All Forum Posts by: Emily Allen

Hey Everyone! I haven't been here for a while. My husband and I have been steadily expanding our little rental business. We have been focusing on single family houses, buy old ones, fix them, and rent them out. We feel pretty comfortable about this category. However, husband is thinking about mid-size apartments recently and possibly quitting his job! This is a big step for us. We've done our spreadsheet several times but still feel uncertain. We would love to have someone to look over our plan for us. Happy to buy coffee or pay consulting fees. If you know Atlanta market well, if you have experience in commercial apartment rentals, please reach out! 

Thank you @Bill Manassero for your insights! Great Advice!

Hi @Omar Ruiz , thanks for your reply! Can you be more specific on how do you create relationships? I find it hard to get seller agents' attention. 

Hello! My husband and I are investors in the Atlanta area. We have a dozen single family rentals and we want to start buying apartments. We have several quite frustrating experiences so far where we couldn't even talk to the seller's agent. For example, we found an apartment on Loopnet. We called the seller agent and wanted to submit an offer. We emailed the offer to the agent and then just never heard back. We kept calling but couldn't get in touch with the agent. Then days later we found the property was under contract. When the property finally closed, we checked the price and found it's not so different from our offer. For example in the last case, the property sold for $375k and we offered $370k. The market is of course very hot. And I could totally understand if a good offer is accepted immediately so the seller agent doesn't want to accept any other offers. But from the way we were treated, I just felt we were not taken very seriously by the seller agent. The agents didn't even want to talk to us. Maybe it's because we don't have a proven track record in apartments? Our offers are usually cash offer with no contingency with proof of fund. But maybe the agent doesn't know if we can actually close or not?

I would really appreciate if someone could offer some good advice. I remembered Brandon said he prepared an investor portfolio book for bankers to get loans? Can someone share a good template? Maybe having a good portfolio book will help?

Thank you!

Thanks Mike! But from the listing agent's perspective, won't the best thing be calling highest and best? that may prompt everyone to submit a higher offer.  But now the listing agent is only working with that one buyer. 

Thanks for the replies! I understand the agent is not obligated to respond to me  -- and you are right, I'm not even sure he'd like to represent me at all... When I asked him to represent me, he said yes. But when I actually submitted the offer to him, he never got back to me or prepare any paper work for me....

 I just wanted the property really badly so I wonder if I could ask another agent to represent me and give it a try. From an agent's perspective, would that be every offensive? I want to try everything I can without creating any trouble.

I guess I just need more people to tell me that my assumption is right -- he's working with someone else and I need to move on ;-(

Hi All! I'm looking for advise for dealing with a non-responsible listing agent. I'm an investor. I usually work with the listing agent. This property came on market yesterday. I called the agent and got the instruction from him to look at the property. He said he already had 3 offer on the table so I needed to submit an offer by today in order to be considered. I told him that I would wanted him to prepare the offer for me and he was OK.

So I submitted my offer last night around 10. And I called him first thing in the morning, wanted to make sure that he received my offer. However, he simply doesn't respond to any calls or emails... I tried to call his office but the secretary said I had to contacted him directly to write an offer, no other agents were available to help. Around noon I got a text message from him saying he'd call me later, but he never did.

This is a pretty good deal. In a market this hot, I'm guessing that the seller/listing agent is working with a buyer already. I'm not surprised that my offer is not the best one. But I really think this agent is not professional. He doesn't give any updates at all!

My question is, at this point, can I still ask another agent to represent me and submit an offer? I really like the property and would like to try very hard, in a reasonable way. I don't want to create any trouble -- it's a small word anyway and I may need to work with this agent in the future. But since he has never agreed to represent me, and we've never reached any agreement, and the property is shown as still available, can I ask another agent to present me? 

Any advice would be great! Thank you for reading.

I have serious trouble in renting out a house. I'll be as detailed as I can because I am in serious need of good advice. Is reducing the rent the only way to find a tenant??

It's in one of the growing areas close to downtown Atlanta. We have a couple of rentals in that neighborhood but each street is different. For this house, the street is almost OK. There are renovations and new constructions on the street and around the area.

The big "but" is that there are two old houses right in front of ours that are on the other side of the street. Those residents have been there for a long time. Both of them have large families. On a regular day, children run on the street and play. Parents/Grandparents will sit outside of front yard and watch. That's their lifestyle and there is nothing

wrong with it. And I've talked to the neighbors and they are reasonable people. But the problem is that I have big trouble finding tenants... I had a dozen of showings in the last month. The only way I've been advertising is to post on craigslits. Because the house is completely renovated, not surprisingly many people are attracted by the pictures. But after they come, almost everyone asks if the neighborhood is safe.

I'm wondering if I'm advertising the house too high, so the type of people comfortable with that rent range are not comfortable with this type of neighborhood?

Should I keep dropping the rent? Should I look into other ways of advertising? I've never used an agent since craigslit has been very efficient for me. But I'm not sure in this case

how to reach my desired audience. Any advice will be highly appreciated! And thanks for reading. 

Thank you everyone for your advice! Really helped to calm me down. I'm uploading a picture. There are spots in the living room ceiling. Visible dark dots -- I guess that's why the tenant associate mold with her being sick. 

My handyman has cleaned it up and sealed it. But the tenant wanted him to leave a small area so that she can test if it's mold. I told her that I don't want her to order her own test. I can use a licensed professional and share the report with her, but it needs to go through me.

My plan is to have the handyman to check the attic to make sure there is no leak. If that's the case, then the mold is mostly due to behaviors. It may be the rain, the age of the house (built 1935 in downtown ), or the tenant's behavior.  I'll suggest how to control the moisture level. And ask if she wants to stay and try. If not, I'm happy to let her go. She's a good tenant. But I really don't want to go down the route of doing expensive test, and then endless remediation. Atlanta has been raining for a month maybe, and it's humid everywhere. I'm not doing remediation will make her happy or solve her problem. 

Any other suggestions?

Thank you!

I'm scared about mold and I'm more than happy to let her go. But I don't really want to spend money on finding her another house. 

I forgot to say I'm in Atlanta, GA. Any recommendation of mold removal expert would be great!