Periodic Building Inspections

Once a property is fully occupied and stabilized it is easy to simply lose focus or ignore the occupied units. That, unfortunately, is a practice which is not in the best interest of a property owner. In Los Angeles it is necessary to physically inspect for smoke detectors every six months. This inspection is a great opportunity to do a more thorough inspection, thereby protecting the property and addressing any potential liability issues. It is an opportunity to assess parts of physical property often ignored. While the periodic inspection requirements from other municipalities may be different, the discipline of a six-month inspection is a very good idea.

During the inspection process an owner or property manager can look beyond the smoke detectors at other aspects of the property to ensure that each tenant is taking care of the property and that there are no situations which require the owner’s attention, such as illegal roommates or the tenants doing excessive damage to the property. The six-month inspection can also be used to check all the plumbing fixtures to make sure that they are working properly and to make sure that, even more importantly, they are not leaking thereby causing excessive utility charges to the owner.

This inspection also presents a very good opportunity to look for mildew or mold in a unit. An owner can easily take the time to look at the likely places, under the sinks and in the bathrooms where there’s plumbing and moisture gathering. The early detection of mildew is a huge benefit as it allows the owner to address the situation before it becomes problematic and before it becomes a problem with the tenant. During an inspection an owner can also look at the door locks to make sure they’re secure, as well as the latches and locks on the screens and windows to ensure the safety of the tenant and also address potential landlord liability.

Finally on owner can look for any damages or potential damages, which will have to be addressed either immediately or in the future when the tenant leaves. At a minimum, the owner has advance notice of a potential situation and can address it appropriately. Whether or not an inspection is required by the municipality it is a good idea to do inspections every six months to review the operating systems within occupied spaces and to ensure that the owners’ liability and the premises are well taken care of and all problems are viewed advance.

1. To simply find the definition of any word, simple type “define” before the word in the search box and the definition will be the first at the top of the results given.
2. Type “weather” or “movies” and a Zip Code and the information as requested will be given in Google.
3. Looking for a fact or song lyric, simple use the asterisk when typing in missing search information. For example “San Diego is in * county” or “There is a house in New Orleans they call the * Sun”.
4. Use the minus to exclude terms that may be related, but not a part of your desired search. For example if your interest in birds than you might try “Ravens – Baltimore”.
5. If you know your search subject’s web site you can limit your search to that site using  “site:” in your search box. For example to look up baseball in the Los Angeles Times, the search box would appear like this “site:latimes.com baseball” This will go straight to the Los Angeles Times website and search for baseball related articles.
6. Google also assists in mathematic conversion for currency and temperatures. For example if you type “22.5 Celsius in Fahrenheit” you’ll get the converted temperature. Same is true for currency. For example, “$100 is euros” will give you the proper conversion.

 How the two popular bitumens measure up across the years

 What’s simple, durable, expensive, and welcomed by a wide swath of the roofing industry?

If this item existed, we probably would have favored it for decades. But who would have been conscious of ozone depletion, sources of smog, global warming, urban climate change, LEED, OSHA, asbestosis, mesothelioma, toxicity of arsenic, lead, and chromium, recycling, emissivity, and albedo a few decades ago?

Actually, that material does exist – and it’s still in use today. For low slope bituminous roofing systems, what goes around really does come around.

Bituminous Roofing Hits the Market
Back in the pre-World War II years, there were two bituminous substances (bitumens) that dominated the roofing industry. Coal tar pitch was a by-product of processing coal to make coke, which in turn was used in making carbon steel and electrodes for the aluminum industry. Asphalt, a by-product of processing petroleum to make gasoline, fuel oil, and various hydrocarbon polymers, was also popular.

Roofing systems originally consisted of alternate layers of hot bitumen and reinforcement. The original reinforcement was called “organic felt,” a paper-like product consisting of waste paper, cotton linters, and asplund wood fibers.

