Questions to answer before a building is a candidate

Looking at a building is allowed. Treating it as a candidate is a separate decision, and it waits on a one-page list of questions with answers you could hand to a partner. This page is that list. It is not a tour of how to purchase a property, how to borrow, or how to bring in anyone else’s money.

If a question is unanswered, the file stays incomplete. Incomplete is a stopping place, not a soft yes.

Do the Friday cash check before you open a building file. If the labels are not current, the questions below can wait.

People and time

Write names, not roles you hope will appear later.

• Who picks up the phone when something fails on a morning you are already on a job?
• If that person is you, which customer are you willing to leave, and who covers them for that hour?
• Who has a key?
• Who is allowed to hire a repair, and is there a written limit on what they can approve before they call you?
• If you were off the tools for two weeks, which tasks on the property would still have to happen? Name the tasks.

“It will be fine” is not a name. A blank is an open question, and open questions go in the field notebook under Open, not under a plan.

Paper you can read without a tour

Before you care how a place looks from the sidewalk, collect documents a stranger could read. Depending on the town and the building, that often includes a recent insurance declaration, a property-tax bill, any rental-license or inspection notice, and a list of utilities that would stay in an owner’s name.

Read the city’s own page for its rental rules. A forum summary, including this one, is not the rule. Write down the address of the official page and the date you read it.

Then write what you could not get. A missing document is an answer. It means the file is not ready.

Bills that continue if the unit is empty

Make a category list. Leave amounts blank until you are reading a real bill. Do not invent figures, and do not add a column for what the unit “should” bring in. This list is a comprehension check. It has no forecast on it.

• Property tax, with the date on the bill you are holding.
• Insurance, with the date on the declaration.
• Utilities an owner would still pay.
• Inspection or license fees, if that town charges them. Cite the city page.
• Any other bill that would continue while the unit sits empty.

If you cannot complete the list from documents, you do not have a candidate. You have a question.

The one-page summary

One page, plain language. This is the page a partner reads. It is also the page you read a week later, when the drive-by feeling has cooled.

Address:
What I have on paper (name the document and its date):
What I do not have:
Who answers a repair call while I am at work:
Bills that continue if the unit is empty (category and source, or "unknown"):
Partner line: "I have read this." Signature and date, or "no partner in this decision," dated.

The partner line says they have read the page. It does not say they agree to anything further. If there is a partner and they have not read it, stop. That is the condition at the top of this playbook: a partner who hasn’t agreed, which includes a partner who has not even been shown the page.

If there is no partner, write that sentence and date it so the file shows you asked the question.

Three marks in the margin

The journey uses three marks and no fourth.

• Saw. You looked, or you read the paper. Looking is not a decision.
• Refused. You stopped. The reason is one of the four conditions at the top, or an unanswered question on this list.
• Open. A fact you still need, with the place you will get it: a bill, a city page, an insurer, an inspector. Open is not a soft yes. The file stays incomplete until the fact is in hand.

Atlas does not visit buildings and does not choose the mark. When the founder marks a real address, the note will say it is his and will name the document. Until then, practice the marks on paper you actually hold.