late rent

December Financial Update

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We are 2 months without Mr. ODA’s pay check. I honestly haven’t noticed because my day to day is just managing how much is coming in against how much is going out. My concern is the net I have for this year is $30k less than what Mr. ODA brought in. We’re adding nearly $2k per month for insurance costs, so that net difference is $42k. That’s a gap we’re going to need to focus on here shortly. I should note that our spending includes rental work that we pay out, and we had some major purchases in there (e.g., roof, HVAC). I could say I hope that our investments in the rentals will be less next year, but we seem to track the same expense totals each year.

End of year means I need to get my spreadsheet organized. I need to make sure all expenses are logged, that all logged expenses have receipts and documentation to support them, and that all our maintenance actions are logged in my maintenance sheet. The maintenance sheet is what I use to check back easily on what work we’ve done on each house. I was taking too much time trying to remember which house we replaced things in, so now I have this sheet that I can pull up and easily say, “I just replaced a valve in that toilet 4 months ago; this isn’t normal wear and tear.”

RENTALS

The 5th was a Friday, so you know what that means – I didn’t see most of our rent until then. After the 5th was over, I was short 25% of our rental income. That is fascinating to me. Everyone had told me what their plan was, but I can’t fabricate money where there isn’t any. I have a tenant that is using a program to pay partial payments throughout the month. I can’t stand it. It ensures I get my money at the “beginning” of the month, while it puts them on a payment plan. However, they have the payment set as the 5th, and then it doesn’t clear and hit my account until about the 12th. I’ve expressed my frustration that this has gone on for several months instead of it being a one or two month stopgap, but nothing is changing.

We got our new townhome rented right before Thanksgiving. That was helpful and a literal last minute prayer that was answered in a crazy fashion. She’s been in for 3 weeks now, and I haven’t heard anything.

I had a tenant inform me that she’s hit rough times and wants to be released from her lease. I was really hopeful for a calmer month, but I need to reset my expectations. 14 rental properties and 12 months out of the year = there probably won’t be a month where nothing comes up. The good news is that we can likely get it turned over and a new person in there for market rent. She’s currently paying $975, and we’re looking for about $1300 going forward. Because she always pays and I knew her financial situation, I’ve always held back on her increases. There was another $25-50 increase coming this year, but it still wouldn’t have made up the increases in carrying costs over the years.

PERSONAL

We’ve just been so busy that we’re not really spending that much. Most of our spending is for regular purchases. We had a huge purchase hit our credit card, but that was split among our family for the purchase of new phones. I did all my Christmas shopping in the last month, so that’s higher than usual spending on the cards, but overall still pretty low.

NET WORTH

I got a new phone number and updated all my accounts before my old number was deactivated (lovely two factor authentication). One of my accounts (401k) updated my phone number, but that apparently didn’t correlate to updated the number associated with two factor authentication – ugh. I need to address that, and for the time being, that’s just a placeholder number that I guessed based on Mr. ODA’s 401k increase over the last month.

October Financial Update

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We had two tenants move out at the end of July. We also had back to back trips scheduled for the end of July and beginning of August, with the kids starting school on the 13th. We also had the cruise planned for the end of September into October, so that was a decent push to get the rentals rented before we left. We put countless hours into those two houses and it definitely took its toll.

RENTALS

As of October 1st all our rentals are rented! That’s a good feeling after two months of vacancy. This is the month of taxes. We have several houses that are paid off, which means they aren’t escrowed, and I’m responsible for paying the taxes and insurance on them. The 4 houses we have in KY are owed this month, and it’s about $7k worth. We’ll owe 2 houses in VA that come to about $3k next month.

I have a couple of houses that are struggling to pay rent on time. Usually it happens for a couple of months and they get back on track, but that’s not happening quickly. I’m trying to remain optimistic, but there isn’t a track record of it getting easier if they have taken this long needing to catch up.

We closed on a new property near our house. It’s a townhouse that we hope to get rented later this month. We’ll see what it looks like once it’s empty, but it didn’t appear we’ll need to do anything to it to get it rented (which is how we buy our rentals). There will be separate posts going into the details of each rental turnover and the purchase of House15 using a commercial loan.

PERSONAL

This is the last month for the 0% interest credit card. When we have a major purchase on the horizon (it was house-wide carpet this time last year), we open a 0% interest credit card. We started this concept about 8 years ago. We look for a credit card that has 0% interest for at least 12 months and that gives us a bonus of some sort. We make more than the minimum payment each month and then pay it off before the deadline. A default payment can cause you to lose your 0%, so it’s important you’re making your payments. But we don’t pay a lot towards it because the money is doing more for us in our savings account (or the investments) than it would by paying down a 0% interest balance. This time around was a bit different. The carpet only cost us $10k, but the balance is over $14k. This credit card had the same incentive as our typically used card (2% cash back), so Mr. ODA used it a majority of the time. For a while, my goal was just to pay what gets our balance lower than the original balance from the carpet. But then we had some big rental purchases that we put on the card, and it just wasn’t worth paying $5k+ to the card. We will make a transfer from our big savings account to make that payment at the end of the month.

Mr. ODA’s last pay check arrived on October 11. He took the “deferred resignation program” as of April 30. The sunset date was September 30, so that covered the payout that we just received, including his balance of annual leave.

Outside of rentals, our spending has been minimal. With the cruise, we didn’t spend much since that was a week of almost everything paid for in advance. The dog had his annual check up, so he was the bulk of our costs. We have our routine costs we see, but happy to see lower balances after all the rental work costs.

SUMMARY

I don’t even want to admit what is about to leave our account this month. I guess the positive is that it’s under $100k..? We have to pay the taxes on the houses that aren’t escrowed, pay off that credit card, and buy a house. At least the house purchase goes right towards equity. Since I didn’t get all the account numbers yesterday morning like I planned, here’s an update that captures our new purchase.

