All Forum Posts by: Valerie Reed

Have you and your husband considered selling them the house? If they have money and jobs, they might have enough(or be able to quickly come up with enough) for a non-refundable down payment (say 10 to 15%) and you could offer them a new lease that's lease to own or a seller financed contract. Even if they couldn't qualify for a traditional bank loan, there might be enough to work with seller financing.

Obviously, I don't know the details of your purchase and renovations but if they can come up with a good down payment, pay you interest along with everything else then you don't have to evict them just yet. You don't have to deal with the neighbor because you won't be the landlord anymore.

They obviously need a house to keep running their business and you don't need the headache. Maybe this could turn into an unintentional flip. That way you could get some more money out of them to finance your next deal or for renovations if they default. And, if they default on the purchase, THEN foreclose, but at least you've made more money off of them than one month's rent.

Both of you (landlord and tenant) could still end up getting what you need out of this. Just a thought.

Middle of the night call from tenant-
Tenant: "The people upstairs are fighting! You have to come out and make them stop! It's really bad! They are yelling and throwing things! You better hurry!"

Landlord (my husband): "Why are you calling me? Call the police!"

Tenant: "I'm not calling the police! You need to come out here and take care of it!"

Landlord (my husband): "Fine, I'll call the police."

Tenant: "Don't call the police, they'll find my pot plants!"

Cont. One more thing, because this ended up in criminal court first, then civil for the eviction, the eviction was never really officially granted. The judge granted bail, they didn't show and they left the state (Hawaii). So, they never actually did their time, so to speak.

I would say you should wait for another applicant. My husband had a rental and the wife was a shoplifter who had thousands of dollars worth of stolen merchandise in my husbands house. She and her husband were also addicted to drugs. In addition to the stuff she stole from stores all of the furniture they brought to my husband's house when they rented was actually stolen from their previous landlord. Once the police caught up with them they were arrested and out on bail within hours. But, because there was so much stolen merchandise in my husbands house, the police wouldn't let him proceed with the eviction because all their evidence was in the house. It took my husband another 6 months to get them out and they were mad and that my husband and the previous landlord joined forces with the police so they did $28k in damage before they left. 

Long story longer - Any illegal activity that they bring to your property can effect you in ways that you can't imagine. One red flag, sure but multiple red flags? Consider it a blessing that you have this information in advance!