Yeah, days like that can be frustrating. Glad you got it secured & behind you. Now try to relax & enjoy the evening, knowing your property is safe.

YouTube.

NE, I watched a youtube video and got youtube courage. That's why I kept at it until I went down in defeat and called the locksmith. Guy came out and was done in 20 minutes and charged me $ 136.00 Compared to my frustration and time burnt up running back and forth to HD, that would have been far cheaper to do at the outset. Perhaps had the doors been wooden and not needing the lock brace, I could have done it, but I'm not going to even attempt it with the rest of the doors--I have another nine to put LL Locks in. The same guy who came out tonight will get that job.

How can a landlord supervise it, if they can't do it themselves?

How do you know if it's right or wrong?

I don't mean you specifically GKarl, I mean in general.

Not being able to do simple things on these buildings opens up the door for a plethora of other problems.

If this guy charges you $100 a door for 5 door knobs, how long can that last? How is it sustainable? It's really not.

I think if a landlord can do the work and hires it out by choice is one thing. If a landlord CANT do the work because they don't know how and hire it out, they are at an enormous disadvantage.

You have to get educated on the basics at least.

Again, speaking generally.

It's hard to beat a man at his trade / skill.

NE, I agree completely that you should know how things are done and the standards by which they should be done. However, I don't think you actually have to do it to get that knowledge. The main thing I do to manage and/or obtain knowledge is talk with various people either in person or even here. Simply going through the process of interviewing people is highly educational and you can often cross check what one person is recommending or suggesting versus what the other guy may be. There are ways of gaining enough knowledge, without actually doing the work, to avoid being ripped off or taken advantage of. I agree however, education on the basics is essential. However, I think one doesn't have to do the work to obtain that.

Ultimately, we all have to rely on others at some point to do what we lack the expertise to do. For example, would you suggest that you'd have to know how to do your own income taxes to avoid overpaying taxes? More than likely, you'd do the same as I'd do with contractors. You'd take recommendations and talk with a few different CPA's and have them give you a few different insights before settling on who you'd retain. You would probably pick up some generalized knowledge so you can assess the person's competency and a huge factor would be someone's recommendation or referral. But you'd be hard pressed and disinclined to actually go through the Internal Revenue Code and associated regs yourself.

I have to be honest NE, if being a LL came down to me personally dealing with toilets in the middle of the night or any of the other stuff that I've passed off to others, I'd get out the business. It's simply not sustainable or effective for me to do that stuff versus hiring someone else to do it. Only the simplest things do I have the time, focus and capacity to do.

A front door to a property needed to be replaced. My partners and tenant wanted to job done immediately. I was busy and couldn't get to it for a few days. Not good enough so my partners decided to hire a handyman to replace the door.

First off the door was a non-standard size, 40 inches. Second the new door needed to be a Solid Core Door, not hollow. Third there needed to be three hinges instead of two. The door jamb needed a reinforcing metal plate screwed into the Stud, not just the door frame. Besides a passage lock there needed to be a high security deadbolt lock.

The "so called handyman" installed a Hollow Core Door, no insulation or threshold to seal the door from air leaks. He only used two hinges and installed a $12 lock set. No peek hole viewer and not primed or painted. He charged $400 to install the door and $250 for parts and labor. A real rip off.

So I, a licensed contractor and partner, had to re-do the job installing the right door with the correct hardware.

I dislike working on doors so Ihave a guy for that. But there are things I didn't know how to do and learned from watching the expensive tech. I paid weekend winter emergency rate to the heating company to come out. I knew to check the kill switch (tenants seem to turn it off) and cross the thermostat wires to rule out a bad thermostat. I paid 130 to watch the tech replace a thermocouple. Now that I know how, I keep a couple on hand. Same for circulator pumps. I saved 1100 off a service call for a radiant floor system I wasn't familiar with. Once that tech did the troubleshooting and showed me everything that was wrong, I went to HD and came back w my tools.