April Financial Update

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We started getting emails about end of school year activities, and boy was that a surprise that we’re at that point. The middle one is done mid-May and the big kid is done at the end of May. Less than 2 months until summer break.

Mr. ODA took the second round of the government’s offer for administrative leave, which means he would only have a few weeks left working. I’m still working my part time job, which is taking way more hours than we had planned for. I’m enjoying it, but it’s been a juggling act with the family, which is probably why my son who absolutely loves school begged me to stay home because his belly hurt last week.

Buckle up because apparently I have a lot to share this month.

RENTALS

We received about $600 in tax payment reimbursements from one of our localities, so that was a fun surprise this month. Really helps my psyche that I have a tenant who hasn’t fully paid, didn’t tell us why ahead of time, and hasn’t been up front with when she’s going to actually pay us.

I executed 2 short term leases. Both included a rent increase for their short term period; one house is increased by $75 and the other by $25. Luckily, both are here in the Central KY area, so we can flip it between tenants. One is scheduled to leave June 30th. That house will need new carpet in the bedrooms, and it’ll need probably a whole-house paint job again. They smoked in there, even though we covered the lack of smoking rule multiple times. I’d be more upset about it if the carpet hadn’t reached its useful life years ago. The other house leaves July 31, and I can’t even tell you where we’ll need to begin with that one. She made a wood feature wall without permission. She had a giant fish tank without permission. She spent a lot of time doing things that really weren’t an improvement, so I’m definitely worried about what we’re going to uncover in that house. Mr. ODA and I are talking about fixing it up and selling it. We may look for a short term renter so that we can sell it in the Spring instead of this Fall.

I had 2 other properties accept a rent increase that will go into effect later this year. I require 60 days notice for changes so that starting at the 30 day mark I can begin advertising it if needed. One house goes up by $25 per month as of June 1, and the other goes up by $50 per month as of July 1. I also have another property that has a rent increase of $50 per month going into effect next month.

I have 4 houses that renewed another year, and I didn’t change their monthly rent rate. There are 4 more houses that haven’t been discussed. My intent is to have them renew for a year at their current rate. There are 2 of those 4 that could leave at the end of this term, but time will tell.

We have multiple maintenance issues to address. One house requires a tree trimmed off the roof, the siding cleaned, and the back deck stained/painted. We still have termite damage we’re dealing with at a house in Richmond. I have a leaking toilet that was just addressed, and then they hit me with a faulty HVAC unit during a heat wave. Then we have some houses that really need eyes on them to see what condition they’re in at some point this summer back in Richmond. It’s amazing to me how people just don’t care to tell a landlord that something is broken. I woke up this morning to a text that one of the houses here has a flooded basement due to a water heater failure.

I spent some more time fighting my insurance guy here. It irks me so much when I see him offer up his services on the local facebook group for property owners. He’s quite terrible. I sent him photos of a house that had some issues with a cluttered backyard and had the tenant clean that up. I had to fight him last month on an increase where he changed one house from a crawl space to a basement when I assure you that the vines growing through the windows solidify it should not be deemed a “basement.” When the dust settled from that debacle that he was insanely unresponsive to, I ended up owing $9.68. When I asked why my account wasn’t put back the way it was found before this mess he created, he said he didn’t know but it’s probably from the audit and changing square footage. HIs guessing and not actually answering infuriated me. I gave up and paid it, but then I ran to get quotes from other people. I hadn’t done that before because our 4 claims in a 12 months period are killing us (again, because I really wanted trees to fall on us!). I hate when people make the claim that because it’s not a lot of money, I should just give up and accept it. That’s a ridiculous way to treat people.

PERSONAL

Our electric bill is almost double what it was this time last year thanks to the vehicle charging and hot tub. Our electric bill is relatively low, so that’s not all that surprising. We also have 5 full people in this house now (as much as you can count a 2 year old as a full person… but he knows how to control light switches and eats a ton of food that we need to cook him, so I’m sure he’s a factor there!).

I’ve been working at my new part time job for over a month now. Mr. ODA was making fun of my hourly rate, but I’ll tell ya, it felt good to receive a paycheck that wasn’t $45 like it was for a day of subbing at the preschool.

I took the kids to get haircuts. My middle has had her hair cut once before, but I’ve cut the boys’ hair forever. I had family coming into town and the oldest was looking really shaggy. So I swallowed my pride and threw money at the problem, which is very out of character in this household. I just didn’t have the time to cut their hair, clean them, and clean up the mess. For $66 and 45 minutes from the time I left home until I got back, it was well worth it to me.

I had a medical procedure done this month. We haven’t met our deductible. In February, they said I had to pay my deductible to them. I said that didn’t make sense and refused to have them hold $2800 of my money for 2 months. They gave me an attitude and said I could never ever ever ask for a payment plan in the future, so that I could pay $500 to hold the date. I then showed up for the procedure, knowing I haven’t met my deductible, and they didn’t take any money from me. Another business model that bullies the customer into illogical money decisions. I also had an eye doctor appointment that was frustrating in itself, but I’ll spare you those insurance and communication details.

On top of everything else I’m juggling, Mr. ODA is coaching our kids’ t-ball team. Coaching means that I am team mom. That means that I’m responsible for communicating updates from the league (in the slow and haphazard fashion I receive information), gather value card sales that are required of every team member, organizing a basket for a raffle, and the best one – raising $350 for team sponsorship. What the heck, man?! Where did I say that my signing up of two children to play in the league means I have history or ability to gather money from businesses?? Well, I did it. I raised $350 and another mom raised $200 for the team.

