Jack-O-Heifer, New Neighbors, and Work (or lack thereof)

I've been in one of those moods lately where I feel like I don't have anything to blog about.  I guess I actually do, though.  We went hiking near Heber for Labor Day.  And we went to the State Fair.  That was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed the agriculture buildings more than I used to.  It was fun to see the goats that people were showing.  Also, the lady that a bunch of our goats are from was there, so it was fun to finally meet her.  We talked with her for quite a while.

Farm News

Our animals are all doing well.  Turkey is getting big.  I wonder how much he will weigh for Thanksgiving.

Daisy lost one of her front teeth.  Poor little girl!  I suspect one of the goats shoved her too hard.  (They're always trying to establish their pecking order.)  We were wondering, will she have a gap in her smile forever???   Do cows have baby teeth???  I finally looked it up.  Cows do have baby teeth.  (GOOD.)  Daisy will grow a new tooth in about a year and a half.

(I kept trying to get a picture of her goofy new smile and she wouldn't cooperate.  So, maybe later.)


New Neighbors

Did I mention we have new neighbors?  Because we do.

A couple days before our old neighbors moved, we were talking to them, and joking about whether the new people realize we have goats.  Our old neighbors said yes, actually, they were excited about the goats.  (They must not have shown the house at 6:30 am when our goats are noisy, I told Jeff.)

They really are excited about our animals, though.  The neighbors have two kids: Peyton (a boy, 10? years old) and Tristen (a girl, 4? years old).  They are adorable, and friendly, and they like us a lot.  We went over to introduce ourselves right after they moved in, and Jeff told them they're welcome to come over any time to visit our animals.

So, they do.

Seriously, the kids hang out in their backyard (by our fence) waiting for me to come outside.  "PEYTON, PEYTON!  THE LADY IS OUT!"  "CAN WE COME OVER?"  "Sure!"

I let them collect eggs with me one of the first times they came over.  I told them they could each take two.  They thought that was a lot of fun.  Peyton has come up with a schedule.  He thinks it is a good idea for them each to collect two eggs once a week.  That's fine.

They like to "help" me milk.  "Okay.  So you normally milk at 7:00?  We'll be outside at 6:55.  Wait for us, okay?"  It's pretty cute.  They come out with me, and I've shown them how to milk, so Peyton always wants to do as much of it as I will let him.  He knows to spray the teats, and wipe them with a goat wipe, and then to spray one squirt of milk not in the bucket.  "Let me do it, okay?  I know how."  Sure.  So I'll milk one side, and Peyton milks the other side, at the same time.  He chatters with me all about how fun it is to have nice neighbors, and about how farm work is like chores--except it is fun.  And he talks to me about how farm food is better than food from the store.  Then when we're finished milking, he likes to come inside and help me filter it.

Jeff thought it was really funny the other day because Peyton had suggested that he could help with the farm work and we could share milk and eggs and meat.  So then we were in filtering the milk and he explained a good way for us to do things:  when we filter the milk, if we get two quart jars, he'll take the one with less in it.  Hahaha!  He wanted to take half of our milk.  "Yeahh, probably not every day, but sometimes you can!"  "Oh, I mean, I know not every day."

So he wanted to try raw milk.  I told him he had to ask his parents.  So they both ran back to their house, and their parents discussed it and decided it was fine, and they came back and I let them take a quart of fresh, warm, raw goat milk back home.  (Labeled, of course.)  The next morning, Peyton told me he didn't really like it.  It tastes really different than store milk.  I asked if he had it cold.  "Halfway cold."  "OH, well you should try it when it is cold.  It tastes a lot better cold!"  So later he did, and now he says he doesn't think he likes store milk anymore because raw milk just tastes better.  Good kid.

He told me he can milk for us when we go on vacation.  It's tempting.  He usually milks about 1/2 of one goat all in all, so I don't think he would actually be strong enough to milk all by himself yet, but maybe next year.  It's cute that he enjoys it so much.

They also help with feeding the animals.  Tristen likes to feed Daisy bottles.  They both like feeding the chickens.

