Property is North New Jersey, looking for a 3 ton split level furnace and AC unit. Whole system is 25 yrs old, so I guess I am replacing gas furnace as well even though it works. Not too worried about efficiency as other units in the building have bottom end units, some still 25 years old, and I wont qualify for any tax credits bc its non-owner occupied, and I also wont be paying the bill ever. Meeting with more contractors on Monday and will have model numbers then. Other unit's compressors went last yr and they just put in R22 Lennox 13acx, so by doing a whole new system I am already overfixing relative to others. Thanks

I bought a condo before getting married. I bought my first condo (2bed/2bath) with the intention of getting a roommate to help with the mortgage. When we married, my husband already had a house, so I moved into the house, and we turned the condo into a rental. We had about $100 per month negative cash flow in the beginning. Many years prior to that, my then single husband bought a house in a suburb. Hated it, and bought another in the city and turned the suburban house into a rental. But, he remodeled the new house, ran out of money, rented out the house and he himself rented a small room to save money.... When he finally moved back into the newly remodeled home, he had many roommates to help with the finances. When we were first married, we built a mother in law apartment in the basement and rented that out. That helped with our expenses. We did not ask her to leave until my son was 2 years old. We then reclaimed the basement for ourselves. (You asked for stories and sacrifices...) We now have enough cash flow so not having rental income for a few months is not a big deal. This gives us the luxury of picking "good" tenants. We only pick tenants who are professionals with good jobs and stellar credit and rental record. The longest we have had vacant rental is about 3 months. We are also in an urban environment where many young professionals cannot afford to buy due to the housing price. Most houses in a suburban subdivision do not make a good rental, unless you can make the rent 1/3 or less than the monthly mortgage of buying the property. (now days, that may not be true because of the downpayment requirements have gone up for buying a home...) Like most everything else in real estate, it's location, location, location that determines the rentability, the amount of rent, the type of tenant etc. We have never needed to go to section 8 route. My condo is very close to the University and Medical school. We almost always have medical residents as tenants(currently dental student and the working spouse). We don't rent to undergrads. They have "no income" and do not qualify in our minds. Our suburban house is near many tech firms in the area, and we tend to get techies with well paying jobs living in the house. melle sacto, not only do you need to have enough money to get through prolonged vacancy, you need to be able to deal with unforseen emergencies quickly. These rentals are your investments. You don't want to do anything to devalue that investment. For example, we had a leak in a very old bathroom. We decided that it was a good time to update the bathroom rather than "patch" fix the bathroom when the tenants moved out. The tenants move out when they want to not when you have the money to fix the bathroom. Like any other business, you need to have available capital when you need it. In order to rent the property quickly, you need to make it look fresh with regular painting, yard maintenance, deep cleaning, etc etc. The most recent tenant turn over uncovered very old sliding glass doors that were not closing property due to age and settling etc. It was noticeable enough and would have detracted from the house from the potential tenants point of view. Again, we had to spend a few thousand $ to get them replaced. This is a regular part of being a landlord. We will probably get one more rental, either a duplex or a quadplex. (our next door neighbor probably has 10 houses/buildings or more) Anything larger than that, we are not willing to manage ourselves. We call trades people for just about everything that needs to be done. It is not worth doing it ourselves at this point. Initially, you will have to do everything yourselves, ie painting, yard work, cleaning, etc. If you and your husband are handy, you will spend less money versus calling someone in. Again, this is not on your schedule but the house's schedule. My brother has a dulplex that he rents out and also the house my parents willed to him. He too had to spend money when things happen. (both of our rentals needed new blower for the furnace this last winter.) We just laugh when these things happen.... Unlike calliope, I consider the risk I take with the rentals as a controlled risk. I actually think it is much less of risk than money I put in the stock market. However, a rental has little potential for huge growth as would in some stocks. To be a successful landlord, you also need to learn your market. In some markets, it is not a feasible business model. For example, I would not buy a rental in a rural area with high unemployment. But I would buy a rental in an urban environment with a large number of transient well paid professionals. Rental properties are a part of our entire portfolio along with other more and less risky things.

You will have a hard time finding a really good contractor that sells a quality window to do 2-3 at a clip. The logistics associated with a 2-3 window job are just about as hard as a 20 window job. You can call around but you would be better served to try to do them in larger chunks if possible. Remember, going cheap, is usually more expensive.

An alternative strategy, assuming you have the time: craigslist. I own or manage a half dozen rental properties. Mostly I upgrade lighting, etc. , when a place turns over. Over the last decade, I have redone the kitchens in two of the most spacious and desirable rentals, going for good quality used cabinets as opposed to moderately priced but not very nice new cabinets. The first one was a house we were renovating, so I had time to haunt craigslist, ebay, etc. to accumulate the bits of the kitchen while work was being done on other parts of the house. In my prideful frugality, I posted the saga of that kitchen on Gardenweb, at http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2421625/heres-my-recycled-kitchen-show-me-yours The recent one was earlier this year, a pretty large kitchen in a three-unit 1895 building. I did not have so much leisure on this project, but I was able to buy not only cabinets but counters used on craigslist. I cannot say that the results blow me away, but improvement was great, and the worst decision I made was on the floor tile, which is brand new and not cheap but boring. The kitchen put in when the building was renovated in the 1980s had cheap and badly installed tile floors and minimal builders grade cabinets, with uppers only 30" tall in a 9.5 foot high kitchen. The "fancy" bits were a closet depth pantry and an unsealed exposed brick wall where the backsplash would have been been on the non-window side of the kitchen. I do not have photos of the before. For the renovation, I bought good quality maple cabinets with 42" uppers from Baltimore for $2k and a large quantity of used Mont Blanc Silestone from DC, which also ran about $2k with the installation. I used pendant lights instead of cans in the ceiling, because I could not find an affordable cans that work well with such high ceilings. The backsplash tiles -- actually in colors of gold and blue but on such a small scale that they register as textured neutral -- came from Overstock. The several leftover cabinets were adopted via freecycle, along with the original sink and appliances; the leftover Silestone I will use in bathroom of another property. I should say that I am one of those people who likes the idea of designing a kitchen but am a bit too scattered to do it without constraints. The fact of a specific set of cabinets is a context in which other decisions are basically problem solving. This approach would not work for everyone. Some people would say it does not work that well for me either, but I do have fun. Best of luck on your new rental kitchen, whichever strategy you choose.