Women Invest in Real Estate WIIRE 012: BTS: Trouble in Paradise at an MTR with Amelia & Grace
Hello everyone, welcome back to episode twelve of the Women Invest In Real Estate podcast! We have had such great feedback and so many questions about our day-to-day’s, so today’s episode is another behind-the-scenes WIIRE episode where we’re going to give you the scoop on what we are both up to in the world of real estate investing and managing our properties.
We’re going to start off with a crazy story that Amelia has been bursting at the seams to share (and has made us wait until we recorded this episode to share) all the deets about recent happenings at her mid-term rental property!
Amelia’s Internet Novella
A few days ago Amelia received a call from Mediacom that they were suspending her service for illegal video downloading. She inquired about the specific router and with several units sharing routers she had to determine exactly when the video downloading occurred to narrow it down to the exact culprit (tenant).
The downloading apparently began the day after this tenant moved in and she was taken aback because they claimed they had called her to inform her previously (nope, they did not, nor could they prove it). No one (and we mean NO ONE) likes to deal with utility companies and this time was no exception.
Amelia’s red mane was flaming and she was furious about the problem this tenant had caused, because not only did he cause her account to be suspended, but Mediacom informed her that if it continued they would be canceling all of her accounts! This would be quite problematic because not only were all of her units in this building run on Mediacom, but a few others as well, including her personal account.
She asked them to give her a few hours to nail down the tenant and resolve the issue and as soon as she hung up she immediately called the tenant. While Amelia normally prefers to handle all of her tenant communication in writing, time was of the essence and she needed an immediate response.
When he answered she immediately informed him that she was aware of what was going on and that the internet has been suspended and he was to remove all content from all of his devices, effective immediately, or she would be taking legal action against him.
To cover her back, she sent him a text message detailing exactly what she had just verbally told him, as well. He was very apologetic but still received a BIG timeout from Amelia’s paid-for wifi.
Grace’s Next Move
With more than 12 units using Mediacom for internet service, they finally advised Grace to move to a commercial internet account (quite literally to help her avoid situations just like Amelia’s), so it doesn’t cause an issue across the board on her accounts.
Grace is also in the process of hiring an in-house Property Manager and could not be more excited! After so much back-and-forth about the decision to hire Grace has pulled the trigger and is now learning how to ‘be the boss’! This investment will come back to her simply on the time she will be saving by having someone else handle all of the little (and big) details for her biz.
For the time being, Grace has been in a reactive stage. She reacts as requests come in, and would rather be able to be in more of a proactive space where she can be prepared for things ahead of time. It is going to be a whole new stage in her business.
Other Updates
Another announcement Amelia is excited to announce is that if you tuned into our first BTS episode you heard that I was under contract on a seller-financed triplex and they finally closed on that property last week! The first thing they are planning to tackle on this project is actually replacing the roof. It will cost around $22,000 to fully demo and replace (including the removal of 4 old layers) the roof of this property. She is also going to have the gutters replaced as well which will add on another $4,000, spending $26,000 right off the bat, which they are financing through a line of credit and they will BRRR into a commercial loan once they are finished with the rehab.
A couple of fun surprises they found on this property were that it still has old knob-and-tube wiring. While it is in good condition, they will likely still go ahead and replace it since so many walls will already be opened up. Another surprise was that this owner actually did a full clean-out from all of the ‘stuff’ that originally had been packed into the property (rare, but a much-appreciated surprise!). Lastly, while they were pulling up the old, brown shag carpeting they discovered beautiful wood floors, in immaculate condition!
That’s all for this episode, friends! If you’re looking to connect with us outside the podcast you can find us each on Instagram:
That’s all for this week, we'll catch you in the next episode!
Resources:
- Join the Property Management Academy
- See how you can use TenantCloud in your business
- Check out Hospitable for your vacation rental properties