The thing about kids is, they're really funny.  Sometimes I wish I could just do farm chores without "help" (because it takes about 2-3 times as long when they come over), but mostly we just really enjoy having them visit.  They say the funniest things.  Peyton was AMAZED by the door to our garage (from the hallway by our front door).  "I can't believe this," he said, just standing there, staring.  "I've always wanted to see one of these.  It's just like I imagined."  "What?" I asked.  "You have an upside down door!"  "Huh.  I guess I do."  "You never noticed???"  "Well, I hadn't really thought about it." 


Jeff's Job

Jeff got a surprise at work recently.  Not this past Thursday but the week before, Jeff's CEO called him into a conference room---and said Jeff would be taking a six-day furlough, starting that Friday.  They put 80% of their employees on unpaid leave, because they were having financial problems.  Basically, they were receiving investor funds and the last installment was two months overdue.  Jeff asked a lot of prying, hard questions, and left work with the impression that the investor had probably walked.  "Take a vacation!" they told him, but Jeff knew after their conversation that he had pretty much been laid off.

So, the six-day break became a six-day intensive job search.  We were disappointed about the furlough because Jeff really loved his job.  He liked the work environment, and he liked what he was working on.  Too bad. 

This past week, Jeff has been to a bunch of interviews, and he got his first job offer.  He has a few more second interviews at the beginning of next week, and he hopes to make a decision about his next job on Tuesday or Wednesday. 

Finally, last night Jeff got a call from the CEO of his company.  We assumed it would be notification that Jeff was laid off, and it basically was.  On the message, the CEO told Jeff that unfortunately they were unable to secure funding, and everyone was going to be on "indefinite furlough" and he understood if Jeff wanted to find a new job, but the CEO hoped that he would still be able to secure funding.

So, I guess that's that.  We are grateful that we are very prepared, and we don't live on the edge; we haven't had to change our spending at all.  So that's a blessing.


Em's Job

I've still been doing a lot of marketing!  My 500 flyers came, and they look SO professional.  I think they turned out really nice.  I sent a bunch last weekend to people who are currently trying to rent their homes.  No response from that yet.  I also talked with a guy who e-mailed me this week about managing his home for him.  I think that one is going to work out.  So, that will be really exciting.

I would love to get busy doing more real estate work and less marketing.  (I think these things just take time.) 

We're gearing up for a couple vacancies--we've gotten notice for two of our properties.  It's kind of bad timing (summer would have been better), but not a big deal. 

I also ordered my second set of postcards for the 273 people.  I think they will arrive on Monday.

I'm participating with the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM), and I love their meetings.  Everyone is very friendly and helpful.


Well, I think that's about it for now!  We're doing well, and we're really happy.

A new heifer, more work, and preparedness blog posts

This week we got a Jersey heifer calf!

I told Jeff I would milk for three months if he would get me a calf.  He agreed.  We named her Daisy, she is eleven days old today, and she is absolutely adorable.  We won't actually get milk for a couple years, but we're still excited to have her.  I bought a halter for her, and we're teaching her to let us lead her, but cows don't really like going where you want them to.  We (okay, I) wanted her so that we can use her milk for cream, butter, and cheese.  Her mom gives 6-7 gallons per day, so Daisy should be a pretty high producer.  When she is full grown she will weigh about 800 lbs.


I've been working on building my property management business.  So far I am not managing much, so I've been working on marketing a lot.  I sent out 273 postcards to people who either bought or tried to sell multifamily housing in Salt Lake county within the last year.  A couple people called from that, but it hasn't resulted in any new management contracts---yet.  I also developed a flyer for other Realtors to give to their clients that are having trouble selling in this economy.  I designed sticky notes (with a message to the Realtors), and once the flyers arrive (probably Tuesday), I will be able to go out to other real estate offices and introduce myself to other Realtors.  I had 500 flyers printed, and I think they are a good direction to head.

