To owners/managers of rental properties, gargbage disposals are like a hanging fingernail – they are painful to have around and the sooner they are gone the better..
What do I have against gargabe disposals?
1) they just hang below the sink waiting to break down
2) they can smell like a sewer, and
3) they are a hazard to tenants!
There is almost no upside to having garbage disposals. If tenants have leftover food, they just throw it into the trash can.
Having just replaced garbage disposals in two of my rental houses, I can say that there is one good thing that I like about garbage disposals. They are easy to remove.
Removing the Disposal
1. Use the GD remover tool to release the garbage disposal. Remove tubing first. The GD will fall to the ground. Be ready to catch.
2. The one tricky part is that to remove the basket fron the sink opening (that was formerly connected to the GD), there is a retainer ring below the sink that must be pried off with a screwdriver.
Once the garbage disposal is out, replace it with the appropriate pipes.These days,the tubing just connects togther. No need for glue. It’s as easy as putting tinger toys together. Piece of cake.
If you need, help ask the experts at Ace Hardware. That’s what I did.
Upcoming Presentations:
April 18, 2015. Forum Speaker at The Association of Lincoln Presenters 2015 Convention, Vandalia, Illinois.
Move all of your furniture and personal belongings out of your old house. The absence of these items makes the house look bigger and the home is more inviting if it is not cluttered up with beds, chairs, food supplies, and toys. It also makes it easier to do a thorough job of cleaning the house.
This only applies to the first time you rent out your new rental house. After tenants leave in the future, they will take most of their things with them. Of course, some tenants do not follow the normal procedure, and they may leave in the middle of the night to avoid paying their last rent check.
(Occasions like this make it tempting to slip a magnetized GPS tracking device under the fender of the renter’s car.)
An incident like this happened to me a couple of years ago. Not only did the tenant leave a pile of clothing, bottles and boxes of cleaning supplies, cupboards of food, and a sofa, but also left behind a car that didn’t work. (So much for the GPS idea.)
Renters like this one are the exception. Tenants normally take all their things with them when they leave, making it easy for me to prepare the property for the next tenant, and without much effort, present an appealing yet empty house.
Step 2: Clean Up
Thoroughly clean the house. This includes painting walls (a fresh coat of paint makes the place look and smell good), washing floors, cleaning appliances (especially the oven), shampooing carpets, washing the windows, cleaning the bathrooms and checking the roof.
Step 3: Make Repairs
Take care of all repair work. Leave nothing to chance and make all repairs before tenants move in. Change broken outlets and switches, patch holes, remove stains, replace cracked and broken glass, repair dripping faucets, replace missing shingles, and fix roof leaks.
The old saying that “Left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse,” is especially true with rental houses. It’s tempting to assume that that small leak in the bathtub, or a toilet that flushes most of the time, won’t bother anyone. But trust me, you will get that call to repair the bathtub or toilet at the most inopportune time.
This doesn’t mean that everything in the house has to be new, but everything should be in working order.
It is a rental house after all, and not Buckingham Palace.
For example, bedroom doors do not have to be replaced every time they have a crack or a hole in them. I rehabilitate the door with wood putty, and a fresh coat of paint. The guy in the “Easy Repair of Hollow Core Door” video below uses drywall mud to fill the hole, with equally good results.
Buy used construction materials
Missing or broken light switches, outlets, covers can be replaced inexpensively with quality used ones. I have also purchased reliable doors, cabinets, stove tops, dishwashers, and toilets at stores that recycle construction materials, for pennies on the dollar. The Habitat for Humanity Store is one such place that I frequent for good used materials. There are 825 Habitat Restores in the United States and Canada. You can locate a store near you at www.habitat.org
Buy new or used appliances?
If broken clothes washers or dryers cannot be easily repaired, our policy is to replace them with a quality used one, or with lower end new appliances (like the Kenmore brand from Sears).