No financial impact, but I’m also juggling our HOA board duties. I released our longstanding property manager and hired a new company, which took effect April 1. That’s taken a lot of time to get them stood up and make sure we stay on track for our annual meeting schedule in June.

NET WORTH

And with all of that said, that doesn’t even address the giant reduction in our investments that continues to happen. To counter some of the loss, I updated our property values for our houses. I don’t do that every month because they don’t move very much, but I can usually count on a few increases as the spring market ramps up. Our net worth did slightly increase (based on yesterday’s market closure, not today’s) from last month, which was a nice surprise.

I wonder why I’m tired and bogged down, but that post outlining what I’ve done recently made me realize all I was able to accomplish even though I felt like I was a jack of all trades and master of none. Hopefully things will settle down in our lives going forward now, even if I know there are definitely two house turnovers in my future.

October Financial Update

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I feel like I have a lot of balls in the air right now, but looking at our finances, they don’t say that there have been a lot of charges. However, this post sure says that I’ve been juggling a good amount of things over this last month, and most of the issues are related to insurance in some way (and I despise insurance!).

Last month, I mentioned that we had two large charges hit our credit card. One that I purposely held off until the new credit card cycle (an insurance charge) so that the previous month’s credit card was lower than average (psychological play for myself). Then we had the electrical work completed on our deck rebuild, and that was another significant balance that needed to be paid. After that, we just had a a few medium-sized, if you will, charges that hit. I paid an extra payment to keep the balance closer to the $3000-3500 range. Well, it didn’t work. Another two service calls to rental properties and the dog’s annual vet appointment, and we were back up to $6k. We have the cash to pay it off every month; it’s just not something I want to see!

When we have a large purchase, we open a new credit card. The new credit card gives us some sort of bonus, and we get 0% interest for 12-15 months, typically. Last Fall, we replaced the carpet on the first and second floor of the house for over $10k. I paid $500 per month up until last month’s payment. The balance wasn’t a round number, so I went ahead and paid that little bit while also upping the payment to $1000. That balance is at $7,000 now and will need to be paid by December 13th. The new credit card will be used to purchase a hot tub and pay for the electric work associated with that (as well as an electrical panel upgrade).

INSURANCE CLAIM

Since our deck work is now complete, we submitted a request for additional funds. The concrete replacement was controversial in the claims process. They eventually agreed to pay for it, but they held back a significant amount of depreciation on it. We submitted the final work order showing the concrete costs and that the job was complete, and they sent us a check for about $6,550. Additionally, the electrical work was projected to cost about $1,700, but it actually was about $3,500. Luckily, we submitted the invoice and, with no questions asked, they cut us a check for the difference.

Just for the record, the job was never fully completed. Mr. ODA pulled up deck boards and retrofitted the waterproofing. We never paid out the final payment. The City’s inspector came out and started asking a bunch of questions, and the foreman finally acknowledged that they hadn’t completed the waterproofing. We didn’t tell them we fixed it, but we have no intention of being in touch with them again. Outside of the waterproofing and concrete subcontractor issues, the contractor was great at the work he does – but they should stick to simple deck construction.

PERSONAL CHARGES

We actually had a low number of transactions over this past month. We took a trip, which I covered in my last post. Mr. ODA negotiated a refund of some of the cabin charge since we booked it with a hot tub and discovered at 8 pm that there was no water in the hot tub. They refunded 10%! We had our typical charges that occur monthly, and I paid several health insurance bills for various reasons.

RENTALS

Luckily, everyone has paid their rent this month. We have $750 outstanding, but it’s not technically due until the 19th with how I’ve structured their lease. One person did pay half her rent late (on the 15th), but I didn’t charge a late fee since she actually paid when she said she would this month (always a gamble). We had a few smaller maintenance issues come up in the last month, as well as a range replacement at a property that will be installed this Saturday.

  • INSURANCE

Due to a claim on one of our properties, that insurance found a reason to drop us. They notified us that we have a couple of months to find new insurance. I’ve been working on that for the last 3 weeks. It hasn’t been easy. They want pictures and then want all different angles, as if it’s my home and I can just take these pictures on a whim. Then for some reason, the agent I found through a local real estate group is great about answering questions on one property, but won’t answer questions on the other. It’s pretty frustrating. As of 10 minutes ago, I at least got the policy executed on the one he hadn’t been responding on. I started this process on September 23rd and got this run-of-the-mill policy executed today – ugh. So that’s over $900 going on the credit card today.

We have a roof replacement occurring on a property in VA tomorrow. I found out that our partner switched insurance companies without us knowing. That seems fine, except that I discovered our policy went from $600 to $1400. It turns out, he switched because that original insurance company was requiring a roof replacement. Conceptually, that’s annoying because they find some action for us every year with no warning or previous mention of something being on a watch list. However, it turns out that the roof was bad enough that no one would insure us. Again, I’m finding all this out after the fact. Our agent found someone to cover us for short term, and we’re paying a hefty premium on that. As soon as I found out, I requested quotes from roofers. I signed a contract 3 weeks ago, and that’s finally under way with materials dropped off this morning. As soon as the roof is done, I plan on sending documentation to our agent to get us switched to a “regular” insurance company and hopefully reduce that premium substantially.

We had issues with our Commercial Liability Umbrella Policy issuance this year. It was all due to the company’s poor communication. They asked for a new document to be completed, which I did in less than a day. Then I heard nothing from them until a cancellation notice for not providing supporting documentation. I had to scramble to gather all the documents, only for them to not even review my information timely and cancel the policy. They reissued with no lapse in coverage, but goodness that’s so frustrating that they can do whatever they want with no repercussions. In that process, we learned that one of our houses isn’t included in the CLUP because that insurance company’s rating fell below a reasonable threshold. So now I’m shopping for insurance for that house.