Last week started a property management blog.  I am http://thepropertymanager.wordpress.com.  I have other websites, like my name .com and slcpropertymanagement.com, but I don't know how to put a blog on one of those sites (yet) so I figured I might as well start anyway.  The blog only has a few posts so far, because it is new.  I keep checking statistics to see if other people have found it at all, and it never has any views at all.  That's okay!  I'm still excited about it.  These things take time. 


I have also written more emergency preparedness blog posts.

I haven't mentioned this for a while on this blog, so there are a lot of new posts. I finished my series on sprouting, and then I wrote about: HAM radio, storing various types of fuel, food storage for restricted diets, a couple posts about specific eFoods Direct products, and bartering.  Now I am writing a series called "Preparedness Chickens" which is to help people understand how they can start keeping chickens in their backyard, as part of their emergency preparedness and food storage. 

11 April 2011 - Sprouting: How to Choose Seeds
18 April 2011 - Sprouting Supplies
25 April 2011 - Try Sprouting!
2 May 2011 - You'll wish you had a HAM radio!
9 May 2011 - How to get your HAM radio license
16 May 2011 - Storing Gasoline?
23 May 2011 - Storing Propane for an Emergency
30 May 2011 - Food Storage for Restricted Diets, part I
6 June 2011 - Food Storage for Restricted Diets, part II
13 June 2011 - Kerosene, White Gas, and Butane
20 June 2011 - Storing Wood or Coal
27 June 2011 - Best. Snack. Ever.
4 July 2011 - eFoods Direct Blueberry Muffins Recipe
11 July 2011 - Bartering in an Emergency
18 July 2011 - Everyday Bartering 
25 July 2011 - Prepare to Create Value in an Emergency
1 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 1
8 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 2
15 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 3
22 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 4
29 August 2011 - Preparedness Chickens - part 5

I have three upcoming posts about chickens, and then I will be moving along to another topic.  There has also been a change in the schedule, so now I will be posting every other Monday, instead of every Monday. 


Well, this is about enough for now.  We're doing well.  Please think happy thoughts of me finding properties to manage.  :)

Happenings!

Real Estate:

I graduated from the Real Estate Academy I've been attending. I took (and passed!) the licensing exams. I interviewed at a couple different offices (and talked with a few others), and I found a broker to work with. I will be working for Community Property Management, which works with Community Real Estate. The broker's name is David Anderegg, and he's had his office for about a year. He's just started the property management brokerage, but he has a bunch of experience managing properties, so I think he will be great to work with. I submitted the application to actually get my license, and the Division of Real Estate is processing it, and they said I should receive my license in 5-7 business days, which should be sometime next week.



Farm:

The cow is still pretty little.

We're down to one turkey. The one that's left is doing really well. It's out with our chickens.

We still don't know whether the goats are pregnant or not. They'd better be.




Garden:

It's growing. I transplanted it into bigger pots, and it is still in J's parents' greenhouse, where it is doing really well.





Family:

My dad is visiting! He is in town for two weeks, and he's helping us with a bunch of things. He and I built a big shelf for our garage, and we organized the garage. He's been painting an apartment for us. He is also painting our barn. (So far he's put new plywood up to cover the old, really worn out plywood.) We're enjoying his visit. I think he is too. He plays with Chalcy a lot, and she gives him lots of kisses.

As of today...

All of our properties are rented!

Last Saturday was our busy, busy day where we had four people all fighting to apply first. In slow-motion.

On Monday everyone passed background and credit checks.

Monday evening I signed the first rental agreement, and Tuesday evening I signed the second one. This week I hustled to finish everything. Both wanted to pick up keys last night, so we did that, and they started moving in. Yesterday was chaotic! I hired a cleaning lady AND a handyman to help. I found out that the dishwasher I was hooking up was actually broken* and J arranged for a lady to deliver one. So I installed TWO dishwashers yesterday. I'm getting better at that. Last night J and I were there re-installing the dishwasher, re-gluing linoleum, and drying out carpet until 10pm. Each unit has a couple more things to do, but nothing too urgent.