Buy bargain appliances before you need them
Craigslist and yard sales are great places to find good used appliances at bargain prices. If I see a nice working appliance for a good price, I will purchase it, even though I don’t have any immediate need for it. I’ll just store it in our shed until I need it.
I bought a like-new furnace at a yard sale for only $40 and installed it into a rental house and it has worked great. For furnaces, there are very few moving parts to worry about, and the wiring is relatively simple. As long as the motor works, you’re home free.
I once literally picked up a clothes dryer from the side of the road that had a “Free Dryer” sign taped to it. I gave it a new home and it has been working
Low maintenance yard (in the southwest)
reliably for over 10 years now. The only repair, about five years ago, was that I had to change the on/off switch on the door.
Step 4: Simplify Landscaping
The front yard of your rental houses must look great. Curb appeal gives the potential tenants a good first impression. Simple and neat landscaping gives the client comfort that the yard is low maintenance and ecologically and economically low in water consumption saving the tenants money on water and saving you time later not having to replace a yard of dead plants.
This yard went too low maintenance!
I personally like to utilize decorative rocks on our rental yards, and plants that don’t require any watering, like Mesquite and Palo Verde trees, which have long roots that tap into the aquifer.
Step 5: Re-key the Locks
One other thing that I like to do before a new tenant moves in is to re-key all the locks. This is cheaper than buying new doorknobs, and it provides security for our tenants. This protects you and your tenants in case a previous tenant has surreptitiously kept an extra copy of a house key.
Yesterday, I participated in a telephone seminar on “how to be a good guest on radio shows.” I have been on many radio shows to promote my books, but I’m always looking for new ways to be a better guest, or perhaps more appropriately, a greater guest.
One point that the presenter mentioned really struck me. He said that radio shows prefer guests who have a strong opinion. They want you to be riled up about something.
Not gonna take it.
The presenter asked, “Why are you angry? What are you going to do about it? What makes you angry about your profession?”
He said, “Aren’t you angry about the economy, or the fact that a lot of Canadians are buying up foreclosed houses in Arizona?”
I said, “No way.
Let me entertain you, eh?
Sure, our Canadian friends have infiltrated the entertainment industry with singers, actors, and comedians practically indistinguishable from their American counterparts, but they don’t buy fixer upper houses, which is my gig; and the recession makes houses cheaper for me to buy.
But, I was angry when I had my work hours reduced during the 2001 recession. That forced me to change my way of thinking about what constituted economic security, and got me started on my fixer-upper house business. That’s also motivated me write my first book.
Looking back, I was wrong to be riled up at the recession. What I should have been riled up at was my own blindness and misplaced faith in something as ephemeral as a steady economy. I should have been riled up that I waited for a disaster to strike before I took action.
Maybe my approach should be that I am riled up about other people who don’t learn from their own painful experience, or from mine. Not that everyone should run out and buy fixer-upper houses, but everyone should establish economic security, or carve out their niche, apart from, or in addition to, their 9-5 job.”
He replied, after a thoughtful pause, “maybe that’s it … people who never plan for a safety net.
This is the major problem we are seeing … if people prepared, they wouldn’t be so panicked.”
So that’s it.
Now I have something to be riled up about; to express my rightful indignation over.
Preparing for my next radio interview
Watch out!
When I hit the radio waves to promote my next book I’ll come out swinging! Grrrr!
With the annual approach of summer rains, now is almost the last chance to make rental house roofs water proof before the watery onslaught. As someone who has a sworn aversion for arriving too early to parties, I subscribe to the time-tested philosophy of “better late than never.”
This morning I applied some black roofing cement on some areas on one of my townhouse roofs. I had located some cracks upon my inspection of it about 2 weeks ago.
The first photo shows the area in question, where I had previously applied a small amount of plastic roofing cement, but today I was going to put on some more and cover a broader area.
The second photo shows the application of the plastic roofing cement. We apply one layer of cement, then put a white membrane on top of that, followed by a second layer of cement. The membrane allows for more cement to be applied.
