Roof Warranty Template: Fill & Download for Free

BUILD YOUR HOME STEP BY STEPBuilding your new home is exciting but it is also a lot easier once you understand the process here are 10 steps.......To building a new Home step 1prepare construction site and pour foundation this is often done by the same crew they clear the site of rocks debris and trees the crew levels the site puts up wooden forms to serve as a template for thefoundation and digs the holes and trenches then a city inspector visits the site to make sure the foundation components are up to code and installed properly.Step 2construct rough framing the floor systems walls and roof systems are completed sheathing is applied to the exterior walls roof windows and exterior doors are installed then the sheathing is covered with a protective barrier otherwise known as a house wrap this prevents water from infiltrating the structure while allowing water vapor to escape reducing the likelihood of mold and rot.Step 3complete rough plumbing electrical and heating ventilation and air conditioning now siding and roofing can be installed pipes can be run through the interior walls for plumbing and electricity sewerlines and vents and water supply lines for each fixture are installed bathtubs and showers are put in place heating ventilation and air-conditioning vent pipes are also put in now the house is considered dried in an electrician installs receptacles for outlets lights and switches and runs wires to the breaker panel then an inspection of the rough framing plumbing and electrical and mechanical systems at this stage drywall is delivered to the site.Step 4Install insulation this could be fiberglass cellulose foam mineral wool concrete blocks or structuralinsulated panels insulation plays a key role in creating a more comfortable consistent indoor climate while improving a home's energy efficiency.Step 5complete drywall and interior textures drywall is hung and taped so the seams between the boards aren't visible the primary coat of paint is applied and contractors start exterior finishes.Step 6Finish interior trim interior doors and decorative trim are installed walls are painted most builders will begin making the driveways and walkways,.Step 7Install hard surface flooring and countertops exterior grading is completed to ensure proper drainage away from the home.Step 8light fixtures outlets and switches are installed and the electrical panel is completed heating ventilation and air conditioning are installed sinks toilets and faucets are put in place.Step 9Install mirrors shower doors and finish flooring outdoor landscaping is completed and one final cleanup takes place one last inspection by a building code official and a certificate of occupancy is issued.Finally step 10Is the final walkthrough with your Builder your builder will walk you through your new home let you know about the features and how to operate various systems within the home you'll be informed of warranties and procedure.

What advice do you recommend if we decide to rent out our house and buy another? Anything to help us prepare ourselves as landlords.Since you’ve never been landlords before, please please please use a realtor the first time. It doesn’t cost that much and you’re guaranteed to have a GOOD lease that meets all legal requirements for your city/state and protects you as much as possible. You can use that as a template for future leases.When my older son’s best friend bought his first rental property last summer, I made up a list of things based on my 14 years working with the boss’ 8–10 rentals. He lives/works in Australia and the rental is here in Las Vegas, so some of these items are based on him being an “absentee landlord”. His mother lives here, so he has lots of people he can trust to watch over things for him.Treat being a landlord like a business!! Keep the income and expenses separate from your personal finances. There’s a separate IRS form for rental properties that you’ll fill out with your income taxes. (Schedule E.) Trust me when I say it’s MUCH easier to fill out when you keep it all separate. I recommend getting a bank account and debit/credit card JUST for the rental. Use them for everything that you can. Also, because you work full-time, put as much as you can on auto-pay (mortgage, utilities, etc). Have all the bills sent to a local address – your mom, me, someone, so we can keep an eye on things and make sure everything is addressed promptly. You’ll need some “seed money” for the bank account, in case of unexpected repairs or fees at the start. Once you get going, then the rental should pay for itself from there out. But always keep the seed money in there, so your bills are covered if the tenant leaves or anything happens where you’re not collecting rent for a month or two.Use a realtor! Seriously. It will cost you $600 to list and rent the property. Your agent’s broker gets $300, the tenant’s agent’s broker gets the other $300. (How much the agents themselves get depends on their contract with their broker.) It’s worth it because you don’t have to do anything except decide which tenant you want to accept. Your agent will take pictures, list the property, screen the applicants, get the credit check, write the lease, and can even collect the deposits for you. Then she’ll do the move-in walk through, hand over the keys, and make sure everything is done properly. She’ll also do the move out walk-through, get the keys back, and relist the property. She’ll let you know if there’s any damage or reason to withhold any of the departing tenant’s security deposit or why the property can’t be immediately relisted, and can arrange for cleaning and repairs before the unit is relisted. Naturally, you’ll pay $600 every time you relist the property, but that’s a lot of work on your agent’s part for $300! Obviously, the longer a tenant stays, the better. Some of our tenants have been with us for 10 years! And if the