I've been rehabbing my rental home, a first-time investment. A tenant is lined up for August and the place is almost ready. Then this morning they took the central air. They lifted it off the slab behind the house and carried it into my garage, having pried open the door. There they broke it down and took only the copper. They did this in 20 minutes: Neighbor 1 walked her dog past at 6:30, saw nothing, but neighbor 2 walked by at 7:00 and saw two men pulling away from my open garage. They drove a car with no plates, wore black hoodies(!) and sunglasses (!) and my witness didn't call the cops. Though he found it weird, he rationalized it, which I guess most people would do. Took the police 6 hours to arrive. They would not take a report at the station. :(
I think my insurance through Secura is not sufficient for my needs. $40 a month and I have a $1000 deductible for each occurrence. When I thought in terms of house fires, falling trees, and tornados, that seemed good. Now not so much!
This will wipe out so much gain from so much hard work. I put about $20,000 into this house, 3 months rehabbing, have $40,000 on the mortgage, PITI almost $500 a month, all for $1025 rent. I thought maybe $300 a month would go to cover expected expenses/maintenance on average. But what if these guys come back? What if they break in for the pipes?