Security, Safety, and Extras

So after hanging out with my guy Mac at his crib last night I started thinking a lot of security of my building that I plan on getting in a year from now in bronzeville that will also serve as my Chicago residence. I think the most important function of the security will serve to protect my future investment as well as my home. I have the experience to install the system myself however I think it might be better if I hired a company like Brinks to do it and just pay for their service. The problem with this is though it might not be worth the price of paying for the service when I can just have my brother go over to my property from time to time and just spend the night there. What I think I just might do is to see what the price of having a surveillance system installed in building would cost me, depending on the cost I will just do it myself. I could have cameras installed inside the hallways, outside entrance, and possibly outside each door way, this way they can buzz people into the building and see who's outside their door so I don't have to use peep holes. This would be relatively inexpensive while at the same time providing a greater sense of sophistication and security for my tenants. Along with this I will have an alarm system installed in my personal unit and give the code to my brother so that he could go over there to check on my apartment and the building in general.

In addition to all of this I am pretty sure that I am going to offer free wireless Internet for the entire building which shouldn't be that large of an expense in the long run. With only 4-6 tenants it won't be that large of a mbps strain, however I will have to include security measures like passwords and any other precautions to protect the overall system. I will also have to include precautions that will cover me for people who are making illegal downloads, so that in case they are caught I won't be liable. I will also have to check the cost of having Ethernet ports installed throughout the building. So if I were to use comcast business I would be able to get everything I need along with the equipment and installation to wire the entire building for Internet.

Along with this I need to make sure that the property I get has the major appliances that will be needed such as a refrigerator, stove, washer & dryer, however from my past experience with renting people tend not to take proper care of such property. I think it would be important for me to try and find some used equipment such as open box or craigslist to find some good equipment so that I can provide some quality at a reasonable price. In addition to this i should at least start making some numbers so I can get an idea of how much the renovations will cost along with the price of equipment needed for each tenant...this is going to take a lot of planning and thinking and hopefully I will be able to stay in the price range of 100-150k for complete renovations. Tomorrow I plan to make a list of all things that each apartment will need and what I want to renovate for each apartment. Along with this I am going to start making plans for all the stuff that I am going to need for my own apartment, however I am not going to buy anything except for the things that I will need such as a refrigerator, stove, washer and dryer and a bed frame (lol kinky lol). Even though its over a year out it would be important to have all my figures accounted for to plan accordingly.

"Failing to plan is planning to Fail..."