tenant stays, your agent can do the renewal lease (which is always a good thing to have) for a substantial discount. Your agent charges about $100-$150 to do that, but she handles the whole thing for you, including doing an inspection before the tenant signs the new lease. (We’ll explain about the rollover tenancy clause when you’re ready to be a landlord.)Get to know your tenants. You don’t need a “come over for dinner” relationship, but you need to know them. They need to feel comfortable calling you when there’s a problem, whether it’s a leaky faucet or they’ve lost their job and will be late paying the rent next month. The more comfortable they are with talking to you, the more likely they are to tell you about problems BEFORE they become major issues. Your tenant is a person. You, the landlord, are a person. You each need to see the other AS a person.MAINTAIN THE PROPERTY!!! If your properties are always well-kept and everything is in good working order, you will never have a problem renting them out. Not one of our eight rentals is ever on the market more than 24 hours before we have multiple applications to choose from. We received an application for one 30 minutes after it went on the MLS! We’ve rented some out in 12 hours from the time they showed up on the MLS. While you’re in Oz, have someone here drive past the property periodically to look for signs of neglect or damage to the exterior (like the roof or landscaping). Jump on repairs immediately. A stitch in time saves nine and all that jazz.Get a home warranty. A home warranty will cover 99% of the things that could possibly go wrong. And it makes getting repairs very easy, especially when you’re not around. Your tenant tells you the dishwasher doesn’t work. You (or someone you designate) call or submit a service request online with the home warranty company. They send a repairman to fix or replace the dishwasher. You pay the call out fee (usually between $75 - $125, depending on the company. We use 2-10 Home warranty and the service fee is $75.)You also need a good handyman. That will cover 99.9% of the things the home warranty doesn’t cover. Your agent can recommend guy(s) for everything.Use only licensed contractors for any major system, such as the roof, HVAC, plumbing, and electric. Don’t try to cut corners and hire some homeless guy from the Home Depot parking lot. If he does the job incorrectly, you’re personally liable for any damage/death that occurs. Don’t laugh – there’s a landlord in Colorado who killed himself while sitting in prison because he was too cheap to hire a professional to fix the furnace. He did it himself, and did it incorrectly. A family of five died in that house, and he was in prison for five counts of manslaughter. The home warranty companies vet all vendors prior to using them, so you’re guaranteed a licensed contractor. And again, your agent can recommend a licensed contractor for anything you need. If she doesn’t know one, the roofer I work for does. We’ll have you covered.Do an annual inspection. You can have someone do this for you, but it should be done at least once a year. You’re looking specifically for things the tenant hasn’t mentioned need repair and things that are wearing out. Look at the carpeting, the paint, and under the kitchen and bathroom sinks (for signs of leaking). Again, jumping on these things right away will save you money in the long run.Never EVER make a tenant responsible for paying anything that can cause a fine or lien against the property. Ever. Specifically, pay your own property taxes and insurance (better yet, let the mortgage company do that out of escrow), sewer, trash, repairs by contractors, and HOA fees. Regular utilities (power, water, gas, and cable) will go after the tenant for non-payment – the others will put a lien on the property. Also, anything that the HOA can fine you for, like landscaping, should be handled by someone you choose, not left to the tenant. It’s not his house and he’s not going to care for it the way you would.You don’t NEED a property management company for just one rental. Seriously. Your agent and I manage her eight, and we’ve had as many as 10 rentals at one time. It’s not that hard even if you’re not here. Again, the home warranty will solve 90% of your issues, and careful tenant selection and supervision will take care of the rest. Her tenants generally stay 5-10 years, which is what you want as a landlord. Every time you have to replace a tenant, it costs you money. You have to have the unit cleaned, possibly painted, repairs and touchups done, advertising for a tenant, screening, etc… and the longer that takes, the less money the unit is making. So long-term tenants are always best. Also, property management companies charge fees. They’ll handle everything, but if you have the home warranty, you’re basically paying twice for that. And with a PM company, you’re just one of who-knows-how-many landlords they represent. When you represent yourself, you’re the Number One customer. One more note: Property Management companies have very sneaky contracts. We had a client who didn’t read her contract. She wanted to fire them because they let her unit sit empty for 3 months – never even sent her an application to review, and she KNEW there were applications because we had sent one in for a prospective tenant. The PM company just wasn’t sending them through – tried to say none of the applicants met THEIR qualifications. When the owner tried to cancel, she discovered there was a “buy out” clause in the contract – she had to pay the full amount due until the end of the contract in order to cancel early! It took a lot of screaming and threats of a lawsuit before the PM company finally let her out. It’s a hassle you don’t need.When it comes to accepting rent payments, take ONLY checks or money orders, never cash. Cash is just too much of a hassle, especially now that banks won’t accept cash deposits from anyone