Was the system simple, durable, inexpensive and welcomed by all? Actually, it was and still is. Since bitumens are vulnerable to ultra-violet imbrittlement, these membranes were surfaced with a flood coat of bitumen into which gravel or slag was embedded. This screened UV light and greatly improved fire resistance.

By the 1950s, a coated base felt was introduced, replacing the “two dry, three mopped” roof systems over wood decks. Where the flood coat and gravel surface was inconvenient, substitution of asbestos or fiber glass reinforcements permitted the omission of gravel, with asphalt-aluminum roof coatings or clay-stabilized asphalt emulsions used for UV protection.

Cut-back coatings such as solvent-asphalt-fiber systems were incorporated. Water-based white coatings such as White-Gard and Star-White were offered as a substitute for the aluminum coatings, but these were stained by migration of the bitumen into the coating and were not elastic enough to accommodate movement of the bitumen sub-surface.

In 1973-1974, we were faced with an oil embargo. Two-ply coated asphalt felts were introduced since there were less moppings of bitumen to be applied and less labor to install. Unfortunately, these two-ply roofs were troubled by blistering between the two coated sheets and lacked the proven durability of their 4- and 5-ply predecessors.

Meanwhile, some light-weight roof systems were having success in mild climate regions such as much of the West Coast and Arizona. They might be 2- or 3-ply systems with a mineral-surfaced cap sheet. At low slopes, inorganic roofing felts such as asbestos or glass fiber were used, since the organic-based materials would absorb water at side and end-laps if the roof ponded water.

Asphalt Emulsions Step into the Spotlight
We mentioned clay-stabilized asphalt emulsions earlier in this column. While asphalt is hydrophobic, it can be dispersed in water as long as an emulsifying agent is used, such as extremely fine particles of bentonite clay. This system provides a stable base for reflective roof coatings, and the cured coating has excellent fire resistance without needing gravel surfacing. The emulsions were so good that some roof systems marketed used a one-ply base sheet, followed by a generous application of emulsion and chopped glass fibers roving as reinforcing. The emulsions also proved useful when re-surfacing existing bituminous roofs and served as a base for reflective roof coatings.

Emulsion systems must be protected against freezing during storage, something that is true of acrylic systems as well. Many new roof systems, such as self-adhering modified bituminous membranes, aluminum roof coatings, and water-based insulation adhesives also require ambient and substrate temperatures during application of 50 degrees F. or higher.

Emulsion systems also contain no flammable solvents (no red label), they are permeable to water vapor, but not liquid water, which is very useful in damp-proofing and resurfacing. They contain few or no VOCs that contribute to the formation of smog. Also notable is that these systems are quick to apply. Because these emulsions do not flow when subjected to high temperatures, they make a stable base for the current generation of reflective acrylic roof coatings.

You might agree they are simple, durable, inexpensive, and welcomed by all!

Richard (Dick) L. Fricklas was technical director emeritus of the Roofing Industry Educational Institute prior to his retirement. He is co-author of The Manual of Low Slope Roofing Systems and continues to participate in seminars for the University of Wisconsin and RCI Inc., the Institute of Roofing, Waterproofing, and Building Envelope Professionals. His honors include the William C. Cullen Award and Walter C. Voss Award from ASTM, the J. A. Piper Award from NRCA, the William C. Correll award from RCI, and the James Q. McCawley Award from the MRCA. Dick holds honorary memberships in both ASTM and RCI Inc.

Verizon DBIR 2012: Automated large-scale attacks taking down SMBs

There’s always chatter about the sophistication of malware and the advanced hacking techniques attackers use to steal payment information or sensitive corporate data. While that may be true for targeted attacks against high-value targets such as government agencies, the defense industrial base or financial institutions, the majority of victims, according to the 2012 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) (.pdf), are smaller companies that fall prey to commodity attacks that expose shortcomings in basic information security best practices. The innovation is in the automation and process refinement behind attacks, and not necessarily in the sophistication of the malware involved, the report suggests.

