All Forum Posts by: Christopher Helwig

That's funny, my wife said the exact same thing about showing them the before pictures.  Thank you for the advice

 I am a relatively new house flipper.  One of the issues I have noticed is that some people think of a flip house as being the cheapest possible rehab.  To address this I took detailed pictures from beginning to end of my most recent flip, documenting that we did a thorough job using quality materials.   I am going to start a company website to host the pictures and provide a little explanation of what we did.  My problem is how to measure if it has any impact on sales price or time on market.  I do not do a lot of volume, so it would take me a long time to get a good data set just based on those numbers.  Does anyone know of any other ways to gauge the effectiveness of this plan?  Has anyone tried it?  If so, I would love to hear what worked for you and what did not.   Thanks in advance.

I do not mean to be a contrarian, but in Florida it is pretty easy to evict.  In my county they sell a packet of documents at the court house that you can file yourself.  You do not even need to hire a lawyer.  In fairness though, I have seen those horror stories in the news about professional squatters. 

I pay property tax on 8 properties and still vote for tax increases for schools.  Public education in Florida is significantly worse now then it was when I grew up.  Strong public education is a foundational element of democracy and an important part of maintaining the middle class.

My Question is about the order in which DIY landlords and managers show their property to perspective tenants and call references.  Currently I wait until I have about 5 qualified applicants, and schedule viewings with all of them.  I disqualify anyone who is late or dose not show at all.  That usually leaves two or three qualified applicants.  Then I call the references on the first application and if it all checks out I offer them the unit.  

I am considering changing my process because it is a bit of a pain to show every vacancy to multiple tenants.  However it is nice to have a backup if someone decides they do not want the unit or it turns out they cannot pay.

How do other owners/managers do it?  Do you call references first?  Do you show every vacancy to multiple applicants?  Do you leave a lock box and let people see it at their leisure?  I would love to hear other's processes and their reasons?

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the candid advice.  My wife and I own 5 properties (9 units). I think I will bite the bullet and pay for an attorney.   

If I create a separate LLC to manage my properties, who is labial if I get sued? This management LLC would not own the property. It would be the entity on the lease with the tenant. It would have its own bank account to collect rents and pay for repairs. There would be some sort of contract between the management LLC and the entity that owns the property, stating the responsibilities of the management LLC and how much it pays the owner of the property to "lease" the property.

Would this provide liability protection for the entity that owns the property?  Or is it the owner that bears responsibility if anything goes wrong?   Thank you in advance for any advice.

I have tried a few property management programs, Zebo, Cozy and Avail.  I have not been satisfied with any of them yet.  Most of them want to charge around 3% for processing rent payments.  Zibo is free if the tenant links their bank account, but it is a little glitchy with my Credit Union.  Also, their platform is not very user friendly.  Some of my tenants use it, and some still prefer checks.  I'm still looking for a better solution.

Good luck

Thank you. I think I will start this question of a management LLC as its own thread.

Thank you for all the advice.  

If I create a new LLC to manage all my property, Who is liable if I get sued? Would it be the management LLC or is the owner ultimately labial (in this case either myself or another LLC)?