[00:00:00] Intro: It's

[00:00:04] Intro: around the house

[00:00:05] Caroline Blazovsky: and I've heard of this a lot that people can't pay their electric or their gas or their oil, and then it gets shut off and then pipes break and that kind of stuff I've heard burning cabinets is pretty severe.

[00:00:16] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Cabinet doors all went into the fireplace cuz they found in the ashes.

[00:00:20] Eric Goranson: All the cabinet to hardware was in the ashes of the fireplace cuz he wanted to know where the doors went and when they cleaned the fireplace. There's a bunch of Ash in there and it was all cabinet door

[00:00:32] Caroline Blazovsky: hardware at the bottom. And, and as a landlord, do you even have any legal ramification for kind of stuff like that?

[00:00:38] Caroline Blazovsky: Can you Sue them? I mean, I don't even know. Oh, sure.

[00:00:40] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, if you've got somebody that's, that's almost homeless. I. What are you gonna do get when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home? There is a lot to know though. We've got you covered. This is around the house. Welcome to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B your one [00:01:00] stop shop for everything about your home.

[00:01:02] Eric Goranson: Hey Caroline,

[00:01:03] Intro: how are you today? Hello everybody. Welcome. Welcome.

[00:01:06] Eric Goranson: Welcome. Yeah, it's been a crazy week. I found this killer vintage find this week for my house.

[00:01:14] Intro: You did and

[00:01:15] Caroline Blazovsky: I'm jealous. I'm like so jealous. It's awesome.

[00:01:20] Eric Goranson: We found at this estate sale about ah, 45 minutes from the house. This guy had a vintage bar from the like early seventies.

[00:01:29] Eric Goranson: So it's black fake leather with the Walnut stool. Look to it, stools the whole thing. Uh, it's got a wall mounted, lighted display for it that matches and everyth. 180 bucks, it's

[00:01:43] Caroline Blazovsky: completely swanky. And it looks like a high end wet bar that you would put so portable and you can have stools in front. Very, I call it very rock star and it's got like the black sleek look to it.

[00:01:54] Caroline Blazovsky: It's very nice. I I'm so jealous. I want one and I was looking, but this is a rare find. It's not something [00:02:00] you would easily find cuz it's, it's not, it's not cheesy. It's very classy. And yet, um, Like it distinguished it's it's really nice.

[00:02:08] Eric Goranson: Thanks. I'll throw it up on, uh, around the house. Uh, Facebook page over there.

[00:02:12] Eric Goranson: You can take a look at that for the show. So we can talk about that a little bit later, and maybe that's gonna be a future episode. We'll talk more about vintage finds and how to find that stuff. But today we should talk about those top 10 things to consider before becoming a landlord, because I've done this before and it can be painful.

[00:02:33] Eric Goranson: And

[00:02:33] Caroline Blazovsky: I wanna be one. I keep saying that, like, we have a house that I wanna rent out and everybody just says, don't do it, Caroline. You're gonna regret it. You're gonna get somebody in there. That's gonna trash your property. It's gonna be more headache. You're not gonna be able to get them out. It's scary.

[00:02:48] Eric Goranson: It can be.

[00:02:49] Eric Goranson: And like my friend instance, my buddies got a beach house and his dad was running it for him. And he had this guy get in there. His dad wasn't his, you know, was halfway across the country in his eighties trying to [00:03:00] run it and just didn't do it. Right. And the guy ended up owning like two and a half years of rent be before the time they got him out and it was during COVID and all that stuff.

[00:03:10] Eric Goranson: And now he's got about $20,000 into fixing the thing because he had meth heads and everybody else living in it. So I wanna talk about the things you should be prepared for before you decide to. Maybe go buy that house or even more importantly, take something you have and, and turn it into a, you know, a rental unit for yourself.

[00:03:31] Eric Goranson: It's so appealing. When

[00:03:31] Caroline Blazovsky: you think about the amount, amount of money that you can make, you know, cuz you see all of these 2,500 a month, 3,500 a month, it's you get sucked into the fact that wow, I could really have some extra income coming in, but there's so much stuff that you have to

[00:03:46] Eric Goranson: consider. Exactly. So let's go down the list here before we blow through too much time.

[00:03:51] Eric Goranson: Number one, here's my first one, have six months of your mortgage payment for that property. Save. And of course have a [00:04:00] heavy. Duty insurance policy that protects you and the place definitely. Cuz

[00:04:04] Caroline Blazovsky: if someone gets hurt on the property and they Sue you, you could easily go, you know, you need more than just homeowners.

[00:04:09] Caroline Blazovsky: You actually need some type of umbrella policy for your own protection.

[00:04:13] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And you could have that thing, you know, when times are not always great for rental properties. So you could have six months. Where that place is sitting empty. And if you don't have that money squirreled away to pay for the mortgage on it, cuz most people don't have properties that are, that are paid for sitting don't there, they've got a bank payment of some kind.

[00:04:30] Eric Goranson: Right. You know? Sure. And so you've got six months of that mortgage payment there and you're right. I mean, what happens if you know, let's, let's go worst case scenario. Somebody somebody gets heard in the place or killed in the place because maybe you failed to do the inspections and. Smoke detectors weren't working or, or they made the smoke detectors inoperable because they didn't wanna change a battery.