In order to rent the fourplex we posted (and re-posted) ads on KSL, Craigslist, Rental.com, and "Over 20 other sites!" (through Rental.com). We also put a FOR RENT sign in the yard.

• Our first applicant was someone who had noticed people moving and asked my other renters for my phone number.
  
• Throughout the vacancies, I had many calls and showings that resulted from KSL and the sign out front. People who called about the KSL ads were almost always calling about the unit I put fake wood floor in. Even though the ad had pictures that represented the apartment well, the people almost always ended up deciding they preferred carpet. (I think this was because the unit with carpet was closer to being done.)
• Of the two accepted applications, one was from people who drove the neighborhood looking for a place, and the other was from KSL.
• Rental.com has neat tracking stuff to tell me how many leads have been generated. They assigned me a toll-free number that interested parties could call. They claim one person called. If someone did, it did not result in anything.
• I also received two e-mails about the Rental.com ad. Neither were serious. The first was from someone with an obscene name, who also listed an obscene e-mail address. I don't know if they were real or not, but I didn't call him back to find out.
• NOBODY called or visited as a result of Craigslist.
• NOBODY called or visited as a result of the "Over 20 other sites!".
• Lowering the deposit seemed to make a big difference in the quality of the people that were interested. So did lowering the price.
  

Today is a lot less stressful. Things are feeling better. They will feel even better when I get our house clean!



*I found this out by, you know, flooding the whole kitchen.

Little update - part 1

One of these days I'll have time (or make time) to finish the story about our floor.

For now, here is a little update about life.

- I am still working, working, working at our fourplex. We keep trying different things to get more, uh, qualified applicants. Right now we're doing a "FIRST MONTH PAY 1/2 RENT!!!!!" special. It's just been kind of a problem because I've shown both of the apartments a lot and for a while I was getting people who just...well...they were way too risky to rent to (or, they're not actually interested). Among people who have come to see the apartments:

* many people without jobs (so...uh...how are you planning to pay rent?*),
* a felon ("Is it a crime that the city considers a danger to neighborhoods, including sexual crimes, crimes against property, or violent crimes?" "Yeah, it's one of those ones." "Oh."),
* someone in the process of being evicted ("My landlord is such a @#$)&$* !!! He said he's not going to give me any of my security deposit because we have cats and we're not supposed to, but I have a note saying they're COMPANION cats for my daughters** because they've been through a lot, so they have to let me keep the cats. But he's evicting me so I'm going to just stay there another month and not pay him rent since he's not giving me my deposit back."
* people thinking about moving (after 30 minutes showing both units and discussing where to put furniture, etc: "Now, I have to be honest with you--we're not really sure we're moving. We won't know until Tuesday. In fact, I can't even say there's a 50% chance we're moving." [So...why am I spending my weekend with you instead of my family...?] "Mhmm...", OR "If I give you $100 will you hold this apartment for me until October?" [back at the beginning of August... Ouch.] "Uhhh, no. If you want to put down the deposit and first month's rent, then maybe." "Oh, no, I just have $100.")
* guys who just want to hit on me (A couple guys drove by while I was watering the lawn and they started honking and calling out to me. Then they called the number on my FOR RENT sign in the yard. "Did we just see you out watering the lawn? ... Ohh, hi! Can we come look at the apartment?" They did at least pretend to be thinking of moving.)

Anyway, we're*** hoping to finish getting the units ready pretty soon. There really isn't much left. I've learned a lot in the process. Next time we have a vacancy, I think it will probably go smoother. I will hire help faster. I will have clean pictures to post so that people can get an idea while I'm still actually fixing it up.

Some of the things I have done at the fourplex are: replaced tons more sprinklers, installed 17 boxes of fake wood flooring. Replaced showerheads. Whitened grout, re-caulked tub. Used an airless paint sprayer to paint all of the rooms in one unit and the downstairs of the other unit.**** Patched four holes in walls. Replaced ghetto 1970s ugly lights with modern light fixtures. Re-seeded the lawn. Cold-welded an iron handrail that renters broke. Installed a new motion light outside. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. Installed a dishwasher and new garbage disposal (but I still have to finish that because it needs some change to the pipe work beneath the sink.) Changed locks. Replaced 10? sets of blinds. (But I mostly had my brother and the other guy I hired do those, because I really don't like installing blinds.)



