Forecasters are saying this could be one of the strongest El Niños on record for Southern California. For those of you with rentals in the LA area, what are you doing to get ready, if anything? Roof inspections? Gutters? Talking to tenants? Reviewing your insurance? Or just waiting to see what ha...
For real estate investors and landlords, I’m curious — which paperwork takes the most time to prepare or keep organized? Some of the common ones I see are: Purchase/sale documents Lease and tenant documents Property expense and receipt records Vendor invoices and repair records Move-in/move-out i...
Hey everyone, I'm a local owner starting a property management company and I'd love some input. As an owner, my biggest frustration was surprise bills. My property managers would go with whatever vendor was easiest, not the most cost-effective, and I'd find out at the end of the month with a big ...
Hi all, First let me say I have been following BP since the beginning. I am a Realtor in Florida. Due to spouses’ job, we rent an apartment in Miami. I know the situation is illegal and quite serious but I am looking for advice as to how to move forward. Management co uses the Bilt app. We can ac...
Fellow landlords — I'm researching how people actually document property condition at turnover. My working question: has anyone here ever lost money on a deposit deduction (or chosen not to deduct) because their move-in photos weren't organized or convincing enough? What do you use today — phone ...
Memphis operator since 2003, few hundred doors, majority Section 8, own crews and own management. This one is time-sensitive and it's the kind of money that gets left on the table quietly, so I'd rather post it now than write something cleverer next month. WHAT HAPPENED HUD published the FY2027 f...
When evaluating a rental property for potential DSCR financing, what numbers do you focus on first? Do you start with projected rent, operating expenses, debt service, or the overall cash-flow picture? How do you approach the initial analysis?
how can you change from management company when your previous management person doesn't answer your texts and phone calls to at least let them know you don't want to work with them anymore . can you do it by just sending them a notification that you're no longer working with them? . this is one o...
Hey BP Community, I’ve been following the discussions here for a while and wanted to officially introduce myself. My path into property management started with a legal background. While practicing law, I saw firsthand how quickly a small oversight in a lease, a delayed maintenance request, or an ...
Hello, I am a newer landlord and have a tenant in place on a two year lease with one year just about finished. They just asked if they could get a pet. Our lease in place allows no pets in the unit. Obviously this would require a modification and potentially a fee. Has anybody experienced a pet a...
Hi All, I have a couple rental properties in Arizona and Cleveland Ohio. I just moved to Columbus, looking to network with local folks. I'm considering a 1031 exchange to buy a rental in property in Columbus.
I own one rental and use a property manager. On the last big repair I couldn't tell which line items were fair and which were padded, and the percentage-of-project fee made it worse. Trying to find out whether that's just me. Eight questions, anonymous, two minutes: https://docs.google.com/forms/...
Question for Delray / Boynton landlords - I noticed 1124 Anchor PT, 650 Anchor P area many owners bought 2014-2015 for $350k-$385k now worth $1M+ but still renting. For long-term holders, at what point do you cash out vs keep dealing with tenants/ HOA? Curious what you did when equity hit $600k+?...
Real Estate Investor & Operator — Here to Learn From Other Owners Hello BiggerPockets community! I’m Sonia, and I’ve spent much of my career in real estate, property management, leasing, operations, and investment strategy. One area I’m especially interested in right now is the part of real estat...
Hey guys and gals, hoping for some advice on how you manage our water utility bills. We own two duplexes and currently our renters pay all utilities except water. When we first got into real estate a local investor told us to always keep water in our name because it was a bigger issue if it gets ...
When analyzing a potential rental, what's the first number you look at? Purchase price? Rent? Taxes? Cash flow? Debt service? Something else? I'm curious whether experienced investors have developed a consistent order for evaluating a property.
As a mediator who works with landlords and tenants I can tell you that the majority of security deposit disputes I see could have been prevented with three simple steps. Most tenants do not get their full deposit back. And most of the time it is not because the landlord is being unfair, it is bec...
The most expensive part of a Baltimore rental isn't the rent you lose. It's the turnover between tenants. Landlords budget for a week of paint. Then the walkthrough happens and the week becomes six. **Budget the trash-out before you touch anything else.** A standard 2BR rowhouse trash-out — furni...
Curious how everyone's managing multiple properties & what system you're using, & actually enjoy using. I self-manage a few right now and it all lives in an Excel sheet I built myself. It works fine, but I'm manually entering everything, which is getting old. What I'd love is something that holds...
Every car looks good when it's new. Every guitar is shiny hanging on the wall in the store. Every new TV looks spectacular when somebody first plugs it in. I'm much more interested in what happens later. Does the car still start every morning at 100,000 miles? Does the guitar stay in tune, or doe...
When a tenant calls and the person who needs to fix it isn't there, what information do you leave for that person? I used to handle a lot of calls for a roughly 90-unit portfolio, and the hard part was keeping the next step clear when a call couldn't be finished right then. I'm interested in what...
I self-manage a few rentals, and I also work on software in this space, so I'm telling you that up front. I'm not linking or selling anything here, just trying to learn how other landlords really handle this. A few things I'm curious about: Do you pick up calls at night, or let them go to voicema...
I screen listings against a hard money purchase test, and tenant-occupied rentals for sale keep producing the same answer. Houston, Harris County: 325 of them. San Antonio, Bexar County: 181. A twenty-zip corridor south and east of Houston: 25. That is 531 listings across three markets, and not o...
Property managers often sell owners on separation from tenants, anonymity (which should not be confused with asset protection), compliance & access to more responsive vendors and better vendor pricing. But hiring a PM does not automatically transfer risk. In fact, many management agreements leave...
There’s a peculiar thing about owning real estate: most of the expensive things don’t send you a monthly bill. The bank does. The insurance company does. The property tax people certainly do. The roof doesn’t. Neither does the HVAC system. Or the plumbing. Or the electrical system. Or the windows...