I dislike working on doors so Ihave a guy for that. But there are things I didn't know how to do and learned from watching the expensive tech. I paid weekend winter emergency rate to the heating company to come out. I knew to check the kill switch (tenants seem to turn it off) and cross the thermostat wires to rule out a bad thermostat. I paid 130 to watch the tech replace a thermocouple. Now that I know how, I keep a couple on hand. Same for circulator pumps. I saved 1100 off a service call for a radiant floor system I wasn't familiar with. Once that tech did the troubleshooting and showed me everything that was wrong, I went to HD and came back w my tools.

"It is easy if you know how" A big landlord told me that years ago.

I must subscribe to the NE overview on this one. As we speak, people are going to the doctors for medications. If they would use common sense it would contradict the professional doctors. This speaks to what Robert J was illustrating.

A LL who can't fix anything, knows how to fix things in theory but not practically, doesn't have the time to fix...Then hires a contractor - will see his/her bottom line diminish, or turn red.

The same rule applies to house flippers w/o skills, who are looking to "double their money in 3 months". Won't happen in most cases.

The older we get, the more we use others to fix stuff we don't want to deal with any longer.

My father was a "building superintendent" (janitor) for many years; managed three buildings. The one we lived in was owned by a dentist; in 25 years I never once saw the owner. Everything was handled by property management, including the plumber, electrician and painter all on contract.

There's a hard physical limit to doing repairs and such. Age and injury are those hard limits and when those happen your business fails unless you have something else set up. There's a lot of talk here about how we should present ourselves as managers to the tenants. I'm more interested in being a manager in fact rather than in "presentation" as works for me as a sustainable business model.

GKarl, all I can say is that in real life here at home, I know of no landlords who hire everything out. Not one.

I know a lot of landlords.

Posted this previously in the wrong thread:

Ken, I may have to drive up your way for a day or 2 sometime and shadow you if you were willing.

This hiring out, as I have stated many times, just doesn't make sense to me. I can't get me head around it. I don't know how I could buy properties any cheaper.

I understand that people have limits.

No time, aches and pains, don't know this trade, family obligations, it's vacation time, too many other things to do, etc, etc.

However, every time you delegate, you write a check. It comes from your bottom line.

Mind you, I delegate too. I used to build custom homes and do renovations.

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake I had to fix more than a dozen homes STAT. I had to hire help or face many vacancies at once. When tenants saw me working my ass off trying to restore things to what they used to be before...they all stayed put.

Hiring out works within reason. But typically not for small / minor projects.

I work full time on my properties with an experienced helper. There is basically nothing that we don't do, but sometimes "easy" big projects are subbed like painting when we are busy with more technical renovations (for instance; I had a local painter finish a house I bought that needs paint and flooring only while my helper and I work on converting an old church into a 4 unit apartment building).

If you DO have to hire something out that you should / can do yourself I think it is important to shadow the guy doing the work so you can save yourself the money the next time you have that problem. And in this line of work you'll see the same problems over and over in my experience.

NE, you stated that in your locale that you were unaware of any landlords who hired out all the repairs. In my market, nearly all that are under property management agreements would hire out all repairs, I thought that was the norm.

"Hiring out works within reason. But typically not for small / minor projects."

The locksmith who did the one door on his off hour rate will do the remaining nine for $ 150.00. He'll need to drill new holes on some of them and install the reinforcement plate and on others he'll just swap the deadbolts out and put in a new one and put in passage locks. To me, this is a small cost to pay to get it done and not be bothered with it. He'll be quicker and do it better than I will. My thing is that is takes less time to manage than to "do".

Ultimately, we all have to do what works for us. As I said, I have another full time business and I simply don't have the time, focus, expertise or desire to do this sort of stuff unless it's very simple and straightforward. Many of you guys not only have the time and expertise to do this sort of thing, but you also enjoy it. Like Ken, I enjoy and prefer managing, budgeting and analyzing deals. I don't relish the idea of landing a deal and then turning around and physically working to renovate or repair.

GKARL,

Congrats on a super effort! And for recognizing your strengths and not so strengths.

My take: success comes thru being willing to do whatever it takes. You did that. And you saw it thru with plan B.

I have not done any repairs, cleaning, painting, etc on any rentals in 20 years. When I took my tools out of my van my income mushroomed.

And if ya believe that,