[00:04:54] Eric Goranson: Right. They took the batteries out, you know, anything like that, you wanna be covered cuz you don't wanna lose the stuff you have. I [00:05:00] mean, one it's horrible. You've lost somebody or somebody got hurt, but two, you don't want it to affect your livelihood. On top of that, that's one big thing to remember with this is just to make sure that you've got that money S scrolled away.

[00:05:13] Eric Goranson: Four payments as well as, you know, big insurance writers and have a big deep conversation with your insurance company. Because if you just have regular homeowner's insurance on that property, no, that's not good. It might not even be valid if it's a rental property.

[00:05:27] Caroline Blazovsky: And the other thing really quick is if you are considering being, you know, or having being a landlord, you can also take these properties.

[00:05:34] Caroline Blazovsky: They usually recommend you LLC them. So you actually don't have it under your name. It's under a corporate name. So you would start a new corporation.

[00:05:42] Eric Goranson: So that's where you'd talk to your attorney, talk to your tax accountant and, uh, make sure that youve got the insurance as well for that LLC. And you, if you're the sole member of that.

[00:05:50] Eric Goranson: So it's just something to really keep an eye on and, and work through the next one here. Understand the laws in your area [00:06:00] as a landlord and a tenant, and then join one of the associations in your area for assistance. That's a really good one to

[00:06:10] Caroline Blazovsky: join an association. I didn't even know that they had those because the laws are so intricate.

[00:06:15] Caroline Blazovsky: Like as a basic, if you just go on and Google the law for eviction, for example. Yep. They are so vastly different from where Eric is in Portland to where we are in New Jersey and how you can evict. And it depends on the salary of the person who's renting your property. If they actually are low. You can't get them out of there.

[00:06:33] Caroline Blazovsky: It's, it's very hard versus somebody who's in a higher income bracket. So things like that make a difference.

[00:06:38] Eric Goranson: Well, and here's the other thing too, is, is you need to decide, and this is, this is a hard one, but you need to decide early on if you are gonna take the state or federal low income payments, because there's a whole new set of rules.

[00:06:52] Eric Goranson: When you start getting into the low income housing stuff. You might have your rules for the local area, but [00:07:00] if you have to take those federal payments or the state payments, depending on where you live, um, what I, I had in, when I was living in Seattle, I was dating a girl that was, uh, that had her family, that she was running the business, had 13 rental units in the area.

[00:07:14] Eric Goranson: And so we joined an association and that association was like, um, I'll be honest. Don't do, at that time, their advice was not to take the federal. Payments and not take those, those things. And you had the right at that point to not do them, but they were advising not to because the hoops that you had to jump through were incredible, and it was gonna cost you a lot of money.

[00:07:36] Eric Goranson: One, you were, you were locked into a box and two, it was really kind of incentivizing people not to fix up the properties, not to do anything with 'em, but just have that cheap, you know, price on it. So that was kind of dangerous to, to put yourself in that box. And then second of.

[00:07:52] Caroline Blazovsky: Okay. It's weird too, though.

[00:07:53] Caroline Blazovsky: In when you, when you're a HUD property, believe it or not, or, or at a low income property, mm-hmm, , there's actually a lot more rules you [00:08:00] have to do regarding mold. So for example, as a landlord, you might actually have to fix things up and it might cost you more to have a low income. Versus if you are just a regular standalone rental property, you don't have to do those things.

[00:08:12] Caroline Blazovsky: There's nobody governing you. So it, it so varies depending on how you're gonna rent this.

[00:08:17] Eric Goranson: Exactly. And then that, that group is gonna help you with all the paperwork and stuff, because depending on where you're at, there can be 7, 8, 10 disclosure statements that you have to give to them. There's all the rules you have to follow.

[00:08:30] Eric Goranson: And for instance, here in Oregon, if you, you can't raise your rent up. Basically, and then this is not a legal description, but you have a cap on rent increases about 7% is all you can do in the state of Oregon. There's some rules and stuff around that. We're not gonna get into those details, cuz it doesn't matter, but you just need to know what all those things are.

[00:08:51] Eric Goranson: And one of those groups can really help you they'll have a, you join the group and they many times they'll have the whole paperwork package you should be giving to that potential. [00:09:00] And then that makes it easy, cuz you know, it's up to date. It's great. And you're not trying to, trying to, you know, fight through it on your own and that can be a huge savings for you.

[00:09:10] Eric Goranson: And I think it's good that uh, you've got some support too, down the road. You've got a resource for information of how to navigate. There's gonna be stuff that you don't know what to deal with and they're gonna be able to help you a little.

[00:09:20] Caroline Blazovsky: Do you know, there's a book out about California tenant's rights.

[00:09:24] Caroline Blazovsky: So just like, just think about that. There's an entire book about the rights of tenants for California. Yeah.

[00:09:30] Eric Goranson: Oh yeah, absolutely. Now when we come back, Caroline, let's go out to break. I've got two huge ones here that could save you a ton of money. If you're gonna do this. It could prevent so many problems.

[00:09:41] Eric Goranson: We'll talk about that just as soon as around the house

[00:09:43] Intro: returns, should I be loud? Be so hot.

