All Forum Posts by: Noah Laker

Hi Noah Laker,

I too have recently joined BiggerPockets and hope to contribute from my experiences. I've begun short-term renting through Airbnb and was wondering how you deal with the 1-day tenant rights in California? Here in Tennessee we too have a law that gives tenancy rights after one-night of sleeping over, so long as they have personal belongings with them (clothes, toothbrush, etc.).

My first set of renters stung me on this and didn't leave after their designated stay duration. They ended up staying 3 months, didn't pay a dime in rent, ran up the utilities, destroyed the property, terrorized tenants, and costed me thousands in legal fees to get them out. The situation was even worse, since it was a live-in situation; as I was renting a room out on Airbnb (real-life Pacific Heights experience).

This has cautioned me from ever renting out a property again when laws like this exist. I spoke with the judge who stated that the law was put in place when apartment landlords would accept 1st & last month's rent from new tenants and have them escorted off the property before the traditional 30-day tenancy rights came into play. Airbnb was unable to help because their eviction policy defaults to the eviction laws of the state that you live in.

If anyone else has info on this too, I'd love to hear how to mitigate this problem.

Kind Regards,

Noah Nadeau

A simpler question here for you given your experience. I am about to start an Air BnB and am concerned about smokers, pets and general odor elimination between guests. Have you ever used an air purifier or ozone generator to get rid of smells? Did that work well? This is for a 1800 square foot single level beach house about 1 block from beach. It often gets humid there and am concerned about potential for mold or mildew smells as well. Will one of those air purifiers work? I'm looking at this on Amazon that our cleaners could use: 

@Noah Laker  How does someone research an area to see if anybody would even rent short term?  I have a friend that owns a house near clear lake and I have no idea if people would stay in short term rentals around there. How do you avoid the crazy party animals in short term rentals?

Hi Noah, what you are doing is amazing! I am super impressed. I am a new real estate investor in Sacramento. I am curious about what the properties in Oak Park do and what the clienteles are. I like downtown and midtown, but Oak Park is always the area that I will avoid. I was thinking about midterm rental by UCD med center, but the Elmhurst area is too expensive, and Oak Park is too dangerous in my mind.

 Thanks for starting this thread, Noah. Appreciate your offer to help. Are you seeing a slowdown in both occupancy and Average Daily Rates across your listings in the last few Months compared to the same time period last year? How are you planning to prepare your portfolio for the impact of a likely recession in 2023.

Since I became a landlord several years ago, I have always use the same screening process. When I show a property, I have prospective tenants show up dispersed every 10 minutes on a given evening. The typical evening showing consists of around 3-10 different groups or individuals that show up over an hour or two. I have already prescreened them over the phone and they all meet my minimum requirements. Even through every one that shows up for the showing is technically qualified, if I don't have a good feeling about them, I will hold out and see if someone more qualified comes along for a showing later in the week. Once I have someone I feel good about, I do all my background/eviction checks and will rent to them if nothing surprising pops up. I have always thought this was a pretty solid way to do it and it doesn't break any fair laws. with that said, I listened to Brandon Turner's "The Book on Rental Property Investing" on a long drive the other day and he had a very different approach. He basically rents to the first qualified person that comes along and then he makes sure to send everyone else who applied a letter saying why he did not rent to them.  Brandon says that he has found this is the best way to avoid being sued over discrimination accusations. This methods seems to me to make more work and give less control to the landlord. 

Has anyone ever had any fair housing legal issues arise from a screening process similar to mine? What approach do you all take?

Hi - I'm a fairly new investor. I have a career in healthcare but I'm looking forward to rentals for retirement. I'm about 18 months into my shifted mindset that has allowed me to acquire 3 single family and 1 duplex out of state. After finding Biggerpockets I'm excited to expand even more. 

I’m having issues filing documents properly with my TPT license in Arizona and am looking for someone who can look over everything with me and help me sort it out. Thanks in advance!