except the account holder. You could let the tenants deposit their checks into the bank account, but that can be a problem if you’re trying to evict someone for non-payment of rent. All they have to do is deposit $1 into your account, and the eviction process has to restart. (We had a tenant pull this crap. It’s a pain in the ass.) It’s better just to have them give/mail the check and you deposit it. (The tenant this kid has in his unit actually does auto-pay. But he was already a long-term tenant when the kid bought the unit, with a stellar record, so it’s worked out well so far.)Any refundable deposits you get (security, key, etc) should be kept separately from the property monies. That’s just good business. I seriously recommend you set up a savings account just for this “escrow money”. That way, you earn a couple dollars interest (which is yours to keep) and you don’t have to scrape up money to refund the deposits. Again, keeping monies separate makes tracking things easier, and should the IRS ever audit you, easier tracking could save your life.No lease, no keys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It doesn’t matter whether the tenant is a stranger, your best friend, or your mother – no signed lease, no keys! Once the tenant has the keys, you have accepted him/her as the tenant and he has the legal right to occupy the premises. If he doesn’t give you the deposits he promised, if he doesn’t pay any rent, if he violates the terms that would have been in the lease, you will have to go to court and prove what terms he accepted. With a signed lease, it’s easy. “Here’s the paper with his initials and signature. “ Without a signed lease, it’s “Well, here’s a text where I told him this. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t say ‘no’, so I assumed it was okay.” And the tenant says “I didn’t answer because I never got that text.” Then it’s up to a judge to decide what he agreed to or not. It’s an expensive legal hassle that is easily avoided by making sure you have a signed lease. Even if the tenant is doing “labor for rent” (where he doesn’t actually pay you in money), you need a signed lease. It’s not rocket science to make the lease cover whatever payment terms you want.Whatever you do, NEVER EVER refer to anyone helping you as the “property manager”. EVER. Nevada law requires property managers to have both real estate AND property management licenses. Anyone claiming to be a property manager without a license is subject to some hefty fines. It’s perfectly okay for the property to be “owner-managed” and it’s fine for you to have a “personal representative”, but you cannot have an unlicensed person using the title “property manager” even informally.Accepting pets is something you need to think about. Your rental listing can say “no pets” or “pets considered”. Either way, you’ll have people applying who have pets. That’s just life. You do not have to accept them, though (unless they have a service animal, which is a whole different thing). Our properties, and most of our clients’, are always marked “no pets”, but half of them do accept dogs. You can charge an extra deposit (per pet, if you want), and a new trend is to charge extra rent per pet each month! Personally, I think that’s a bit excessive. The idea is to collect enough to cover any damage the pet(s) might do to the property. If you select your tenant carefully, that’s not usually a problem. Many landlords won’t take cats at all. Too many people are allergic to cats, and when the tenant moves out, you need to do extra cleaning (like the ducts) to ensure you’ve gotten all the cat residue out. Another issue is pit bulls (and other bully breeds). Before you agree to accept one, you need to make sure your landlord insurance will allow them. Some insurance companies won’t cover bullies. That means if the tenant’s pit bites someone, you could be held liable for renting to them. If your insurance doesn’t allow pits, you’re on your own for any judgment against you. All of our leases include a $200 per pet refundable deposit if we accept the animal, and a $500 per pet fine if they get an animal without permission. The idea is to make it more attractive to get permission than to pay for forgiveness. And since they’d still have to get rid of the pet after paying the $500, they aren’t actually forgiven. And we wouldn’t renew their leases, either.Most realtors will tell you to avoid Section 8 tenants. Sometimes, that’s due to a misconception that you must take whatever Section 8 sends you. That’s not true. You vet a Section 8 tenant just like you do anyone else, and they’re subject to exactly the same rules as everyone else. More, in fact, because Section 8 does an annual inspection of the property in addition to yours. Most landlords who accept Section 8 time their inspections 6 months after the government’s, so the tenant is getting checked every 6 months instead of once a year. (Of course, you can schedule an inspection as often as you want, as long as it’s in the lease.) Sometimes, let’s face it – Section 8 people aren’t necessarily the cream of the crop. There ARE a lot of problems with them, especially if you have a single woman (with or without children) who gets a drug dealer boyfriend. Of course, that’s a risk no matter who you rent to, but it seems to be less of a risk with non-Section 8 tenants. The advantage of Section 8 is that the government pays you directly whatever portion of the rent it’s paying. For some, that’s 100%, for others only 50-80%. It’s entirely up to you whether you take Section 8, but very few landlords using the MLS will do it. They just don’t think it’s worth the risk of having the “wrong kind of people” renting their properties. And there are enough tenants for nice properties that they don’t NEED to take them. The choice is entirely up to you, but you need to tell your realtor whether you will or not, or she’ll default the listing to “No Section 8”.