Provo Home Will Save Tons Of Energy – Katie England Daily Herald Carl Youngblood has long held an interest in energy efficiency, and it shows. He drives an electric car and is thinking of trading in his family’s second vehicle for a Tesla. It makes sense, then, that the software engineer is now constructing the first certified “passive house” in Provo. Youngblood had been studying off-the-grid cabins and houses when he first came across the concept of a passive home. “This was a standard that was the deluxe version of that, so I gravitated toward it,” Youngblood said. So what’s the difference between a passive home and a regular one? Special building designs, and massive amounts of insulation. These features keep the buildings from changing temperature quickly. Buildings built to the standard can save up to 80 percent on energy use, according to the website of Brach Design Architecture. In some parts of the country, the insulation allows owners of passive homes to forego heaters. With Utah’s winters, a heater will still be needed, though on a much smaller scale than normal. Even then, solar panels Youngblood is planning to install will produce the energy needed to run the entire home, which includes an accessory apartment in the basement. “It’s called a net zero — a house that is producing as much as it is consuming,” Youngblood said. The walls of the home have three to four times the thickness of insulation that a normal home would, and another barrier is put in all the walls to keep the building airtight.
Reasons Tenants Move If you’ve been a landlord for long enough, you’ve inevitably had an experience where you have a good tenant — things seem to be going fine — and then they surprise you by not renewing their lease. Aside from being costly, these situations are confusing. What makes these tenants leave? 1. Changes in Personal Situation In many cases, a tenant’s personal situation may simply change. Maybe they’ve changed jobs, recently expanded their family, or are moving away to be close to a significant other. There’s nothing you can do about these highly personal situations, which often sneak up with very little warning. 2. An Expensive Rent Hike Are you enacting an increase in rent? Even if it’s simply to keep up with the going rate, many tenants don’t like the idea of increasing a rent payment for the same property. For some reason, they’d rather switch properties and pay more. Psychologically, a new place seems to better justify the price increase. If you absolutely have to raise rent, do so over time. Raising your rent by more than 10 percent is a surefire way to lose even your most loyal renters. If your rent is significantly below market value, tell your tenants. Then, gradually raise rent in increments each year. Raising rent 2–3 percent here and there will have a much less noticeable effect. 3. Poor Attention to Detail Sometimes tenants simply get tired of dealing with your lack of attentiveness. While they understand that issues happen, they want to see you put forth the proper effort to correct them. For example, if the air conditioning goes out on a Friday afternoon in July, they want you to make as many calls as you can to get someone out there right away. Waiting until Monday and forcing them to suffer through the miserable heat won’t win you any bonus points. 4. Lack of Communication This one goes hand-in-hand with the last point; lack of communication is a major cause for turnover. Not only do you have to communicate regularly with your tenants about things like maintenance, but you also need to speak with them about renewal well in advance to give them time to process things like rate increases or changes in lease terms. 5. Lack of Trust What have you done to establish trust and rapport with your tenants? Do they feel like they can be upfront and honest with you? — Or do they sense that your only purpose is making money? Tenants want to be treated with transparency. 6. Problems With Neighbors As we all know, bad neighbors can make for a miserable housing experience. Nobody wants loud, intrusive neighbors. If you have bad neighbors around, don’t be surprised when your tenants take a hike. The Cost of Turnover Experienced real estate investor Kevin Perk knows a thing or two about managing properties, so when he says that tenant turnover is the single biggest killer of cash flow, your ears ought to perk up. “When talking about tenant turnover killing cash flow, I am talking about all of the processes and costs involved in moving a tenant out of an apartment, fixing it up, and moving another tenant in,” Perk says. These include administrative costs, advertising, showing the property, application costs, repair expenses, and, of course, lost income. While you can’t retain 100 percent of your tenants, you can make sure you’re aware of the common causes of turnover so that you don’t do yourself a disservice. Reasons Tenants Move – Reasons Tenants Move – Reasons Tenants Move – Reasons Tenants Move – Reasons Tenants Move – Reasons Tenants Move – Reasons Tenants Move – www.primetimemgt.com
Here are the Problems I Avoid When Shopping for a Rental Property. The following are three problems I try to avoid when I look for a rental property. This isn’t to say I will never touch a property that has one of these issues, but there better be a really good reason for it, and I would have to factor it into my numbers. 1. Neighborhood You cannot easily fix a neighborhood. Sure, you could join the local city council and start a neighborhood watch, but the neighborhood is not likely going to change because you want it to. Therefore, I don’t want to buy a property where the neighborhood will always be an unsolvable problem. The property will continually be difficult to rent, the tenants will trash the house, I’ll have to deal with evictions and late rent, and in the end, the property’s value may never increase (and might actually decrease). I’m not saying I will only buy in a Class A neighborhood, but I’m definitely not going to buy in a Class D area.