[00:09:55] Intro: Hey, I'm Rudy

[00:09:55] Eric Goranson: Wade. And you're listening to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B, listen to my [00:10:00] music

[00:10:00] Intro: to improve your home. I hid your line. You got me thinking about the day we move along. You have me singing in

[00:10:08] Eric Goranson: your head. Welcome back to the round, the house show. Now. If you wanna follow us anywhere on social media, just look for around the house show.

[00:10:15] Eric Goranson: And if you're on Facebook, join us over there and join around the house nation. That is our closed group, where we put a bunch of different stuff up there and you can share your projects kind of a safe space, right? Carolyn? Yeah. We like to

[00:10:27] Caroline Blazovsky: see stuff. I like to see what's going on in other people's houses and, and know what you guys are working on.

[00:10:32] Caroline Blazovsky: And if you're, you know, agree with us or disagree, I'm open to all convers.

[00:10:38] Eric Goranson: You know, what I love is great example that happened over here about a week or two ago. Um, guy posted up a thing about this architectural feature on his building that he thought, ah, do I wanna fix it? Do I wanna repair it? And then a world renowned architect jumps on and tells him how to fix it, what he should do.

[00:10:55] Eric Goranson: And a group comes in together of all these industry professionals, TV stars, and everything else are [00:11:00] commenting, helping this guy out. I'm like, that is why I created that years ago. Was just so we could have a community of people help out without having any of the social media drama that goes with it.

[00:11:13] Eric Goranson: Nice. There's a no drama rule in this group. And I love that. So join

[00:11:17] Caroline Blazovsky: us,

[00:11:19] Eric Goranson: come check us out. Come on over. So what we've been talking about the top 10 things to consider before becoming a landlord, just so you're more informed. If it's something you're considering and oh, Caroline, you're considering it. So this is, you're making me not

[00:11:31] Caroline Blazovsky: consider it.

[00:11:33] Caroline Blazovsky: it's a lot, you know, you think it sounds great in theory, it does because the income, the money, you know, it just is, is very appealing cash.

[00:11:43] Eric Goranson: It's like

[00:11:43] Caroline Blazovsky: podcasting. A lot of people get into that and then they realize, uh, can't do it. It's too hard.

[00:11:49] Eric Goranson: Can't tell you how many people I know or businesses. I know go, we're gonna get into podcasting.

[00:11:53] Eric Goranson: It's gotta be easy. And either the first episode doesn't even air or about the fourth episode, they [00:12:00] go, oh, we can't invest in this. This is too much work. And they bail out of it and it happens all the time or nobody's

[00:12:04] Caroline Blazovsky: listening. So they get

[00:12:06] Intro: crickets

[00:12:09] Eric Goranson: that happens. That happens to everyone. Yes. So, well, the next one here on the list that I wanted to dive into is probably one of the most important on.

[00:12:19] Eric Goranson: And that is doing legitimate background checks on who you're putting in mm-hmm you need to make sure. And you know, I, I don't have a problem with somebody. That's got a, a legal past. You know, okay. They got busted for something 15 years ago and they got their life together. People have histories. That's not what I'm talking about.

[00:12:38] Eric Goranson: What I'm worried about is putting the child molester into the duplex or somebody that is, that has got a long history of destroying properties or on payment, you know, somebody that's running a drug den outta the house. Right.

[00:12:52] Caroline Blazovsky: And I don't know. I mean like how do you really gauge? I mean, could it be that somebody is really.

[00:12:58] Caroline Blazovsky: Um, not of [00:13:00] character and their background check comes back. Okay. Or the,

[00:13:04] Eric Goranson: oh, it's not a foolproof method, but it will tell you because a lot of times, you know, you can charge for that background check. So depending on the state laws, so when they fill out their application, you'll okay. I, I need the 30, 40, 50, or whatever dollars you can charge and whatever it costs you to do the background check, and then you get over, give it over the company to do the background check.

[00:13:23] Eric Goranson: I always hired a company to do that for me, so I didn't have to worry about it. And then they would come back and say, Here's what the background check is. And then you could see if they'd had, you know, if, if they're, if they've got a long history of evictions, you should go. Mm mm. All right. If they've already had four evictions in the last 10 years, maybe this might not be a great tenant.

[00:13:44] Eric Goranson: You know, the

[00:13:44] Caroline Blazovsky: other downside to this. Is they recommend that you what's, that do not rent to friends and family. So here you've got one thing you've gotta do a background check, check on a stranger, but then you might say, oh, well, I'll just rent it to my friend. My family I've

[00:13:58] Eric Goranson: thought that that could be [00:14:00] worse.

[00:14:00] Eric Goranson: That can be worse. Why is it just

[00:14:03] Caroline Blazovsky: cuz you can't totally them out cuz they're gonna hate you for the rest of your life.

[00:14:06] Eric Goranson: Uh it's you know, it's a business transaction when you have a landlord, right? Yeah. Now you've made it personal when you've put that personal aspect to it. You know, when it's your, your buddy from college or something like that, or your brother-in-law or something crazy, that's when it goes sideways.

