Remembering 2019 and Welcoming 2020

2019, what a year. Supposed to be a year for us to relax and get back on our feet and recover from 2018. But that never happened. We ended 2018 with getting married, finishing up our three remaining rentals (out of the 6 we did that year) and getting them rented out, then off to Cambodia and Thailand for our honeymoon. Never did we imagine what we were getting into when we got home from our honey moon. We had to evict a tenant due to criminal activity. It was published in the paper so it was pretty clear what was going on. There’s always a first for everything.

Once she left in February, we had to remodel her side before we could re-rent it. It was a complete gut, except for the kitchen because we had just done that.  So we worked on it until April. Our goal was to have it done before we left for Disney, and we were just about on target.  As we were completing the work, the tenant next door loved the way the apartment looked and started questioning if we could do that to his side. It was him, his son, and his large dog living in the apartment. They are great people, but it would be near impossible to renovate his apartment while they were living in in. Vince and I thought about it, and since he had always been a good tenant we decided to offer the renovated apartment to him and his son. This way they would have the opportunity to have a brand new place without creating too much of an inconvenience.

We gave the tenants until the end of May to move in so we could start working on their old apartment the beginning of June.  As a result of this decision, we were basically starting all over again. We needed to completely renovate his side now, with the exception of the kitchen and bath. New floors, ceilings, and carpet, it may not seem like a lot, but it took some time and money.

The original tenants had lived in this apartment since we purchased it in 2013. We had done a lot of work to the exterior over the years to clean it up, but it’s tough to do a whole interior renovation with tenants living in the home. So our plan all along was to renovate it when the apartments opened up, we just didn’t expect to get hit with everything at once.

We worked on this place all summer, and wrapped it up in August. The new tenants moved in and loved it. We thought we were finally in a good spot and could start building up our cash flow a little bit, until we got the call in September. Our tenant in our largest apartment was moving out in a week due to her boyfriend’s career. She was a good tenant so we didn’t expect any issues, except for the fact that she went MIA after she told us she was leaving. She didn’t pay any of her outstanding bills, didn’t fully vacate the home, didn’t pay her remaining rent and wouldn’t answer a call, text or email. Gotta love it. People never cease to amaze me. So we got hit with her unpaid water bills, and had to take a day to clean out the remaining furniture and stuff she left in the apartment. The apartment wasn’t in bad shape, but its three full floors, five bedrooms and two baths. It needed painted and some minor repairs. Painting a three floor apartment is no joke, especially when you are still working full time. So it took us about a month and half to get the apartment wrapped up.

In the meantime I turned 30 (eek!), we redid our backyard and another tenant gave notice that they had to move. Thankfully, this apartment was already renovated and it didn’t take much more than a good cleaning and a few touch ups to get it ready. So we had both apartments rented out come November to get us back on track and fully rented which was a relief.

While we were dealing with the apartments, Vince got a new job that brought him back into Williamsport, seven days a week. For the first time in our marriage (and the bulk of our relationship) we were both living at home. It is so nice to have him back home and have a little bit of normalcy to our day to day. He also ran for City Council in Williamsport and was fortunate enough to get elected on November 6th. So for the remainder of the weekends left in the year we took some time for us. We celebrated Vince’s birthday in Charleston, and our one year wedding anniversary at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort near Pittsburgh and took a weekend to see friends in DC. It’s been a busy year, but we are happy with what we accomplished.

This year we will have new focus. Vince will be getting settled in his new job and taking office for City Council on January 3, 2020. I plan to launch the store for the blog the first quarter of the year and take some time to really develop that business. We don’t plan to purchase any more projects the first half of the year (unless some crazy deals we can’t pass up come along) but we do plan to sell one. We have also been pursuing the idea of purchasing a vacation rental. There’s a lot to figure out, and now that we are in a good place financially we may ride that out for a little bit. With all the apartments renovated (except for one), we hope to be able to build up our cash flow that will allow us to take on some bigger projects later this year.

2019 has been a good year, crazy at times, but good. Things didn’t always go as planned, but we pushed through and came out the other side. Plans for 2020 include staying positive, staying focused, and enjoying our first (technically second, but he was gone the bulk of the first year) married year together. Cheers to this next decade!