* In Utah, you can't discriminate people based on "source of income." It's a Utah thing. That to me sounds like prostitutes and drug dealers, but Utah actually means you can't say no to people who receive housing assistance or child support, etc (if they are otherwise qualified). And that's completely fine. The trouble is, lots of people are unemployed and have no "source of income." (You can "discriminate" about that.)
** Can I say their names online? Stormy and Sulfur. And I don't mean the cats' names. They seemed nice, though. And I would have rented to them if they applied and were qualified.
*** [I'm]
**** Ha! I'm so bad at using a paint sprayer. It takes practice, I think. In the rooms that were dark, I ended up with drips all over the place. In one of the living rooms, I accidentally got way too much paint on one wall. I wiped it off with my hands (into a little bucket) and I painted a whole big storage closet all with the extra paint from around the outside of just that one closet door. Oops.

I am not a Professional Striper.

It's been another busy week for us.

(Every week is, though, so that's nothing new.)

Last Monday, I striped our parking lot. The lines were really faded, so it seemed like a good idea. The previous owner told us it was one of the best things he ever did, and he said you can call up a company and they'll come out and paint the stripes for like $100.

Here is a "before" picture:


But we only have 7 or 8 stripes, so I was like, "NO PROBLEM! I'll just do it!" Because I have experience with that sort of thing, anyway.*

So I found out that there was striping paint that you could just buy(!)** at Lowie's or HD, to do parking lots. Piece of cake! It's called "Striping Paint"*** because it's for making stripes. And it would seem like stripes would always be for parking lots, but it turns out there are SO MANY USES for striping paint.**** In fact, striping paint is such a big deal that there is a whole secret code for what colors you're supposed to use when you stripe things. [The legend (key?) is on boxes of things, in case you don't know it. One example is, you don't use red paint for painting parking lines.] They also make marking paint, which can be used for stripes. It's more popular for marking gas lines, or power lines, or trees to cut down, though.

So anyway, I really looked into it and I saw online that you can paint stripes with either a striping machine thing, or with a marking wand thing. The difference is, the striping machine (about $100) has four intense (all-terrain! (I think)) wheels, to keep things really straight, and the line you spray can vary in width. The marking wand (about $20) just has a little wheel to keep things as straight as you can draw them.

I decided that I was not a hard-core enough parking-striper to buy a special striping machine. The wand would work for me! So I went and bought my can of striping paint (to cover 250 ft! Wow!), and a wand. I bought some pink plastic DON'T GO HERE! tape, so that I could block off the parking lot and our tenants would remember NOT TO GO THERE.

On Friday I posted a sign on everyone's doors to say:
1. We're re-painting the parking lot stripes on Monday!
2. Please move your cars by 8:30 am and don't plan to park in the lot again until 7 pm! (Because I knew I would probably be there at 9:00 or so, and I wanted to give them a little extra time to be moved. Also, the paint said it would take 8 hours to dry, so I wanted to allow myself an hour or so, just in case it took me longer to paint than I thought it would, plus plenty of time for things to dry.)
3. If you don't move your car, I reserve the right to tow it, at your expense. (To emphasize that it was important, and just in case.) Buuut, please just plan to park somewhere else, pretty please.

It was a great sign! It even had a border and a giant can of paint in the lower corner, just like people would expect.

So on Monday morning, I gathered my striping paint, and my marking wand, and my pink tape, and some masking tape (just in case!) and I headed off to the property.

A car was still parked there, but two of the other tenants who were home had moved their cars to the street. (Good job, guys!) The car was parked on one end, so I decided I would just block it off, and then if I could, I would paint around it. And if not, then I would knock on doors and ask whoever it was to move it. Or maybe paint another day. Towing cars is pretty mean, I think.