Small businesses are worried about the bottom line. It’s a matter of expertise, time and resources that they’re not able to defend themselves.Christopher Porter, principal, Verizon RISK team

Christopher Porter, principal with Verizon’s RISK team, said organized cybercrime groups have automated attacks end to end. These groups will scan the Internet looking for exposed PoS or remote administration services, such as remote desktop management, and will use brute force attacks against the logins to gain access. Since many use easy-to-guess, or default passwords on these systems, gaining access can be trivial. Once inside, malware—usually a keylogger—is installed and begins collecting data. The malware is also preconfigured to send data outbound, either via FTP or email, to a Web server under the attacker’s control. The data is then sold on the black market, or, if credentials are stolen, deeper attacks are carried out against bank accounts or other systems within an enterprise.

“We joke that there must be some sort of old crime groups that have gotten their MBAs,” Porter said. “In the last several years of these types of industrialized attacks, we’re seeing innovation in the process and methodology used.  The whole process is end to end and it’s massive in scale.

While all these factors are important, additionally the management company should be able to present how they will professionally market your property, thereby maximizing the income. They should also illustrate how they will minimize your expenses, thereby increasing the cash flow to the owner. Equally important, a professional management company should have a clear vision of the risks and minimizing those for your product type. Finally, the efficacy of a property management company is really a function of the quality of person employed by that management company. As a service business, the quality of the service is always defined by the employee. Ask to meet who will handle your property, directly, not just the sales force. Ask how people are hired and trained and, most importantly, ask for references. What are your experiences with property management companies?

How do you handle this process? What are your experiences with Landlords and Tenants? Please share your experiences and thoughts.

Here is a sample LADWP Newsletter:

The best approach is to be the Landlord that views the Tenant as an important client. They are, after all, responsible for the cash flow or any residential or commercial property. This means a respectful and businesslike approach, but not one where any unnecessary advantage is given. The lease is the lease. The second part of the equation is to remember this is a critical business, commercial relationship and not to personalize no matter what issue or attitude is presented from a Tenant. The final part is to provide all services (repairs and maintenance) in a quick and professional manner. Nothing makes a Tenant angrier than a broken item being left for a long time. It makes the tenant feel unimportant and unwanted. A broken faucet will cost the same to repair today, as it will next week. So why not do this today?

Any thoughts on success stories or strategies will be welcomed.

First of all, it is critical to understand why you invested in real estate in the first place. In addition to the pure joy of ownership and portfolio growth, were your goals and objectives reasonable?

Quantifying Expectations Through Budget

The expectations for a real estate investment are best quantified through a thorough budget. The budget takes into account all items of expenses including account historical expenses, known expenses and projected expenses. This then provides an educated projection as to what a property will cost. Of course, expenses need to include taxes, insurance and mortgage costs.

Income, A Less Than Predicable Equation

The other side of this equation is the income side. This tends to be a bit less predictable than the expense side. An owner needs to take each space or unit and make assumptions relative to each space. For example, if a suite is under a lease contract through 2014, than the income will be simple to project. If an apartment is leased on an annual or monthly basis, the overall vacancy and market rents must be taken into account. In any market the income assumptions are critical and need to be realistic, not wishful thinking. If you are getting $2,000 per month for an apartment rented in 2011, if there any market reason to expect this unit to increase or decrease when available? What are the market concessions for the unit, how much down time will there be, etc? Therefore, quantifying each individual suite and/or unit is critical to obtaining an accurate budget. Combining the expenses with the income should then provide an accurate cash flow projection, i.e. that which we all care about.

Assessing Assets Performance

Now as to the reflections; if you had a budget last year was your asset’s performance in line with this. If so, than the expectations were met and there should be some serenity in your life. If not, what items were missed and why? Those can then be used to adjust the budget for 2012 and provide a basis of reasonable future expectations, but also better understanding of your asset.

Contact Manager at (818) 409-0523 or
hawthorne.apts@wemanageproperties.com