclaimed.

Huh?

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Flip This Duplex? Or Not?

May 14th, 2008 categories: Buying A Duplex, Home Repair, Multi-Family Property Investing

Over the last several years, it seems as if almost everyone I meet is, on some level, addicted to HG-TV. We’ve all watched those shows and now dream of finding a fixer upper at a steal of a price. We think, “with just some paint, carpet and of course, stainless appliances…I could turn a $20,000 profit for just a weekend of sweat equity.”

OK, here are the facts. In the peak of the housing market I saw that happen…once in a while. Most of the successful rehabbers, however, were professional contractors; with crews. It was the only thing they did for a living.

So many of the foreclosures on the market are half-finished rehabs. And it doesn’t take a novelist to imagine the story behind each one. Someone bought it to flip it, and it took more money and time than they ever imagined.

In spite of this, everyone still has the “Flip This House” mentality. Even with duplexes.

The other day I showed four duplexes. All were either short sales or foreclosures, with some level of deferred maintenance. They ranged in price from $114,000 to slightly less than $260,000. All were in different, but equally terrific locations.

The least expensive was a converted single family home with some decent turn-of-the-century woodwork. As with most of these properties, the upstairs unit lacked a true living room. That unit also featured a makeshift kitchen and the most unconventional, skinny bathroom I’ve ever seen. The basement had one enormous octopus gravity furnace. And the soffits on the exterior of the home had clearly been converted to squirrel condos.

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What About The Toilet?

May 9th, 2008 categories: Buying A Duplex, Home Repair

One of the questions I am most frequently asked by people considering purchasing their first multi-family property has to do with plumbing. More specifically, the toilet.

It seems the biggest fear about becoming a landlord is there will be a phone call in the middle of the night that a tenant’s toilet has backed up. And it will be up to the landlord to fix it.

First, I have been a landlord for over a decade. And in all those years, the only time I ever had a middle-of-the-night plumbing call was when a water heater actually burst and was spewing water everywhere. My inconvenience? Calling the plumber and signing the check! (It was the least I could do — my tenants were buying me my property after all.)

When it comes to toilets, however, a plumber charges too much. And, here’s a tip: they’re really, really easy and inexpensive to repair.

I had zero experience with fixing them prior to becoming a landlord. But I’d had the good fortune of stumbling across Home Depot’s book, Home Improvement 1-2-3. It had pictures, well, more accurately, how-to cartoons of almost every conceivable home repair or improvement. I took that book with me everywhere: propped it up on the back of toilet tanks, crawled under sinks with it…you get the idea.

The good news is, Home Depot still publishes it. The bad? No more cartoons. Just pictures.

And, if Home Depot’s actually closed, there’s always www.fixatoilet.com. No kidding.

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