I had to pay one property’s insurance of $270 (it’s a townhouse with HOA insurance also). I also had to contact one of my escrow accounts to find out why they didn’t pay on time, which is so much fun (and I still don’t have that resolved).

  • TAXES

It’s that time of year again where I have to pay out on KY taxes. Relatively, they’re low amounts, but they add up to a decent amount when you have 4 to pay at once. I’ve issued payment on these, but they haven’t cashed the checks yet (it would be nice if businesses would allow electronic payments without exorbitant fees!).

NET WORTH

We’re over $800k over this time last year. It’s crazy to see that number because I don’t feel comfortable with our finances. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just don’t like how often I need to transfer money out of a savings account to cover obligations in the checking account. It’s just a psychological thing for me. I can’t figure out why I can’t get past it, when I know for sure that we have 18 safety nets out there if we were in a bind.

Last year’s update mentioned that our finances took a big hit between September and October, but this year, we’ve recovered a good bit and increased over $115k from last month. It appears last year I paid off a large credit card balance this month, whereas the large credit card balance pay-off will be December this year. I’ll also have additional charges when the hot tub gets delivered in a few weeks, which will increase our debt.

July Financial Update

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RENTAL EXPENSES

We took a trip to Richmond, VA to work on rental properties. It was fairly last minute. I had a schedule of work at each house that I planned. However, I didn’t plan on the heat index being 113 and 112 for the two main days we were there. I was able to get everything on my list done except for staining the new deck at one of the houses. I didn’t want to risk it not applying or curing correctly because it was too hot and in direct sun. Plus, the tenant didn’t even clear it off so I could work on it.

I had multiple houses pay rent late this month. I was surprised. One let us know on the 5th that they had an emergency, so they wouldn’t be able to pay until the 17th. I had someone pay half their rent early in June, but then haven’t received an answer as to why the rest of her balance ($345) hasn’t been paid yet. Another tenant misunderstood her maternity leave pay, so she asked for more time to pay rent. She paid $800 on the 7th. I told her not to worry about it, and just pay when she can, without the late fee; she only has $150 remaining.

I’m currently working through two roof replacements. One of them will be covered by insurance, but then I’ll be paying to have vents added, the chimney torn off and capped, and the soffits repaired on top of what insurance can do. Then the other one we’re paying out of pocket for. It’s original to the house, which was built 24 years ago. There has been storm damage to it over the last year, and it’s just generally time to address the age even though it hasn’t caused any problems yet.

PERSONAL EXPENSES

Our medical insurance company had some glitches in their claim processing through the first half of the year. Now they’ve caught up, meaning I’m paying large sums of medical bills. Mr. ODA took on booking lodging for his guys trip later this month, which meant that the second half of AirBnB payments were applied to the credit card.

Mr. ODA increased each kid’s UTMA from $75 to $100 per month. That means we’re investing $3,300 each month into accounts, on top of maxing Mr. ODA’s TSP contributions and both of our Roth IRA contributions for the year.

Our contractor has ghosted us on our own deck build. We bought some new furniture for the main deck area. Once it’s not 100 degrees outside, we’ll work on doing the waterproofing of the deck ourselves so that we can start living on the patio under the deck and get that hot tub ordered this fall.

NET WORTH

I updated the valuation of the houses this month. I typically only do that 3 or 4 times per year. I try to account for the big increases we see at the beginning of the spring, and then adjust slightly around this time of year once the comparable houses have closed and sold. This update added $140k worth of equity into the equation. All of our liabilities decreased since last month, and all our assets increased since last month. That has equated to an increase of over $200k in our net worth.

2023 in Review: Rentals

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After several years of very minimal time having to be put into rentals once they were rented, 2023 made up for it. We had a lot of damage to properties, a lot of tenant payment issues, and just a general “can we not talk about rentals for ONE week please” moments. But even with that frustration, this is still the best.

All of these stories were elaborated on in posts throughout the year. This is meant as a summary of all our activities. You can search for the stories through keywords on the website, or just email me, and I’ll elaborate.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

In January, I took over management of our Kentucky properties. When we moved here in 2020, it was easier to maintain status quo. In Virginia, we had established contacts in the trades we’d need, and we felt comfortable there. In Kentucky, since we hadn’t lived there, nor did we have direct management of the properties (plus, the property manager did a lot of work in house), we just left it alone and kept paying the management fees. We bought a 4th property in Kentucky in 2022, and I kept it under my management. Through that process, I grew more comfortable with the area and any trades people I would need. Then over the course of 2022, the property management issues finally were painful enough that we cut ties.

We had cut ties with our first management company who was doing zero of the work they were supposed to do. In the process, we learned a few ways we wanted to see a future management company operate. We negotiated some of the fees that this company had. I didn’t foresee how frustrating that would be. For instance, they’d charge us 10% of the contracted price when hiring a company if they couldn’t do something in house. I said, “that’s what management is, and what I’m paying you for monthly.” They agreed to not add 10% to contractor payments. But I never saw the invoices, even when I asked for them, so it was hard for me to know whether I was being charged by them correctly. It turns out, I was always charged that extra 10%, and I needed to request the refund, every single time.

Problems really got bad when a single employee claimed we didn’t pay something we had and immediately charged us for it (over $1,000). We had to get the owner of the company involved. It was a mess. I finally said that’s enough, and even though I had a one month old baby, I took over management. Luckily, we had a clause in our contract that allowed us to cancel the contract (by either party) with 30 days notice.

I met with each of the 3 properties’ tenants they had under management, and I executed my own leases with them. First, their lease was a mess and disorganized (and had errors that were crossed out and initialed). Second, I like having my template in place so that I know what it says, and how it’s laid out. I recently learned that my VA property manager’s lease didn’t have some key information I would have preferred to see there, so I even started using my leases for the properties she manages.