Below is the “after” photo. You can see that in addition to the corner, we hit a few other cracks with our roofing cement on the sides of theroof. Later, we’ll come back with white roofing paint to cover the black cement.
A good rental house
My wife and I purchased this 2 bed 2 bath townhouse in 1993 and lived in it for 10 years before moving on to a bigger house (to accomodate our growing family), and turning this property into a rental house in 2003.
Its been one of our best rental houses because it is in a “transition” zone (aka “opportunity zones”) where there is heavy demand for housing, and it is easy to care for because it is compact (1100 sq ft with small front and back yards). The townhouse perfect for single people or small families.
The fixer-upper house business is a great business to be in these days. But, if you are just starting out, and are as green as a gourd, as I was, you need some help.
To speed up the learning processes, you need to have a collection of reference books on home repair, buying and selling houses, rental properties, tax law and all other aspects of real estate.
If a home without books is like a body without a soul, then a fixer-upper business without reference books is like a cook without a cookbook.
You may not know everything at the start of your new business and you may need help in some areas, especially in the initial stages. However, each time you pay to have someone do work for you, or go through some new process, you should observe everything, ask questions and learn the process.
That way, the next time you will be able to do it yourself, or at least perform a larger part of the project. The key is to keep doing things over and over until you master how it works. You will eventually reach a point where you make decisions of where to make repairs and which houses to buy based on your instinct.
Books will help you to reach that point sooner.
Here are some books that I have found particularly useful to have on hand:
1.Fix em Up, Rent em Out, by yours truly. Yes, believe it or not, I read my own book! Anyone who says otherwise, is just itching for a fight.
2. Investing in Fixer Uppers, by Jay DeCima. His first, and still my favorite, of his books.
8. Tiling 1-2-3, by Home Depot. Are you getting the impression that I like the Home Depot books? In addition to mastering the art of tile installation, I made my first grout repair after reading this book.
You can learn from others, but you have to rely on yourself to get ahead. Like the novice swimmer who is tossed in the pool, sometimes it’s sink or swim. You must learn by doing.
Trust Your Own Judgment
There are times when destiny forces you down a certain path in life. Other times, you make you own destiny by choosing to walk down a difficult path.
My plan when I bought my first fix-up house was that I could learn as I went along. I thought if others had learned to do it, so could I.
When I bought my fist fix-up house, it was like being stranded on a desert island. I was forced to learn new skills to survive, like Robinson Crusoe. The best way to learn new skills is by putting yourself in a situation where you are forced to change and adapt.
Before embarking on his life-transforming mission, the hero in the book Dune was advised, “Unless you change, something inside you sleeps.”
Foreclosure Update
The bank accepted someone else’s bid over mine for the foreclosed property that I bid on. My new target property is a 3 bed, 3 bath townhouse that is being offered for $69,900.
My wife and I were watching the movie the “Peaceful Warrior” Saturday night, and I was really inspired by the movie.
In a nutshell, one night when a gymnast, Dan Millman, cannot sleep he wanders in to a service station and meets a mysterious man. Dan injures his leg in an automobile accident and the mystic helps the gymnast to overcome incredible odds and tap into new worlds of strength and understanding. Here’s one of my favorite scenes as Socrates teaches Dan a valuable lesson.
Dan Millman: Life has just three rules?
Socrates: And you already know them…
Dan: Paradox, humor, and change.
Socrates: Paradox…
Dan: Life is a mystery. Don’t waste time trying to figure it out.
Socrates: Humor…
Dan: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure.
Socrates: Change…
Dan: Know that nothing stays the same.
At the end of the film, Dan is trying out for the Olympics, after making a startling comeback from his accident. A teammate asks him if can share some tip that he has learned from his training with Socrates to help him do his routine. Dan tells him to get rid of the garbage in his mind, to just forget about winning and his parent’s expectations, and to just focus on the routine.