[00:14:22] Eric Goranson: And I think that's

[00:14:23] Caroline Blazovsky: what you gotta be really. I think one of the numbers, but I'm not gonna jump ahead, would fit in with this category, what we were talking about, and then you have to have conversations. Mm-hmm that aren't pleasant.

[00:14:34] Eric Goranson: Many times, many times, and you're gonna have it just trying to find you're gonna have unpleasant conversations just in the whole application process.

[00:14:43] Eric Goranson: It really is. You don't think about that because you're gonna have people ask re you know, that's the whole thing. So we'll talk more about that. Moving forward, upcoming in the list here. Now, the next one is really important as well. You need to have a written out maintenance. What are you doing [00:15:00] to keep this place maintained?

[00:15:01] Eric Goranson: When are you having the, the carpets cleaned or replaced? When are you going around and doing the caulking and the exterior painting? When are you doing a HVAC, a bathroom, HVAC, HVAC, water heater, all those maintenance things that you do to your house now has to be done to this other residence. And the problem is, is this is where.

[00:15:24] Eric Goranson: We'll step back on the maintenance plan. It is very hard to be profitable with a handful of properties. If you're not doing this stuff yourself, a lot of it. Mm-hmm I agree. If you're not handy, I would recommend that you are not becoming a small landlord. Because you need to hire people then to do it and your profits go out the door really quickly.

[00:15:48] Eric Goranson: When you're hiring a plumber electrician, 500 bucks to come over to repair a faucet that you could have done. Money goes out the door, too quick. Electrician,

[00:15:57] Caroline Blazovsky: electrician. I just had an electrician at the house. Two [00:16:00] guys showed up and $250 just to have them change a wire, just to give you an idea,

[00:16:05] Eric Goranson: but here's a great debate, Caroline.

[00:16:07] Eric Goranson: I would almost recommend that you hire the electric. Instead of doing yourself. Absolutely. That's what I'm saying, because if you burn the house down doing something simple. No, no guess what, now you're liable. And so maybe that $300 charge for them to swap out an outlet. Oh. Is gonna be cheaper than somebody dying on a household.

[00:16:27] Eric Goranson: I think you have

[00:16:28] Caroline Blazovsky: to have electrician and even with plumbing issues, I see so much of it in my trade. You know, people think they can do plumbing and they put the wrong thing. And we talked about shark bites. You're like, oh, I'll just put a shark bite here. And then all of a sudden you've got a leak in the wall that costs you $30,000 in Boulder remediation.

[00:16:44] Eric Goranson: And you've got all that remediation cleanup, and you've now gotta put up tenants in a hotel. That person that's renting. In a motel or whatever, while that's happening. And then you, you know, and that can

[00:16:54] be

[00:16:54] Caroline Blazovsky: expensive. Six tenants. I have this, I mean, when I say I have this every six months, I'm not joking.

[00:16:59] Caroline Blazovsky: There's always [00:17:00] tenants getting sick from mold and they are always trying to file suits. That doesn't mean you're gonna be successful against the landlord. However, the landlord's gotta go and defend themselves and it comes back to insurance again. You need to make sure you're protected cuz at any given time

[00:17:12] Eric Goranson: lawsuit.

[00:17:12] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I mean, I had a lot of fun doing, doing the landlord stuff. But there are times that it's gonna be rough and just expect that. And, um, that maintenance plan is really big, cuz you need to go around and do it. And uh, you know, getting ready, you can spend a day just going around and making sure things are winterized correctly.

[00:17:31] Eric Goranson: Are you suggesting that, you know, going around, if you've got multiple products, are you suggesting that they

[00:17:35] Caroline Blazovsky: give the. Is this for them personally, as a landlord, or do you recommend they give it to the tenant as a list of things that are

[00:17:42] Eric Goranson: gonna be done never to the tenant. Gotcha. Nope. Never to the tenant.

[00:17:44] Eric Goranson: It is your responsibility and you don't want that tenant to have the responsibility of trying to make things. Sure. Things are winterized. You know, if you've got a, supposed to have covers on the go do it. Mm-hmm . It's not that you it's your responsibility. I would not put it on the tenant, [00:18:00] uh, to do any of that or no, just what

[00:18:01] I

[00:18:02] Caroline Blazovsky: meant is giving it to them just so they could see it and know what's gonna get done.

[00:18:05] Caroline Blazovsky: Or is it just for your own personal? No.

[00:18:08] Eric Goranson: It's for your own personal thing and then just turn around and you'll have to make sure again what the notice is to make sure you got the correct notice to them. Cuz many times you have to have 24 48 hours notice just to get into work on the place. So you can't just roll over there unless it's an emergency and check your local laws for that.

[00:18:24] Eric Goranson: Now, when we come back, there's a huge one here that I think is gonna save you the most. Trouble headaches and money in the long term. We'll talk about that just as soon as around the house

[00:18:35] Intro: returns.

