BBQ Capital | Kansas City Real Estate Investing

My friends from Austin, TX are hurting. A brother and father was lost. When I learned of it yesterday I thought back to when I was driving around with no life insurance, or health insurance for that matter. My wife and (at that time) only son’s future were completely out of my control.

I’m older now. I’ve been blessed with more. And while I still have no control over the future I am able to have a life insurance policy large enough to help out. A house or two to sell if necessary, as well.

But unless you are extremely blessed from the beginning most people in America spend at least part of their 20’s and maybe 30’s without significant life insurance. Go back to those days, at least for the moment. And think how you would have needed your friends, family and acquaintances to step in if necessary.

All I keep hearing about is how great the economy would be going if housing would pick up and we didn’t have the sub-prime debacle. As if housing didn’t carry the economy for a number of years while Greenspan buried his head in his hands pretending not to notice.

Well I have a question for you: Has anyone purchased a gallon of milk lately?

Confession time. I will occasionally help out around the house by purchasing the groceries. But I never pay attention to the prices I just get what I’m told to get and run it through the cash card.

Well Saturday I decided to pay attention and I’m sorry I did. Milk was/is $3.55 a gallon! Now this may not sound like a big deal but my kids drink about 6 gallons a week.

When did milk get so expensive? Heck, when did groceries get so expensive? Maybe it’s not just the ARMs adjusting up. Maybe, because of the cost of our precious oil, everything is shooting up?

I’m not sure why a real estate investor won’t take care of their Kansas City rental property but it just seems to me that drainage problems and rental property go hand in hand.

Fixing a basement in Kansas City can be very, very costly. Heck, if you put in a 4″ wall brace every six feet and you have 140 linear feet of basement wall you are going to end up with a bill close to $9,000 for repairs. And that’s if you don’t need any other major corrections…which is highly unlikely.

Some simple things you can do to protect your rental property investments;

• Water the lawn when there has been no rain for an extended period of time. Especially about two feet out from the foundation. If you think your tenants won’t water because they pay the bill offer them a $25 rent credit to offset their water bill.
• Make sure ALL downspouts have elbows on them at the water exit. Otherwise it’s like a blasting tube for water during thunderstorms. I’ve seen holes as much as a foot deep dug by the foundation walls. Not good.
• Add those $15 flexible black pipe extenders to your downspouts to get the water directed to the closest slope away from your rental house.
• Add dirt around your foundation so that you have a one inch drop away from the house before you have gone more than twelve inches away from the foundation.
• Avoid buying rental property in Kansas City at the bottom of a hill if there is no berm or drainage systems to direct the water away from or around your rental property.

This list is by no means all inclusive. Nor will it insure that you never have a foundation problem. But it sure as well help keep your negligence from being the doom of your Kansas City rental property. And how much do you think any of those items costs, anyway?