But, the teammate just doesn’t get it. He replies that he has to win the gold medal, and everyone is counting on him to win. If he loses, he will let himself, and everyone else down, and he’ll never be happy.
What’s really interesting is the expression on Dan’s face as he listens to his teammate, and his realization that he used to think exactly the same way.
How this relates to fixer-upper houses
The movie made me think about how the fixer-upper business is like being a peaceful warrior. The Peaceful Warrior said, “Service to others is the highest good.”
I don’t think its stretching things too far to say that we provide a service. We purchase properties that are worn out and shunned by society. We rehabilitate the houses, make them presentable again, and provide a nice place for people to live in.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
— Henry David Thoreau
While you pay a price for following your dream, you also pay a price for staying where you are. You lose the opportunity to develop new life-coping skills that help you deal with unexpected crises or joblessness. You may suffer from depression by staying in a debilitating job.
Marsha Sinetar, in To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love, says that excelling at a job that you love could be the best mental health insurance for people who feel depressed or anxious about their work. Americans spend $12.4 billion each year to treat clinical depression.
Do You Have Zest and Gusto?
Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, in Zen and the Art of Writing, wrote that, “life is short, misery sure, and mortality certain.” Yet, he advocated that as we move along life’s way, and in our work, our lives should be filled with “zest” and “gusto.” With zest and gusto, traveling to the grave, Bradbury vowed to fight injustice, appreciate beauty and encourage children.
Is there enough zest and gusto in your life to fight in-justice, appreciate beauty and encourage children?
What do You Trade Your “Life Energy” For?
We should wisely use the time that we must devote to work. Our working hours constitute at least one-third of our lives during the work week. As Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin point out in Your Money or Your Life, money is what we chose to trade our time, or “life-energy,” for. The authors distinguish between “wants” vs. “needs,” and promote not wasting money on unnecessary consumer goods. Instead, they advocate conscientiously saving money until you reach the point where you can free yourself from the working treadmill.
Fixer Upper Houses was Right for Me
The independence of working with fix-up houses was this type of “right” job for me, and can be for you too. It can be the road to operate a business that develops one’s independence, creativity and imagination. With real estate, you can invest a small amount and gradually accumulate money as both your rental income and equity increase over time.
Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.
–Lao Tzu
A key to fixing up a house is to know when to stop fixing up. You want the house to look good, yet you know that people are not going to care for your house the same way that you would. For rental properties, I don’t purchase the most costly, or even new, materials. I do a lot of my shopping at stores that recycle construction materials, like Habitat for Humanity’s Re-stores. You can get bargain basement prices on things like doors, kitchen cabinets, hinges, toilets, paint.
Need I say more? It’s a fixer-upper person’s paradise.
If I know that I am going to sell the house I may install higher grade of materials, especially where it really counts, like the kitchens and bathrooms. As Lawrence Dworin says in Profits in Buying & Renovating Homes:
“It’s easy to get carried away on renovation projects – wasting time and money on repairs that buyers won’t pay extra for. I assume you like to do good work. We all do. And we’d like every finished project to be a showplace. But you can’t make money that way. Your buyers have a limit on what they’re willing to pay. That’s why you’ve got to limit repair costs. In this business, you concentrate on fixing code violations and creating a clean, safe, livable house.”
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FIX EM UP RENT EM OUT
Purchase FIX EM UP RENT EM OUT (paperback)Award-Winning Finalist in the Real Estate category of the National Best Books Awards, sponsored by USA Book NewsGreat information for anyone starting out in the fixer-upper business. The author has served his apprenticeship in the trenches.
-- Fixer Jay P. DeCima, Investor and AuthorTerry Sprouse has created a profitable rental business in his spare time. What sets him apart is he took action.-- Bob Zachmeier, Investor, Educator, Author With the wit of Will Rogers, this book provides simple guidelines for restoring homes, and sanity to our crazy lives. --M.D. Matlock, Ph.D., P.E., C.S.E.