All Forum Posts by: Brett Baginski

While I am not familiar with the laws in Oregon, I can give you some great advice that I have gotten on the forum (I recently posted a similar thread), and read countless times here during my research.

Set your criteria and stick to it and make them known to the people beforehand to weed them out.  Give out rental applications to anyone that is interested and always charge a fee to process them, I have found this is a great way to get rid of tire kickers.  Process the COMPLETED applications as you receive them and accept the first qualified person based on the criteria you originally set.  Keep a record of every tenant you screen as you may need to refer back as to why they were denied.  It all comes down to treating every potential tenant the same way.

I told all of my interested applicants the same things: There will be a background and credit check for each person over 18, the application is $35 to process for each person, must be filled out completely, I will be calling current employer and current and previous landlords, must make 3x rent in monthly income, credit score must be favorable, no evictions, no criminal history.  I had over 50 interested people, probably gave out about 9 applications, and only 2 parties actually went all the way and completed the screening process.

Hi Ducote,

Read both of these articles in the link below.  It provides step by step processes for renting out your place and screening tenants.  Answered all of my questions when I was screening tenants for the first time.  To answer your question directly, I always charged an application fee when I was going to process the background/credit check.  I used rentprep.com and charged the $35 that the checks cost.  I also told the tenants upfront what my renting criteria was and that there was a fee, and that weeded out many applicants that would not qualify.  I had over 50 people ask me about the property I listed and only 2 went through the entire screening process. 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/82174-ultimate-guide-to-tenant-screening-and-renting-your-house

What are your long term goals?  What is your monthly cash flow like on this property?  

It sounds like you put down 20% if your initial investment was 25k on a 90k house, assuming some of that was for repairs.  Have you talked to a lender about doing a cash out refi?  Depending how much equity you have in the property, you may be able to use that for another purchase.  If your numbers are right, you might be able to get that 30k just by pulling it out of the property.

Hi @Michael Martorella.  I think it really depends where you are looking in NJ.  I was not able to find anything in Monmouth County that worked for me, mostly due to the capital needed to enter into that market, but I went further south to Ocean County and the numbers work a lot better for me there.  If you have any questions into the numbers just send me a direct message and I'd be happy to share my experience.

Hi Kulin.  Depending on how far you are looking to travel, there is a meetup in Belmar at the Beach Haus Brewery and one in Toms River at Water Street Bar and Grill.  Let me know if you are interested and I will send you the information.

I have been using Ally bank for years and never had any issues.  At one point they were offering something like 2.2%, but I believe they are now down to 1.7%.  They are an online bank, which I think is actually a plus.  I set up a portion of my direct deposit to hit that account every week and the money adds up, out of sight out of mind.  When I need access to it, it just takes 1 business days to transfer into my primary checking/savings account with Wells Fargo and no fee.

The Jersey Shore Ocean County meetup is tonight at Water Street Bar and Grill in Toms River at 6:30pm.  You should come and talk to all the local realtors that come and know the area and specific rules.

I had better results with Zillow than Rentometer, although both can be used together.  Rentometer's radius was grabbing properties that were not comparable to the house I was looking to get rent estimates on.  With Zillow, you can zoom in on the exact neighborhood and set your own criteria, which also includes number of baths.  I only used the free version of Rentometer so I cannot speak to it's full capabilities.

Use every resource you have though, Zillow, Trulia, Rentometer, Craigslist, Apartments.com, etc and come up with your own estimate.  Another thing to keep in mind is the "days listed" number on these rentals.  If you are using a rent comp from a house that has been listed for 45+ days, the price may be too high.

Quick tip: I bought some of my smaller power tools from Harbor Freight.  They always have 20% off coupons and their stuff is already really cheap compared to Home Depot.  If this is for small work around the house, these products should be fine.  If you are planning on doing big rehabs, might want to invest in better quality tools.  If you decide to get quality tools check out the Rigid products by Home Depot.  They have lifetime warranties.  The cost of a new battery can be almost as much as the tool you bought is brand new.

Miter Saw (great for molding and precise cuts)
Battery Circular Saw (useful for flooring)
Oscillating Saw (helpful for getting flooring under door jams and odd cuts)
Shop-Vac
Jig Saw (for flooring and intricate cuts)
Pencils
Spare blades for these tools, don't want to have to run out mid project
Lots of white paintable caulk and a couple sponges for wiping excess off
5 in 1 tool (cheap and great to have)
Hand sanders, sometimes the electric/battery ones are too much for the job
Step stool (beats lugging around a ladder)
Quality painting supplies like Wooster (sash brush, roller pads, roller and pole, plastic to protect the flooring)

How far are you from driving down and seeing the property?  The area doesn't seem ideal, lot of auctions and foreclosures listed on Zillow.  Almost looks sandwiched between 3 highways that run through the area and if you look on the satellite map view there's a huge oil container field right down the road.