So I put up my pink DON'T GO HERE tape, and I stretched it from the fence on one side, allllllll the way across the ends of the parking spaces, down to the mailboxes. I tightened it so that it would remain as taut as it could for being stretched so far with no support in the middle.

I started laying out masking tape, so that I would be able to see my lines really clearly. The existing lines were pretty worn out, so I just wanted to be sure that I did a good job, and kept the lines pretty straight.

I taped up one line and part of a second one, and then I ran out of masking tape.

Oh well! No big deal!

But the tape didn't stick too well (because it's an old parking lot, and the asphalt is gravel in a lot of places now). So I would use my hand to brush the little rocks away, and tape it down where it was coming up. I also brushed the rocks out of the parking line area, because OF COURSE if you paint lines on gravel it's going to look pretty bad pretty quickly.

I was ready to go!

I pulled the marking wand out, and I assembled it, by attaching the wheel. It popped right in! Good!

I read the instructions. Twice. And then I shook the can (vigorously!) for a full two minutes after I could hear the little metal ball inside. I took the cap off of the striping paint, and put the can in the wand, and I think I lined things up right, and I went over to my taped line, and I lined it up straight in the middle of the space to be painted. (You've got to be careful with lining things up when you're using a wand instead of a striping machine, but it's just a sacrifice you have to make.)

I pulled the trigger on the wand, and...


Nothing happened.

I rolled the wand back and forth, and click, click, clicked the trigger.

Nothing.

I picked it up, and looked at it, and I wondered if maybe I hadn't lined it up right. Maybe I had mixed up the thing something was supposed to be parallel with, and it wasn't working right. So I turned the can around, and put it down, and centered it...

And nothing happened when I tried to stripe that time either.

So I looked at how it was working. The little lever needed to hit the top of the paint can, and it seemed like it did, but it just wasn't working. I sprayed the striping paint, to be sure that it wasn't unusually difficult, or clogged, or something. It worked.

Hm.

I called Rust-Oleum to see if we could figure it out together, but they were currently experiencing a high call volume. So I stayed on the line, but I continued trying to get it to work.

After several minutes of it not working, and several minutes of Rust-Oleum queue music, I headed towards Lowe's. Obviously there was either something wrong with my striping paint, or with my wand. Maybe the wand thing that pokes the top of the can wasn't assembled facing the right direction.

Halfway to Lowe's, Rust-Oleum answered. I explained the problem, and explained that I was on my way to the store, to see what was wrong. The Rust-Oleum girl was like, "OH, well, I know exactly what your problem is." I told her, "Oh! Great! You do?"

Her: "Yes. You see, you're using the marking wand with striping paint. That's not gonna work. The tops are shaped differently. That's why it isn't working. That's not gonna work. With the marking wand you've got to use marking paint."

Me: "Ohhhhh, so if I want to use striping paint, I need to use the more expensive machine. See, I'm new to this. I've never done this before, and it's just for our little parking lot. So I just thought stripes were a kind of marking, so they seemed like the same thing to me. [Chuckle.]"

Her: "Yeahhh. ... No, you can use the marking paint, though, and that will work for you."

Me: "Even for parking lots? The lines won't be as good though, will they? I thought the marking paint was for like, marking gas lines and things. Can I still get crisp lines with the marking paint?"

Her (reassuringly): "Oh, yeah. The marking paint works for parking lots too. It won't last quite as long, and it won't be quite as crisp of lines as you would get if you were using striping, but..."

Me: "Right...that's understandable."

Her: "But. Yeah, you can still get that crisp line you're looking for."

Me: "Ohhh, okay. Well, I guess I'll do that, then. That should work. I'm still driving to the store, so I'll just plan to get that instead, and now I don't need to figure out what's wrong. [Chuckle.] Thanks."

Her: "Okay. And don't get mad at the people working at the hardware store for it, because that's what you bought.." [Or something like that.]

Me: [Confused.] "What? Oh. ... No. I'm not a mean customer like that. I'm just going to get the marking paint instead. ... All right. Thanks for your help. Have a good day."