[00:18:49] Intro: Hey guys, you're listening to

[00:18:50] Eric Goranson: around the house with. Gene Caroline B Zeke sky. And I'm gonna show you how to shred it

[00:18:55] Intro: out while you're building it up.[00:19:00]

[00:19:02] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the, around the house show. Now, if you are sitting there listening to us on the radio, we appreciate you. But don't forget. We do have a podcast for all the radio listeners out there that you can grab on any podcast player. Just make sure you head over and hit that subscribe button, especially if you're on apple iTunes or one of those things, or apple podcasts hit the subscribe button, Spotify, all those, and that way you get informed of all the different shows we're doing, including our midweek special, where we talk about stuff that doesn't hit the radio only the podcast.

[00:19:32] Eric Goranson: Well, Caroline and I we've been having fun. We've been talking about top 10 things to consider. Before you become a landlord and I'm scar you. I

[00:19:39] Caroline Blazovsky: think it is. It's a good topic. I think everybody kind of contemplates being a landlord at some point they go, you know, I could do that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's sort of like, it just happens.

[00:19:48] Caroline Blazovsky: Like everybody in a household is at one point I think

[00:19:51] Eric Goranson: considered it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Next on the list, which is number five here. Six month inspections. [00:20:00] Now to get access inside a residence, you usually have to give them 24, 48 hours. Notice, know your local laws for that, but you need to go do a tenant walkthrough with them every six months to make sure.

[00:20:15] Eric Goranson: Here's what you're looking for. If you have a no pets policy, make sure you don't have pets. If you've got damage inside that they haven't called you about maybe that the, the faucet's leaking or there's a water leak in the bathroom every six months, you're gonna catch it. Mm-hmm if they're hoarders, you're gonna catch it

[00:20:33] Caroline Blazovsky: now.

[00:20:33] Caroline Blazovsky: Catch you see where I'm going. I mean, is this some kind of breach. Privacy. I mean, can you put that in the contract? Should that be in your contract?

[00:20:41] Eric Goranson: It should be in your contract because there's, uh, it will say in the contract, and this is where you have to have the lawyers involved or have a, an association that wrote the contract.

[00:20:50] Eric Goranson: You have the right as a landlord to have access, to do inspections. Typically it's, uh, a six month is what you have. You might even have a 90 day, but I would recommend [00:21:00] every six months. And this is the biggest step that's missed by landlords across the us. This is the number one thing they miss is they get busy and they don't do these.

[00:21:12] Eric Goranson: I mean, I have had some horror stories from people when I've been working in the remodeling business. I had one guy that, um, they had a really nice house and the guy they weren't paying attention. The. Power and water got turned off. And so the guy was heating the house by taking the cabinet doors in the kitchen to the bathrooms and was burning 'em in the fireplace.

[00:21:37] Eric Goranson: Yeah.

[00:21:38] Caroline Blazovsky: And I've heard of this a lot that people can't pay their electric or their gas or their oil, and then it gets shut off and then pipes break and that kind of stuff I've heard. But burning cabinets

[00:21:47] Eric Goranson: is pretty severe. Yeah. Cabinet doors all went into the fireplace cuz they found in the ashes, all the cabinet door hardware was.

[00:21:56] Eric Goranson: The ashes, the fireplace, cuz he wanted to know where the doors went [00:22:00] and when they cleaned the fireplace out, there's a bunch of Ash in there and it was all cabinet door hardware at the bottom.

[00:22:05] Caroline Blazovsky: And, and as a landlord, do you even have any legal ramification for kind of stuff like that? Can you Sue them? I mean, I don't.

[00:22:14] Eric Goranson: Yeah, but I mean, if you've got somebody that's, that's almost homeless. Yeah. What are gonna see

[00:22:19] Caroline Blazovsky: it? What are you gonna get? That's like the same with like a drunk driver who has nothing, no insurance. I mean, you're getting nothing.

[00:22:25] Eric Goranson: You know, people owe me money out there that I'm never gonna see fair amount.

[00:22:30] Eric Goranson: I mean, what are you gonna Sue? Okay. So you're gonna go spend 15 grand an attorney Sue to get

[00:22:35] Intro: nothing

[00:22:36] Caroline Blazovsky: to nothing.

[00:22:37] Eric Goranson: Very true. Yeah. I mean, there's times you just gotta write it off and that's, that's the unfortunate part with that. So that's a big one. So knowing that and being able to manage. Is huge. That way you can track what's going on.

[00:22:50] Eric Goranson: You can also go in and go, wow. That carpet's not wearing well. When these people move out, I'm gonna have to replace the carpet. You have an idea of

[00:22:57] Caroline Blazovsky: where you're going. Like, you know, things that [00:23:00] are gonna need to be replaced and budgetary for yourself.

[00:23:02] Eric Goranson: Exactly. Exactly. Nice. Next one. Evictions. Understand how that goes.

[00:23:10] Eric Goranson: And you're gonna have that expect to have, like, you talked about Caroline. Expect to have those hard discussions because people not paying bills and you having to remove them for drug activity, illegal behavior, you know, breaking the law. Think about this, if you

[00:23:31] Caroline Blazovsky: have like a no vaping or smoking policy in your home, and you've gotta tell someone who's vaping and smoking that you don't want them doing it, the lies are gonna be flying.

[00:23:40] Caroline Blazovsky: It's gonna be so awkward. You're gonna be accusing them of something and it puts you in. So, I mean, this would be very challenging for me, cuz I don't like to hurt people's feelings and I like to feel like the conversations are good and there's just no good way to have that conversation.

