All Forum Posts by: Andrew Fingado

@J. Martin Sounds like a plan. We should definitely talk more about real estate and property management in person. Excellent tips on stress too and I agree about what you said about not letting our business get in the way of loved ones. I would say we should all try to avoid taking work home with us, but I work from home so it's not really possible to not take work home with me!

By the way, I haven't been able to make it out to the last couple local meetings lately as it's "leasing season" for a lot of my properties. I have had more than a dozen units to rent out this last month, but i'm almost done with this round.

When and where are the next meet-ups? On a side note, I am thinking maybe we could have a Berkeley meet-up at some point, since that's where I do a lot of my management and it has a lot of very city specific aspects for property owners.

I'd be interested in talking to you more about your current properties and future strategies too.

PM me and let's see if we can work something out in the near future.

@J. Martin How's it going? Thanks for tagging me, and i'd be glad to give my input.

@Yuliany W.

I think $500 a month is quite a lot of money to be losing on a 14 unit building, and you are absolutely doing the right thing by getting rid of it. None of the multi unit properties I manage include cable TV, nor my colleagues. I am located in the east bay by the way.

As far as you making other changes, like having the water sub-metered for tenants, I would follow your hunch and wait a bit until this recent cable take-away is more of a distant memory. I'd do it at the start of the new year. That is if you don't want possible vacancies due to a backlash of all these new changes, which it sounds like you don't.

How about "Ghost": Someone who logs in every day for a year but never posts.

@Colin Reid Call a few property management companies and ask them what they use in the screening process. Get some other people's opinions on what they think of the management company also. Shop around and have questions ready for them.

Maybe it's because its late and I have nothing better to do, but I thought of kind of a cool idea.

Maybe there could be a thread where BP members vote once a year on a new "award" given out to people. For example, someone gets awarded a "Narc" if you have gotten 5 or more posts removed.

I thought a funny one might be an award called "Editor" or "OCD" (hopefully I am not offending anyone who truly suffers from that condition). This might be awarded to someone who constantly edits their posts, say over 1,000 times. I have a tendency to do this. I will read what I wrote and add and change things a number of times.

Any of you out there have some funny ideas for new awards?

Do you think the management of BP might go for something like this?

Or am I just completely out of my mind at 1 in the morning and spent too many hours on this website?

Welcome @Jason B. is this your first income property?

I'd be very interested in seeing how everything goes. Sounds like you are motivated and loving what you do. That's what life is all about. Glad you could join us.

@Kristi Miller I agree with the other members on this one. I have lived in Northern California all my life, and right now seems to be very difficult to make anything resembling good cash flow.

However as another member mentioned not everyone invests the same way. I bought in the bottom of the market a few years back for my personal residence and it has double in price since.

So, California has that allure of major appreciation. Some people are willing to sit it out and wait for that big payday.

@J. Martin

Thanks for the compliments. I guess I am just always looking for pitfalls ahead in my business. You have to. It's better to be safe than sorry.

You could always try leaving three days in between time for the next vacant unit you have and compare it to another vacant unit in which you do a quick turnaround. Compare the differences in how many calls you get, any other issues you see, etc.

Better yet, here's another idea. Say you allow a few days between turnovers on your next vacant unit, so your new tenant now moves in on the 3rd of the month. Make his lease end sometime around the last week of the month (but not the last day). Like the 27th or something unless its February.

That way, you can start advertising the unit as a 1st of the month start date again which may open up more applicants for your area. In addition, it leaves you some breathing room just in case disaster strikes.

Then make the next tenant's contract just a bit less than a year also, and so on. Start doing that for all your tenants and wa-la! You have a system which minimizes risk while also allowing for the maximum applicant pool. I would also put in the lease that the tenant is to prorate the last month of his lease to the day if he or you decides to not renew, just to be sure there is no confusion come last month.

I have kicked around this idea myself for a while, but never gotten around to it because I always get a lot of applicants interested in the units I manage regardless of when the lease start date is (most of my units I manage are in high demand areas). I think I am going to implement this in a couple of my upcoming leases and see how it goes.

Might be something worth testing out on a unit or two yourself. We can compare notes.

@J. Martin I have tenancies which begin and end on days other than the 1st. Normally early in the month. I used to do the whole shuffle where i'd have someone incoming and outgoing in the same day, but it got to be too much of a hassle. Someone always took too long to leave, another didn't clean well enough (or at all), or we found a repair issue that was undetectable prior to their stuff being removed. The list goes on, so I decided to play it safe and allow 3-4 days between. That way I have some time to set up appointments with my cleaning crew, handymen/contractors, etc. if necessary.

I've never had a problem getting a good tenant pool doing it this way. Although it is a common trend that leases start around the 1st of the month, do a quick craigslist search and there are quite a few that are on other days (ranging from early to middle of the month). Most incoming tenants are able to get their prior rent prorated to the day if they have to.

I suppose in some cases it might reduce the applicant pool, in other cases, no. Depends on the market.

Glad everything went smoothly with the turnovers! Enjoy that extra cash you saved.

@J. Martin Congrats, sounds like it all worked out. I'm just curious what made you think you would have a one month vacancy? Did you send out a renewal package or touch base with the tenants a few months back to see what their plans were?

Usually you can minimize the turnover time by requiring tenants to give you 30 or 60 days notice of their plans to leave and then start showing it early while the tenant is still there. You might already know this, but I am just throwing it out there.