Her: "You too. Goodbye."

I wasn't like, angry on the call, so I don't know why she told me to not get mad at the hardware store. But, whatever, it was nice to know what the problem was.

So I got to Lowe's and I went in, and I grabbed a can of (white) marking paint, and some masking tape (just in case), and I hustled back to the parking lot.

I could see that the top of the paint was totally different, just like she had mentioned. I shook that paint for a couple minutes, got it centered on my taped up line, and started spraying.

And it sprayed!

But...it made such a skinny (and semi-transparent!) line that I had to go back and forth, back and forth to get to the sides, and to make it opaque enough. I taped up the second line the rest of the way, and I started spraying that line. And then, I ran out of marking paint.

After 1 1/2 lines!

[Please note: most of the white in the picture is masking tape.]

Good grief.

So I could see that marking paint was not going to work for me. It didn't look very good. The lines were not crisp at all (except for what the masking tape did), and they weren't very solid, and I went through the stuff SO fast. It wasn't even all that windy! And I had brushed the gravel away!

I drove to Home Depot and got myself a paint-striper. I bought another can of striping paint, too, just in case.

And I drove back, shook the can (vigorously!) for two minutes, and put it in the machine. It worked! I ended up needing to brush away gravel on all of the stripes, and that was a pain, but our parking lot is re-striped!*****


So, I'm pretty happy with how that all went. Now that we own a marking wand and a striping machine, plus I used three cans of paint (1 marking, 2 striping), the job cost us about $150 plus 3 hours of time (instead of $100 and no time). So, it was not the most profitable decision, at least for the short-term. But now I know what's up--I know the difference between marking and striping. And if anyone wants me to paint parking lines for them, I have the tools!

(It kind of makes me want to set up a race. Because I could maybe find temporary marking paint, and then it would be just like what they use for 5Ks and stuff. Not sure what I would raise money for, if I had a race. But I should probably think about that, since, of course, the only thing people really need in order to have a race is a marking wand, right?)


SPOILER FOR MY NEXT POST:
When I finished at about noon, I hurried home to take Chalcy outside, and then I hurried over to J's parents' house, because J's dad had volunteered to fix sprinklers with me.



* One time, (in California) I was walking over to the grocery store from the little Italian restaurant where I worked, and there was a guy re-painting the STOP letters on the asphalt, in the parking lot. I'd never seen anyone do that before! So I stopped and asked him about it. He was using a (big!) stencil and some paint, and rolling it out. It was pretty simple, he said. He offered to let me do one of the letters, and I DID. I thought it was kind of cool. So, I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, actually, you know?
** As long as you are 18 or older.
*** (which I always confuse with "Stripping Paint" so it looks more risque than it actually is, but what would "stripping paint" even be used for anyway? Usually stripping is removing, not adding, so like, for removing paint from walls, I think you use a stripping solvent or something. I don't know.)
**** Like painting aisles. Or basketball courts. Etc.
***** Except for the one paint line by the car, because I ran out of paint right then anyway. (And the store was all out. And I was tired of doing that project, because I thought it would take like an hour, and it was already almost noon.)

Big things: Fourplex!

Almost a week after my graduation, J and I received some exciting news: we had final bank approval for us to purchase our fourplex!

Months ago, J and I decided we wanted to buy a fourplex, but we wanted to get a good deal on it. We analyzed the different properties that were available (over several months). J made a spreadsheet that calculated anticipated mortgage amounts, evaluated the rent collected for each unit, and produced a decimal to indicate how well it would pay for itself. We realized that most of the really good deals seemed to be short sales.

We didn't know much about short sales.

We learned all about them.

Basically, in a short sale, the seller owes more on a property than it is worth. Usually, the seller is about to go into foreclosure because they are in default on their mortgage, and they can't sell the property (because nobody will buy it for the amount owed). So they try to sell it at the amount it's actually worth, instead. It's usually in the bank's best interest for a short sale to happen because if the property goes into foreclosure, it will still only be worth the current value, and having to sell it and deal with it will cost the bank even more money. It's kind of a win/win (or lose-less/lose-less?) situation, because the seller avoids foreclosure (which looks really bad on a credit report) and the bank avoids the extra expense of foreclosure.