[00:23:54] Eric Goranson: No, and you you've gotta have a, a tough constitution to have some of these conversations stressful, right?[00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Eric Goranson: Because I, we had one with my, with the, how, the ones I was helping manage up in the Seattle area where this was a mobile home and a gated community in a mobile home gated community at the time. And I think that's now been torn down and has now put into like residential housing cuz the air got so expensive.

[00:24:19] Eric Goranson: But during that time, They had put cats in, you know, and so the cats had done all this damage to the carpet and, you know, that place had to be just really cleaned up afterwards and things replaced and everything else. And what's unfortunate was, and it was in a, in a, in a mobile home that was gonna get torn down, hauled off and dumpsters, you know, so as soon as that place turned over and it was gonna be really bad, but that's things that happen when.

[00:24:47] Caroline Blazovsky: I've gotta add a sidebar. When we talk about cats, I have so many clients that say, what is such a big deal about a cat cats, proteins. If we actually could see them under microscope, they have like little sticky balls as [00:25:00] proteins. Like imagine like a little thing that's got spikes on that sticks to everything.

[00:25:03] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. These things get all over your premise and they are way worse than like a dog protein.

[00:25:08] Eric Goranson: So guys that's number seven, actually pets and expect damage. So let's dive into this good timing, Caroline. Oh, you were moving ahead and you don't even have a list in front of you. psychic. Exactly. So here's the thing.

[00:25:22] Eric Goranson: When you're talking pets, you've gotta decide if you're gonna create a place that's pet friendly or if you're gonna have a no pet solution. Like if I'm going to say that I'm gonna have pets allowed in a house. That pretty much removes wall Towa carpeting in any room as a landlord. Mm-hmm . I am now going to a pet proof click block vinyl, luxury vinyl plank, or hardwoods, which can get destroyed.

[00:25:55] Eric Goranson: Yeah. That can get destroyed too. Yep. So first off, there are no [00:26:00] hardwoods out there that are pet proof. I don't care what the manufacturer says. If they're a prefinished floor and they click together any place, they've cut it. Any place where the, where the grooves are, it can get down in there and soak into the wood still.

[00:26:15] Eric Goranson: It will happen. So you've got pee and

[00:26:17] Caroline Blazovsky: you have to think about nails and claws and all the scratching

[00:26:20] Intro: mm-hmm .

[00:26:22] Eric Goranson: So really take a look at hotels that allow pets. What do they do? They put in the vinyl floor. Many times they actually do the glue down version of it because it tends to not move around as much.

[00:26:33] Eric Goranson: And so it can seal up, but you do that. And then you see 'em, you know, putting in stuff that can be easily cleaned. You don't have a lot of fabrics in there and stuff, you know, for blinds. It's more, it's more of that really hard surface. These

[00:26:46] Caroline Blazovsky: proteins are sticky. So they get in your now think about your forest, hot air, your duct work.

[00:26:50] Caroline Blazovsky: You know, it's almost better if you have a baseboard heat system or electric heat. Where you don't have to have ducks, cuz then you gotta have your ducks cleaned and you gotta have all that HVAC maintained and filters. [00:27:00] If people have multiple pets.

[00:27:01] Eric Goranson: Well let's sidebar on that baseboard heat. It's something that I probably discourage the most in rental properties you do because people tend.

[00:27:11] Eric Goranson: To put appliances that's, it's a heating appliance, right? So they depend, tend to stack up furniture, clothes, everything near these things, and they don't manage it correctly. Those can be a massive fire hazard in the world of rentals. So I, I prefer not to have those. I want to have a forced air heating and cooling system versus a baseboard heat, just because of the fire hazard that you can have by clothing furniture.

[00:27:39] Eric Goranson: Just stupidity around the heating appliance.

[00:27:42] Caroline Blazovsky: I can definitely see that. But then when I look at like an HVAC and all the thing tenants could do, especially if you have flex stuck, which is this plastic ducking, not real stuff, smoke vaping gets in there, proteins get in there, mold gets in there. You might have to replace your whole HVAC.

[00:27:58] Caroline Blazovsky: All the scenarios are bad. [00:28:00] Yeah,

[00:28:00] Eric Goranson: I don't see any, I don't wanna be too negative on this one, but it's just something you really, really need to think about. And, uh, I mean, you can go through and clean it, you know, and that's something that you have to, to pay attention to, but, uh, pats are a big deal and here's the other problem we gotta be careful with is you could have other issues with dangerous dog breeds and stuff that aren't even allowed in that neighborhood.

[00:28:20] Eric Goranson: That's right. So now when we come back, we're gonna wrap up our last three. We're going. We'll do that just as soon is around the house

[00:28:26] Intro: returns.

[00:28:37] Intro: I'm gonna take your.

[00:28:54] Intro: Hi, everybody. I'm

[00:28:56] Eric Goranson: AMA from Stephen alos band and you [00:29:00] are listening to around the house with.

[00:29:02] Intro: She and the beautiful Caroline.

[00:29:07] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round, the house show. Now, if you've missed some of these things and you're listening on the radio, don't worry. You can always catch it on the podcast on.

