All Forum Posts by: Anna Sagatelova

I am sorry you're having this experience - it comes sooner or later for every landlord.

I hope you have some clause in your lease about how maintenance is handled and what constitutes a maintenance request. I would set up an appointment one day with your tenants and review this clause (or if you don't have one, or it's not very strong, draft an addendum that clarifies the matter), go over it in detail, and if using the addendum, both sign it in person and make them a copy.

You want to explain the boundaries in a professional manner and memorialize it in writing. The sooner you do this, the better. In the meantime, ignore any communication about such frivolous requests. 

With professional property management, of course we receive all manner of frivolous maintenance requests at all hours of the day and night, weekends and holidays. However, we are working with professional software, so we aren't just getting text messages. When we do receive a frivolous request, we open the request during business hours and close/cancel it with a note notifying the tenant that the work order was cancelled because it is not something the landlord warrants to address per the lease, or something to that effect.

If you are not looking for professional property management at this time, I do recommend investing in some kind of software that allows you to process maintenance requests instead of giving tenants your phone number. Our company uses AppFolio, which wouldn't be appropriate for someone self-managing 11 properties - unfortunately I don't have recommendations for other software, but I do see many investors on here recommending cozy.co - might be worth checking it out and seeing if they have a maintenance feature.

I hope you're able to get this situation under control quickly without affecting your working relationship with these tenants for the remainder of their lease term!

@Aaron James Stingis you are definitely right about this being a long term headache. We've managed a handful of properties with septic systems and have had problems with all of them. You can put the best clauses in your lease, tell your tenants what to do and what not to do til you're blue in the face, but when problems arise they cost a lot. It's hard to find plumbers who are truly skilled with septic systems and don't charge an arm and a leg for their services.

@Nathan Gesner In your experience, if you've had to put tenants up in a hotel because the unit wasn't ready for them to move in - did you also pay for storage for all their furniture and other personal property?

Joe, I understand of course wanting to minimize vacancy, but if you are aware of a hoarder situation, it's generally ill-advised to pre-market that particular unit.

If they don't get their stuff out timely (they won't) and won't take you up on your offer to pay for a moving company or some similar cash-for-keys situation (they likely won't), really your only course of action is a proper eviction, which of course would put you outside of your next move-in timeline. Other than that you can wait and see how long it takes, but again I virtually guarantee it will not be done in time for the property to be professionally cleaned, any repairs done, and ready for tenants to move in on their agreed upon date.

As for your new tenants, you probably don't want to advertise that you're moving them into a unit that a hoarder is in... do you have other available units? If they've executed a lease and paid you, they have every expectation that the unit will be ready for them to take possession as of the lease start date. You can try to renegotiate the lease (change the date or the unit) or let them out. This is certainly going to put them in a difficult situation, as renters rarely have a lot of overlap between rentals and will probably have to be out of their current housing soon. Work with them and help them find a solution, even if in the end that isn't them renting one of your units. That's certainly better than facing some kind of lawsuit.

@Peter Tverdov great question, in the past our company has also sent holiday gifts to clients. We've usually done nice chocolates but I'd love to hear what clients love receiving.

@Michael Nahm if you require renter's insurance in your lease, you should call out stipulated liability minimums and ask to be added as "additional insured" on the policy. This way you would be notified if they cancel their policy or it expires/lapses due to nonrenewal during the term of their tenancy.

Hi Demetrius, it sounds like you may be asking about who gets that down payment fee, you or the property manager?

It would depend on your contracts, first the lease option contract between you and the tenant/optionee as to what happens to that deposit if they fail to purchase the property by the stipulated deadline. And second, the property management agreement between you and your PM.

Now, in a reasonable world, both of these contracts would be structured so that you, the owner, keep that down payment fee in full. 

Good luck!

Although the smoking did impact the condition of the unit, arguably beyond "reasonable wear and tear", since you inherited this tenant you also don't know if the previous tenant before them also smoked and the unit was already in similar condition when they took it. Unless the seller you purchased from kept meticulous records, I agree that you should err on the side of caution, because if this does go to court your damages can far exceed the amount of the deposit.

I think there are a lot of questions you need to ask, much of the advice you are getting is correct but there are certainly creative solutions in how you can structure your business. You can have your core business be based away from where the properties are, as long as you have personnel, vendors, and technology in place to make yourself locally competitive and ultra responsive. 

But if you are doing this because you want to do “something” in real estate, starting this from scratch wouldn’t be worth it and you’d be so busy just trying to compete to stay afloat you won’t have time for those sexy deals that got you into RE in the first place. 

TL;DR Just because you (probably) can, doesn’t mean you should. But it would be a fun exercise to come up with those creative solutions, especially considering many would be based in brand new technology. 

With multifamily units you can still have separate meters for each unit, usually this is the case for electric utilities, but in some municipalities also for gas, water, sewer. Since utilities are your highest monthly expense per this sample pro forma, you want to figure out whether they are separately metered or not, and if so plan on tenants paying them.