All Forum Posts by: Bienes Raices

The mortgage on my personal residence was just sold by GMAC to Ocwen. I'm pretty nervous because there's tons of horror stories on the web about Ocwen (saying the payment wasn't sent in when it was, and many other mistakes). As Also I understand it the customer service is outsourced to India and leaves much to be desired in terms of communication and follow through...

Does anyone else here have them as your loan service provider? Has the experience been at least tolerable or a total nightmare?

I haven't done them but it seems to me that you might have higher turnover in those because those tenants may be looking to buy a house at some point.

Mine are in that range ($700 - $850) and you can find good, low maintenance people, it just takes careful screening and patience. If you can put in some upgrades (like new flooring) that wows people it may help in finding someone good faster.

Is this the latest "in" thing that I'm missing?

You would not believe the run of people I've had--three felons in a row in the last day--the latest was for child abuse(!). (Of course he had a pre-packaged story about how it was not really his fault). Luckily I've been been able to pre-screen most of these people out over the phone or at the meeting without having to waste time on the application.

Thanks Matt--it's good to have the local perspective!

Thanks Rick--I have my tenants at the other rentals do it themselves and it hasn't been an issue. I'm just concerned about the lack of storage space at this one (for lawnmower, etc.) and that the huge volume of leaves may be a turnoff to applicants.

Be careful what you wish for Brian. I've got so many "humorous" dud stories from this latest go around that I'm just numb at this point.

Not as exciting as the other ones here, but today I got a call from someone. I had to wait on the phone while the man translated each statement I made into Spanish for the woman. I guess they were outside because there were loud airplane and car sounds during the call too. The call was dropped twice (or they disconnected?) during the conversation and I had to call them back.

When they arrived at the showing the man asked me if I do background checks for felonies.

Without getting into the details, I've been having a problem with very unqualified applicants for my new rental.

Because there's limited room for the tenant to keep a lawnmower on the property, I've been toying with the idea of including lawn service to get better applicants. I would like to get a service that will mow for $75 or less per month. I don't know if this is possible without hiring a kid. I will have to call around.

The problem is the house also has several large oak trees around it that shed a lot of leaves. I literally filled 30 bags of leaves the other day. I've been told these trees shed leaves year round, too. I assume it's going to be exorbitant to pay a service to do this raking in addition to mowing. Should I get a leafblower and do the leaves myself, or try to get the tenant to do the raking and hire a service just to mow the lawn? My concern is that if the tenant neglects the raking and the service person arrives they won't be able to mow. Thanks.

Thanks everyone. I've hired handymen to do one-off jobs but I've never used someone long term like this, so I had concerns. It sounds like it's not a big deal.