INSURANCE CLAIMS

After having no insurance claims for all our homeownership years, we had three this year. One was on our personal house, and two were rental properties. I covered our own issues in a previous post; a wind storm caused a tree to fall on our deck, one (well, one and a half) on the fence, and a few limbs on the driveway.

We had a bad wind storm come through in March. The tree fell from the back of the property and hit the roof of a rental property. By some miracle, there was not a single puncture of a limb into the house. The roof sustained the fall and weight of the tree. We didn’t even need to fix the roof, just the fascia board and gutter. Insurance was super easy to work with. An adjuster came out, reviewed the damage, and issued a check.

We had another rental property with the water heater in the attic (instead of the crawl space or just anywhere better conditioned than the attic). A 2-week freeze came through in December 2022, and it froze the pipes. When it thawed, water just poured through the ceiling and into the house. There was 2 inches of water everywhere. The ceiling in the master bedroom, master bathroom, laundry room, and part of the kitchen caved in. The walls in the master bedroom and bathroom needed to be taken down to the studs and rebuilt. The bottom 2′ of all the walls in the house had to be torn out and put back together. All the flooring (that we had put in 5 months earlier) had to be replaced. And with all of that said, it actually wasn’t that bad of a process. Since insurance covered everything, it was just what it was. If I had to pay for each step, it would have been more painful (in time, contractor management, and cost). We were “out of commission” for about 3 months, but insurance even covered lost rent.

I sit here and type this while my back deck is still damaged. By the time we got through our claim with the insurance company, we were months out from the contractor getting to us. I’m hoping it’ll be replaced by May.

MAINTENANCE CALLS

I was surprised to realize that we only replaced two dishwashers and one refrigerator this year. Then I realized it’s probably because we’ve replaced almost all the other ones in the last few years – yikes.

We had a house cited by the City for unsightly conditions in the front yard. The tenant mowed and cleaned up some things right away, and we hired someone to come cut up a fallen tree limb that we didn’t know about.

We had another house cited by insurance for not having a handrail on the front stoop (even though we’ve owned this house for 6 years at that point, with the same insurance). We had our handyman install one for us. While he was there, he fixed the ceiling in a bedroom where there had been water damage.

We paid for a flat roof to be fixed, after several years of fighting it and it continuing to leak (it’s so hard to find a roofer to work on a flat roof). That was a debacle because he was delayed for weeks, didn’t communicate, and then took it upon himself to change the scope of work. I wasn’t happy with the new scope and forced him to uphold the contract and do it right.

One house was completely painted during the turnover. We also had the tile and cast iron tub in that house newly epoxied (and then learned that it didn’t even last a year and is flaking).

We also had a new one – wildlife traps. A tenant had a raccoon living in her attic. The management company “fixed” it, but didn’t actually. I hired a professional when I took over management. They didn’t catch anything over the course of a few days, so they were confident nothing was in the attic. They then repaired the hole.

And then the usual – several plumbing/HVAC issues that were resolved throughout the year. Those will always be there. We had a big one with a water main line leak due to trees infiltrating the pipes (and unfortunately, that wasn’t the first time we’ve done that type of work).

We spent $15k across the 13 properties (some had $0 spent) on maintenance calls.

INCREASE IN TAXES AND INSURANCE

In November, I had posted about how our taxes and insurance charges have increased over the previous year. Our escrow accounts increased by $312 in payments. Our taxes were over $3,400 more than the previous year’s payments, and our insurance policies increased by over $1,000. Both the tax assessments and the replacement value costs were increased by these entities to reflect the higher home prices over the last few years, and that caused a higher-than-expected increase in all these costs. Some tax jurisdictions took their time in catching up their assessments to the skyrocketing prices of 2020/2021, but some took advantage of it right away. We have two houses where the taxes over the last 4 years have hardly changed, but we have others where the costs increased significantly.

INCREASE IN RENTAL INCOME

Our total income in 2023 increased from 2022 by almost $12,000. Although, I’ll note that we had over $4,000 paid from a rent relief program in January 2023 that really counted some towards 2022 amounts owed.

Most of my rent increases went into effect in 2022, just based on how the years played out. I had two properties increase by $50/month each in May 2023.

When the tenant flooded the house, we were able to upgrade a few things in there. In that time, the market rent always increased. So we went from $1200/month to $1600/month in rent over that time. It ended up being a problem because the new tenant lost her job, but that becomes a problem in 2024, after we struggled with her paying rent from October 1 through February.

We also had tenant turnover in another property, where the rent went from $800/month to $925/month. The previous tenant had been there several years. We had decent numbers (e.g., covering of expenses) on the house, and she kept struggling to pay on time, so I didn’t have the heart to increase the rent on her. It was my way of giving her a break because she had done something really big/difficult in her life. When we put it on the market, it wasn’t an ideal time of year, so we went low at $925. This tenant asked to leave mid-lease. We ended up re-renting the house at $995.

We had another tenant buy a house and vacate their lease early, leaving us to re-rent it for January 1. We were able to get someone in by February. Luckily, their lease break fee for that time of year was a month’s worth of rent, so we technically weren’t out of any income for that month-long gap. We were able to re-rent the house at $1,650 (from 1,350); that’s not realized until 2024 income though. We also took a leap of faith on this new tenant, who didn’t completely meet our criteria, but she asked for a chance; hopefully when I’m making this post next year, I haven’t regretted the decision to rent to her.

SUMMARY

This year, we had one tenant egregiously not pay rent on time, another tenant continuously pay late by a few days (although for their track record, paying 33% of payments due late is actually low), and a few who needed a bit more time (and communicated in advance) so we didn’t charge them a late fee. We had two houses with insurance claims, two major expenses (main water line replacement and flat roof repairs), and about $9k worth of other maintenance expenses on the houses.