In order for it all to work, though, everyone has to cooperate. A lot of times they don't. In order to do a short sale, the seller needs permission from the bank(s). Especially if there is a second mortgage, it's tricky, because sometimes the first bank would be totally paid off if the foreclosure happened (since the second mortgage is paid after the first one), so they don't have a lot of incentive to cooperate for the short sale.

Our real estate agent told us we should be prepared to wait a long time to hear back from the banks, even after our offer was "accepted" by the seller. It usually takes them months. And even after that, the price isn't always approved. We put in offers on a couple different properties. One of them was accepted, but we canceled that offer because once we got inside, there were cockroaches and mold all over the place. (No thanks!) We waited on the other offer, though.

It took about 3 months for us to hear back from the banks, and they said YES IT WAS APPROVED BUT WE HAD TO DO IT ALL IN 15 DAYS OR ELSE. If we didn't close (and fund!) in 15 days, it was going to cost us $2500 more.

So right right after I graduated we got approval, and we hurry-hurry-hurried to get everything together. We had the home inspector come out on a Monday, got the home inspection report on Tuesday, had the appraisal on Wednesday, finally got the appraisal back on Friday. On the following Monday I set up insurance. We met with the seller a few times to pick up maintenance stuff for the fourplex, and we were going to close that Wednesday, but it got pushed to Thursday, and then it finally happened. The whole thing was all such a whirlwind!

Since then, I have stayed busy with fourplex things.

- I started my own business (an LLC!) to handle J and I's property management stuff. I set up a business bank account and a PO Box.

- I read up on A LOT of different landlord/tenant laws, and became VERY familiar with our tenants' leases (we have to honor the previous owner's leases). I developed and had our people fill out Property Condition reports, and Tenant Update forms.

- I installed smoke detectors in all of the units. I bought seismic bands for the water heaters (and was going to install them, but it turned out I didn't have the right tool at the time.)

- I bought tools!

- J and I met with the previous owner to learn how to summer-ize the evaporative coolers. It was nice of him to show us. We realized that when we summer-ized our evaporative cooler*, we actually didn't. [More to follow about that...]

- The previous owner also showed us how to use the sprinkler system, so we turned the water on for the summer and found out a sprinkler was broken. (So I learned how to fix sprinklers! I replaced some broken pipe. J helped with part of it.)

- This week, I repaired a broken drawer and performed maintenance on a dishwasher. Then J and I replaced a dishwasher a couple days ago, and yesterday I replaced the elbow thing on the new dishwasher, and I used teflon tape for the first time.

- My next projects will [probably] be: making and installing a bunch of screens (a few of the units are missing screens) and re-painting the parking lines in our little parking lot.

I am becoming so handy!** Also, I am making friends at Home Depot and Lowe's.

It seems to take a lot of time to learn how to do each new thing, but after each repair (or repair attempt!) I understand so much more about how things work. In the future, repairs will be quick and easy, and soooo much cheaper than if we were to hire repair people every time anything breaks.

In the past, J and I have sometimes talked about having me do property management. Recently, we like the idea even better. Instead of looking for a job now, I am studying to get my real estate license.*** To be licensed, Utah requires people to complete a 120-hour real estate course and then pass the state and national license exams. So. I signed up for one of the courses that is available both live and online (to mix it up a little bit), and I've been getting started with that. I'm going to try to finish it over the next couple months.


* You know, by just changing the pads. (LOL)
** Also, I am making friends at Home Depot and Lowe's. Since their employees have to walk me through all of the steps of my projects when online instructions are insufficient. Actually, the HD master plumber knows me now. In the past couple weeks, he and I have talked several times, for probably a couple hours in all. What a guy! He really knows his stuff.
*** In Utah, in order to manage other people's properties you need to have a real estate license.