[00:29:14] Eric Goranson: Podcast player. Well, Caroline and I we've been talking about the top 10 things to consider before becoming a landlord. So where are you at so far? Caroline? Have I got you discouraged of being a landlord? Just,

[00:29:24] Intro: I

[00:29:24] Caroline Blazovsky: dunno, everyones gonna encourage us like discourage or encourage that we're being negative, but we're not, we're really just trying to give you guys the real scenario and.

[00:29:35] Caroline Blazovsky: Maybe we should throw a positive. What's the positive besides financial? Well,

[00:29:38] Eric Goranson: here's the, here's the positive. The positive is, and this is, this is why people become landlords. The biggest positive out there is that you can buy a piece of property and in a number of years in theory, that could almost double in value.

[00:29:54] Eric Goranson: So that's the cool part is that you might have bought a house for 300,000 or [00:30:00] 800,000, depending on where you're out in the country. And yes, that could be the same house depending on the house's location, but all of a sudden in 10 years or five years, that could be worth double that. So there's a huge upside to being a landlord on the property value side.

[00:30:19] Eric Goranson: It's just poor people and. I know people that have been landlords that have done that have followed kind of these top 10 things that we're talking about today that have had great experiences and they found good people. They had good working relationships and things went really well. And generally it worked out well and the house didn't get destroyed throughout that, but it's, it really comes down to you and the choices you make as a landlord to make sure that you're putting the right people in there and that you're getting it taken care.

[00:30:50] Eric Goranson: And I've seen

[00:30:51] Caroline Blazovsky: a lot of people purchase. They actually take home equity loans, purchase another property and have those new tenants end up paying for their property. And they do financially. [00:31:00] Well, you know, and they've done that for years. It's just, there is risk

[00:31:03] Eric Goranson: involved. There's a lot of risk involved and a lot of it just comes down to you and how well you manage this.

[00:31:10] Eric Goranson: And you know, of course, bad things will happen. I mean, it's just like any business thing it's up and down, but yes, there's ways to do that. So ne next on this one, Or number eight repair and replace with durability in mind. So for instance, if you are replacing a toilet, that's giving you problems. Now let's say you've got a tenant that goes in there and they're like, man, the toilet's plugged again.

[00:31:34] Eric Goranson: Oh man, let me go get that. And maybe it's a cheapy toilet in there. Maybe it's one of the home center, a hundred dollars toilets. Right. And you're always over there. You're you've got a plumber over there. You're better to go spend. A $300 toilet, like a nice Toto Drake or something over there. Mm-hmm or, you know, one of the nicer American standards or one of those to put in there and then not have to worry about it and never have to get that call on a toilet [00:32:00] issue.

[00:32:00] Eric Goranson: True. Because what happens is, is when you're the landlord, it's always at like eight o'clock on a Sunday night, you're winding down, you've got a glass of wine. You're worried about the weekend. You're binge watching your favorite show, your phone rings and the toilet's overflowing in the bathroom over here.

[00:32:17] Eric Goranson: It's Mrs. Smith. Now you're getting dressed, going over there with the plunger. You just completely Dodge that if you put the right toilet in there, so durability. Make sure durability mm-hmm like there's carpets. Now, if you're putting carpets in, there is some of those smart strand carpets out there that I could put a white carpet in and I could throw you and I could get in a red wine fight with bottles, throwing wine on each other.

[00:32:44] Eric Goranson: And I could go in there with warm water and a carpet shampooer, and it would look like brand new carpet.

[00:32:50] Caroline Blazovsky: And they're doing that a lot with, um, couches and things like that, too. So think about some people do corporate rentals. It's not always that you're doing, you know, a vacant rental where somebody comes in.

[00:32:59] Caroline Blazovsky: So if you're [00:33:00] doing furniture and things like that, go with the more durable fabrics.

[00:33:04] Eric Goranson: Yeah. There's huge corporate rentals in my area here because we have, you know, close to me half mile within, you know, within 20 minutes of me, I have Intel. Headquarters. And I also have Nike's headquarters. And so we've got two huge companies, as well as Adidas corporate, and you know, so we've got a lot of those guys here.

[00:33:23] Eric Goranson: We do too.

[00:33:24] Caroline Blazovsky: We've got all the pharma big pharma. That's a way to go too. Like if you are trying to get, I find that I've had friends and colleagues who have done corporate rentals and they've been very successful with getting, you know, an upscale clientele and being able to maintain, you know, a nicer place.

[00:33:40] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. And furnish it, a furnished place that people can come in and rent. Think about that corporate.

[00:33:44] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that's great. Sometimes with those corporate rentals, I've done them where the corporation is actually they've signed a two year lease with you and they were all their people through there and they're covering it.

[00:33:53] Eric Goranson: It's not a bad way to go. Not a bad way to go. Number nine. Have good neighbors that you're [00:34:00] friends with that will report issues to

[00:34:03] Intro: you, spies. Yeah.

[00:34:07] Eric Goranson: Drive by the place every once in a while. You know, if you, if you are in a nice neighborhood and you drive by and there's four cars in the front lawn with the wheels off of 'em, it looks like they've got a junkyard going, you've got a problem.