I took over management of 3 of the 4 properties in Kentucky that were under a property manager. We added a house to the Virginia property manager’s portfolio. We had to turn over two properties in the winter wasn’t ideal, but we made it work. Technically, it was 3 properties over the winter, but one gave notice in 2024. We increased the rent on two houses by $50/month each to cover large increases in taxes and insurance payments.

Overall, this was a time-consuming year. We spent more time managing these properties and dealing with issues than any previous year. I can’t say that there was a single month where we just collected rent without any calls or discussion with a property manager. Heck, I could handle the “is it ok if I pay rent on the 9th” type messages, but this year was more than that. Here’s to hoping that everything is moving smoothly in 2024.

March Financial Update

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We’re just going to cut to the chase – $4 million net worth! I mentioned that this was a goal for this year. Unlike other years worth of large jumps because of purchasing houses, this was less in our control (granted, our market allocation decisions are what’s driving it…. and by “our,” I absolutely mean only Mr. ODA’s because I don’t do anything in that realm).

RENTALS

Well, we’ve had a quiet month. What’s going to be funny is, I’m going to list the things that we did. Quiet doesn’t mean silent or without effort, but we’ve had a rough go of it over the last year, so this was a welcomed break.

We had termites at a property. We pay $98 annually for their termite warranty program, since we found extensive termite damage and live termites when we bought the house. We’ve had to treat the house several times, so this $98 is a steal. However, I’m wondering why we keep needing to treat the house.

We paid $125 for a plumber to go out to a clogged sink. When we received the invoice, it was for 2 plumbers to go. Between the phone call that they were on their way and the tenant saying they were great, only 35 minutes had elapsed. The company charged us almost $300. Mr. ODA called to ask why they choose to send two plumbers to do a one-man job, while also charging us for it. The owner said it was for liability purposes, which Mr. ODA fought back on. They agreed to a reduced rate, but we were only charged $125, which was less than agreed upon.

We had our third tenant move in, after we unexpectedly had to turnover three houses in the middle of winter. We also were given notice by another tenant that she’s vacating by the end of March. We handled increases for two houses (one handled by a property manager to increase $50/month, and one handled by me to increase by $25/month).

We had one tenant pay on the morning of the 6th with no communication, so I did have our property manager let them know that’s not going to be ok. We also had a usual suspect pay late, with the late fee. However, their communication was frustrating. They said they’d pay on the 6th. At the end of the 6th, they said the money hadn’t cleared like they expected. No communication on the 7th. I asked for an updated on the morning of the 8th, and they said it would be that day. At 11 pm, I hadn’t received anything and reached out. I was then told that money was going into the ATM right then so that she could pay. Sometimes I wish I could do a deep dive into tenant finances so that I could help them out.

PERSONAL

Mr. ODA has a trip in July where a group of guys will hike in the Rockies. Our family is going out before that trip is scheduled to do our own exploring. We booked 4 round trip plane tickets, and Mr. ODA handled the lodging booking for the guys’ portion. That’s almost $3,000 worth of purchases, so our credit cards are higher than usual.

Speaking of the plane tickets. We purchased gift cards from Costco for Southwest. The gift cards are essentially $450 for $500 worth of purchasing power at Southwest. We bought two, therefore saving $100 on the tickets. For an extra few clicks on the computer, and the 15 minutes waiting time before the e-gift cards were delivered to my email, that’s $100 that can be used somewhere else.

We bought a new vanity for our bathroom. That was about $700 for the vanity, faucet, toilet flusher, and mirror. I sold the old vanity (in rough shape) for $30. And because I’m proud that I did most of it on my own, here’s a picture. I needed Mr. ODA’s help with the supply lines because I lost patience with how tightly they were screwed on and my lack of progress. I cut the baseboards down to size, except I somehow measured wrong on one quarter round cut (I was cutting while it was on the wall). Mr. ODA cut and installed the replacement piece for me.

We finished up the ski season. The kids did great. I was really proud of them for sticking with it. We used our season pass well (i.e., exceeding the cost had we bought individual tickets for each visit). I took two of the three kids to the aquarium, and we took the baby for a procedure at a local children’s hospital. We’ve started tee ball for our oldest. Our March is very full and busy, so we’re getting into the swing of things and keeping track of the schedule.

NET WORTH

Well, we far exceeded that $4 million goal. The market went up big, with our biggest changes being in our retirement account, IRAs, and cash. Our cash increase is offset by the lower amount in our Treasury account. Some of the short term bonds were transferred back into our savings account, and we’ve kept that money in savings since our deck replacement is slated to begin.

January Financial Update

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As an intro for newbies: I write a monthly finance post. These posts started out as a way to manage our dollars spent per category. It evolved to show insight into my monthly money management and thought process. It’s also meant as a way to remind people that they should be looking at their money regularly.

Every month, I’m looking back at my spending, looking at trends on the higher level (e.g., why is my credit card higher than I expected), and sharing the rental property expenses and activities that I’ve accomplished.

I typically post on Thursdays. Unfortunately, life got in the way. I had 98% of this written, but I hadn’t updated our accounts until 10 pm, so this is now posting off-schedule, on Friday morning. Sorry about that!

RENTALS

I suppose with 13 houses, it’s inevitable that I’ll have to keep track of one.. or a few.. to collect their rent. One tenant is set up to pay twice per month (they pay a premium for this). They paid both parts of December late, and the first part of January late. They pay a late fee with that. I had two other tenants pay late by a few days, but they communicated this up front, and I didn’t collect late fees.

