All Forum Posts by: Bill Ward

Bed covers? Is this a fully furnished home? I would think new items astmove in or during initial viewing is fine. I wouldn't expect landlord to replace these items while the same tenant is still living there....from landlord or tenant perspective. 

@Bronson Simmons take any crime stats with a grain of salt. There’s ways to manipulate the data to show more or less crime depending on the goal and reporting style of law enforcement in that jurisdiction. What can be a “burglary report” in one city could be a “non reportable” in another city.

@Bronson Simmons find a local cop. Ask him if he would live there.

@Sean Stewart how much are you planning to make after this deal and what is your next goal?

@Steven Ragsdale congratulations! Is it rented yet? How are the numbers?

If you took $28k out what would you do with it? If it's going to make you more money then that's a plan, but if you don't have any plans for it, I'd wait. Maybe sell and repeat. 

For reference on flooring, I had the local big box store come out last year for a quote. LVP flooring, 20 mil layer in 1145 sq ft house and remove existing carpet came out to $5,600 ish. Southeastern Virginia

I've had two tenants that had dogs in the house. The first one there was no problems whatsoever. The second people, even though the interior of the house always looked neat and clean, they never picked up the dog poop outside. This let the dogs run around on it getting it on the feet, which then they got into the carpet from coming inside. Never smelled it while they were there because of candles. After they moved out, the dog odor was awful, (this is when I learned they didn't change the a/c filters either). I ended up steam cleaning for a week. Finally steam cleaning with vinegar and water took the odor out better than the cleaning solutions. It saved the carpet (I know, I'll put in LVP when I need to). It also had fleas everywhere. I ended up paying a company to deal with the fleas. It also took a lot of hours of cleaning, luckily I live nearby. Current tenants have no pets and now I'm considering doing no pets on the next lease. If you can get tenants with no pets I would go with that over an increase of rent with the increase in potential damage. Peace of mind for me. 

Long term rental? I'm no expert but I would assume that you'd be targeting a much smaller group of people looking for a furnished home, rather than renters who have their own stuff and want to decorate as they please. 

I was in a similar financial situation about 2 years ago, though not trying to buy a house. I had credit card debt. I paid it down aggressively over a year and have kept it at zero since. You could probably do the math on your interest rates and what you'd make on the house and figure out the technically correct financial answer. Depends on how you feel about personal debt. I personally hate it and I love not having any debt other than a mortgage. I don't plan to have a car payment again (go used) so my only debts are my 2 mortgages. That makes me happy and it's hard to put a price on that. From your post it sounds like you want to pay off your debts first, and looking for someone to agree with you. If that makes you happier, I'd do that. How long would it take you if you focused on the current debt?