[00:34:18] Eric Goranson: And you could start doing that. If they're supposed to take care of lawn maintenance and the neighbor's like, Hey, there's two, there's two city warnings on the front door. They're not taking care of the place. You've got issues. Mm-hmm , you know, just as if there's, you know, younger kids in there and it's the fourth frat party of the week.

[00:34:36] Eric Goranson: Right. Right. You know, people have, could be damaged. So just. Yeah. Having those neighbors to report issues with you and just give you some feedback and go, Hey, something's outta control or, or even worse that maybe there's something dangerous going over there, like, you know, domestic violence and damage and things like that.

[00:34:53] Eric Goranson: All those things can happen. And if the police have been showing up over their time and time, again, maybe there's some issues that need to be addressed, [00:35:00] you know, all. Handling the privacy concerns of the, of the tenant, but, you know, follow the laws there carefully. But uh, sometimes the landlord you have to intervene and say, Hey guys, uh, you know, we're not, we're not being good neighbors to everybody else.

[00:35:12] Eric Goranson: We gotta dial this in. Mm-hmm good on now, here's the biggest one on the entire list that we're gonna have to jam in, in here before the segment ends, before the bell have, yeah. Have someone on call. While you're away from emergency repairs.

[00:35:28] Caroline Blazovsky: Now, do you recommend, it's like a contractor? Do you recommend that it's have a plumber electrician, maybe just backups that you can just call from if you're in Florida and send them right over that, you know, that's what I would

[00:35:38] Eric Goranson: do.

[00:35:38] Eric Goranson: Here's two things that I see. Sometimes people will have a property management company that will take care of this for them. I've seen people hire property management companies, and then they deal with those problems. And then you, as the homeowner, that as the landlord will deal with the major stuff, but you can do that.

[00:35:56] Eric Goranson: That's one way to do it. The other way is to do it [00:36:00] is to, uh, have a handyman company that's on call and it's got a twenty four seven emergency repair, uh, or they call you and you've got the plumber, the electrician, um, all the different HVAC, you know, all those guys on call, cuz what happens is Murphy's law says you're in The Bahamas on a cruise.

[00:36:19] Eric Goranson: And they're calling saying there's a water pipe leak. Yep. Or

[00:36:22] Caroline Blazovsky: HVAC out. And it's wintertime. I think if it summer time me, just because things cost a lot. And if you have property manager, it's gonna be expensive. So I would have a full list of all the people that you potentially need to go over there. So it could be your plumber, your HVAC, you know, have that all arranged.

[00:36:38] Caroline Blazovsky: So you know that you can call someone and they've got 24 hour service.

[00:36:42] Eric Goranson: And that's property manager is hard to make money doing that because again, you're paying people to be doing stuff and, and they're taking a cut of it. And if it just has to be depend on what your time is worth, most people don't do property management companies because I'll be honest.

[00:36:57] Eric Goranson: Many of them don't do a great job of putting decent [00:37:00] tenants in there. They don't have the emotional tie to the house that you do. So they're like, oh, that's good enough. We'll put 'em in there. We rented it. Cool money. But when the damage happens, you're still responsible for it. So there's a common myth right there.

[00:37:15] Eric Goranson: When you hire a property management company on there and they put a horrible tenant in there, you're fixing it. They're not paying for it. And I had a buddy that was shocked at that. He's like, oh, I'm just gonna hire a property management company. They'll take care of it. And you know, if they put somebody in there that's bad, now they'll take care of it.

[00:37:32] Eric Goranson: I'm like, yeah, you're paying for the repairs. And he goes, what, what are you talking about? I'm like, You're building your repairs. You're responsible, you're

[00:37:40] Caroline Blazovsky: responsible. It's your building, your repair. You're always respons assume. You're always responsible. Go out on that note. You're always responsible and you gotta

[00:37:48] Eric Goranson: protect yourself.

[00:37:49] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. So there's a lot of pluses and minuses with this. You know, there's a lot of places where you can make money with this. There's, you know, being a good human is part of this and making sure [00:38:00] that you're working with people correctly, but I'll be honest. Uh, one of the other ones real quick here that I wanted to say.

[00:38:07] Eric Goranson: It is very easy. Make sure that you have an easy way for them to pay rent to you. Oh, Venmo, make it easy. I love Venmo, Venmo, you know, Zal one of those things, PayPal, you know, make sure you have an easy way to do it and never have the checks in the mail because the checks in the mail never works. It's always lost.

[00:38:28] Caroline Blazovsky: You ever noticed that when they send the checks in the mail, it's like, it's lost. Oh my gosh, what do you mean? It's lost? I sent it, I swear.

[00:38:34] Eric Goranson: I sent it. Even with the apartments that we were managing, we had a sixplex that we were managing and we even put a locked in mailbox for people to drop it in there and they'd go, oh, I put it in there.

[00:38:46] Eric Goranson: Somebody must have stole it. It's like, I'm the only one with the key. Nobody stole it. So that's where the problems arise. If you're gonna do this, make it profitable. Give somebody a great home to live in. Sounds good to me. [00:39:00] All right. I hear the music playing in the background. Caroline. I'm Eric G and I'm Caroline B and you've been listening to

[00:39:07] Intro: around the house.