I’ve been sharing that I have a tenant who has been behind on rent since October 1 and has communicated very poorly. By the end of December, she was caught up with rent due, but no late fees. We’re now 11 days into January without any payment. My frustration with her was that she didn’t communicate at all for the first two months, and didn’t keep her word on anything that she said she was going to do, but didn’t tell us that something would change. I always say that I’m willing to help and work with you, but you have to talk to me. If I have to beg you to tell me what the plan is, I can’t help.

I paid a carpet cleaner $250 and paid a painter $2000 for a house that we’re turning over. The carpet was new before the last tenant, but they were there for over 3 years, so it had to be done. They didn’t damage the walls, but my property manager said that all the walls looked like different colors, and I didn’t trust “touching up” 4 year old paint. The paint looks amazing, so I’m happy I went for the whole house.

I paid just over $1000 as a deposit on 3 new windows for a house, which are scheduled to be replaced on Monday (a couple of weeks for new windows far exceeded my expectations!). We had replaced the majority of windows when we bought the house. However, at the time, the kitchen and bathroom windows were considered an irregular size, and we were told they were going to be $2000 just themselves, when we were paying $2000 for all the other windows. I don’t know what pricing scheme changed in 5 years, but now all sizes are the same price, and the 3 of them are $2000 now.

We had a tenant ask to be released from his lease, which we concurred to. We had terms associated with that, which I’ll share in a separate post. We were able to get a couple into that house with no loss of rent, which has been appreciated.

We’re under contract with our handyman to do work on a house, so that’s over $5,000 of cost that is waiting to rear its head out there.

PERSONAL

This was a month of spending in activities. I signed up for a 5k in August with “early bird” pricing, our daughter’s acro class had semester tuition due, and the kids’ monthly school tuition was paid as usual. Mr. ODA bought a new battery for his car and installed that. On somewhat of a whim, we replaced our back door, which was over $1100 added to Mr. ODA’s credit card.

Just before Christmas, we took a trip. It was just to Cincinnati, which we regularly do as a day-trip. However, we wanted to accomplish a few things this time around. We went to Top Golf for 90 minutes and lunch, let the baby nap at the AirBnB, went to Zoo Lights, spent the night, and then went skiing the next morning (the kids’ first time!). We already purchased season passes (and equipment) for skiing for 4 of us, and had already purchased the zoo annual membership. Without the cost of those two things, our trip cost $330 for Top Golf, lodging, parking (we stayed in the city), a ski lesson for our 5 year old, and food. Our lodging for 1 night was nearly $200 and was significantly more than we’d typically spend on lodging. However, we’re still in a phase of life where the baby needs the be in a space by himself so he sleeps for a nap and through the night. That means we look for a place with at least 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, or 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom (bonus points for master-sized closets or an extra bathroom with no windows for me to black out). We then made 2 day trips since then, and the kids are doing awesome on skis.

NET WORTH

Our cash has decreased, but that was offset to taxable investments because of our Treasury Direct accounts. Even with our extra spending, our credit card balances are comparable to last month’s. The increase in net worth from last month is mostly due to increases in our investment accounts.

This year’s goal is to hit $4 million net worth. Mr. ODA said that to our financial advisor via Instagram, and he didn’t share that publicly because it wasn’t relatable. The point in sharing here is that, well it’s January and people set goals, and to note that even if this goal specifically isn’t attainable to you in the short term, know that we also once had an account balance well below where we’re currently at. Consistent investing in the market (maxing out the 401k, maxing out the Roth IRAs, and establishing regular investing and watching the market) is a large contributing factor to where we are 10 years later. If I take the investment properties out of the equation, we’re still over $2 million net worth. That doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s something you can start working towards today.

December Financial Update

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I’m not even sure where to start for this month. It has been a whirlwind. There were a lot of tax payments last month, and this month I was still paying those among several other things.

PURCHASES

I purposely paid my credit card statement a little earlier than the due date so that it wouldn’t be that high for this update, but then I put a bunch of charges on it over the last two days. To catch you up – we’ve been holding money in our savings account for as long as possible. When we were getting 0.2% interest on it, it didn’t matter when I paid the card, so I typically paid it shortly after the statement closed. Now that we’re getting 4.22%, it’s worth keeping the money in there to earn interest, and then paying the credit card closer to the due date.

Our regular-use credit card is currently holding: $300 towards my dad’s iPhone (I should really share that mess of a story in purchasing that) (also, that doesn’t clearly account for my sisters having paid $200 towards that because that’s just “cash” in our checking account balance), $500+ of the kids preschool tuition, renewing our zoo membership for $139 (honestly, 5 of us enjoying the zoo for the year for that price is wonderful), over $200 for signing our son up for tee ball, two car insurance payments, and a rental insurance payment. I don’t typically go through the charges like that, but it’s just been a bunch of just-big-enough charges to grab my attention on our credit card balance. We drove to-and-from NY, so our gas station payments are higher than average too. As a reminder, the credit card balance you see also includes $10k worth of new carpet that we’re paying slowly on a 0% interest credit card.

RENTAL PROPERTY EXPENSES

I paid two of our Richmond houses’ taxes. The taxes are due on January 14th, but if I pay them this year, then it reduces what’s viewed as our ‘profit.’ I make sure to pay any known January bills in December of each year. Those two houses are so tiny, so their tax payments being so much larger than they once were kind of hurt (I’ve discussed the increases in property assessments, thereby increasing taxes). It was about $2,000 paid out (on top of all the things I paid over the last two months).

I also had to pay two supplemental taxes for Lexington. Government entities not meeting deadlines is a pet peeve of mine (I used to work for the Federal government). Last year, I completely missed that paperwork I received was a supplement bill for education, and then I received a penalty.I thought it was their typical assessment notice since it was outside of tax payment time. Luckily it was a few dollars, but I was so lost. This year, I paid close attention when I received an extra tax-related document. This supplemental bill was for trash services. Again, a few dollars. But think of all the extra paperwork, staff hours, postage, payment processing cost to collect an extra $20 from every house.

RENTAL PROPERTY INCOME

We had two tenants give us notice that they’re moving out. While extremely unfortunate timing on the year, I’m also human and understanding of their need. One tenant had a traumatic work event that led to him being laid off, and another family bought a house. We’ll find a way to get the houses re-rented as soon as possible, even though our vacancy time may be longer than it would have been if we were looking for a May 1st or June 1st renter. We have someone interested in both houses at this time, so that’s encouraging.

We had 4 tenants not pay in full. They all reached out to me to let me know in advance, and they paid what they could by the 5th (I always appreciate that – it holds them accountable, and it allows me to not foot all of the bills that I have to pay on the houses). As of the end of the 5th, we were short over $3,000 worth of rent ($1300 of that was for the house that has been late since October 1st and is finally working towards paying their debts).

As of today, we’re short $2,400. The tenant who’s playing catch up only has a balance of $960 left, which is great (that’s been a long road). Another tenant typically pays $750 on the 5th and 19th. So they’re not late on $750, but they are late on the $375 they didn’t pay in the first half of the month (this is a special scenario that we put in place for them because they couldn’t pay all at the beginning of the month, so we increased their rent as a concession to being able to pay twice per month without creating more late fees for them… but they’re still late).

NET WORTH

The market significantly increased over the last month. We also had $28k come in as part of our insurance claim; our cash increased by $35k though, so there’s an additional savings in there. And even though we had large expenses on our credit cards, it’s still slightly down from last month.

BONUS STORY

Mr. ODA and I wait for Black Friday deals to purchase our iPhones. We typically purchase every 3 years. I usually bite for a new phone so that the camera is better, but I’m suspicious that Apple is sending updates to alter the clarity of photos on older phones. How can I take these BEAUTIFUL pictures for the first few months of having a phone, and then all my pictures are grainy suddenly? ANYWAY.

Walmart had a deal that you purchase the iPhone 14 on a payment plan, and they give you a $350 Walmart gift card. These are the deals we typically seek. Apple is still getting their full price for the phone, but Walmart is offering a deal to bring our net to $0. When you want to purchase the phone from Walmart, it asks you to log into your carrier’s account. For this phone, it’s Verizon. We spend hours trying to figure out who the primary account holder is and what that log in it. Verizon does it where you can create your own log in and see you phone’s data at any time, but to see the entire plan’s data, you have to be the account holder (makes sense, but complicates this particular instance). The primary account holder is my mom’s phone number. Who died in March. We finally get assistance with that and log into the account through Walmart. It brings up all the lines on the account, we select my dad’s number, and then it gets to step 2. It says they can’t verify the address on the account and we need to go to Walmart mobile desk in a store. I call Verizon. Can’t help. I call Walmart. They keep telling me to put the item in my cart, which isn’t how you purchase a phone. So no help.

I finally bite the bullet, and on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, march myself to the nearest Long Island Walmart. They can’t help because they need the phone in the store. I swear if I were at my Walmart in Kentucky, they would have helped me. It was actually at the point where I was going to risk waiting until Tuesday so that I could have my phone desk people help me. The Walmart employee actually wasn’t flippant or trying to blow me off; I believe he genuinely thought he couldn’t help me. What needed to happen was that he called their help desk people, and then he was the mediator to figuring out the address. I figure this because a Walmart customer service person transferred me to such a person, who said he’s not allowed to talk to me and has to have a Walmart employee talking to him on my behalf.

I gave up. Sunday comes. I hope that some “overnight” processing of information has magically cured the process. It didn’t. I call Verizon again. Some angel of a lady answered the phone and actually helped me more than I could have imagined. I told her that I wanted the Walmart deal because all the Verizon deals require me to change my plan to unlimited data. I let her know that I’ve already spoken to several people, and they keep trying to convince me that I get a “free” iPhone while my plan increases $30 per month in perpetuity (versus $23 per month for 36 months for the phone). She offered me a deal that equates to $5/month for the phone for 36 months. So I put 100x more hours into this than I should have, but it ended up working out in our favor!

November Financial Update

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A day late, but here we are. The market has gone up a bit, so that helped our net worth increase, even though we had a $10k increase in our credit card balances because we replaced the carpet in our house. Again, we opened a new credit card for this large purchase, which will give us 15 months of 0% interest. While we could pay the balance now, it’s a strategy to allow us to keep more liquid cash and earn interest on the money.

We have a tenant that only recently paid October’s rent, and has paid about $200 towards November rent as of today. I’m frustrated, but I have another post that will go into all the details for that. I can be understanding and work with you, but only if you talk to me. She doesn’t communicate, and she hasn’t upheld any part of what she said she’s going to do about payments.

I had one tenant ask me about moving out early, but we haven’t pursued anything yet. I have another tenant who is under contract on a house, so we’re waiting for notice from them. We knew they were looking for a house to purchase, so we structured our lease to allow them out of the lease at any time. It’s unfortunate for our timing that it’ll probably be a January/February rental now, but I’m happy for them moving on to their next phase of life.

I had to pay two small tax payments to a local jurisdiction this month, and then also paid taxes on one of our properties (luckily they still take credit cards with no fee, so we get rewards for that payment!). I’ve had to pay several medical bills (for myself) over the past month, which has been annoying. All that money to bills, only for there to be no answers.

We went to a local ski mountain to look for ski boots for my new-to-me skis that I purchased. In the process, we ended up buying the two older kids skis and boots, along with season passes for the family. So medical bills, ski equipment and passes, tax payments, and Christmas gifts have our credit cards high now (even without the 10k+ for carpet).