All Forum Posts by: Jeff Copeland

Choose your battles wisely. The statement about a disability concerns me. One might argue that she is asking for a reasonable accommodation (and hard to argue that it's not reasonable if it has been happening for 20 years with no major problems). 

I'd suggesting taking a proactive step towards a compromise (such as installing a bike rack) that might solve the problem while still accommodating the tenant.

This is an interesting question and a great point. 

I can think of a few reasons:

1. Not all of these metrics are readily available in most software systems (incidentally, @Matt Speer is working on some interesting solutions), they have to be calculated manually, and

2. These metrics change constantly. At least daily. Yesterday's numbers are no longer accurate/valid today, and

3. Some of them can be manipulated and/or don't really tell you anything.

For example, you'd think "Days on Market" for rentals could be a crucial metric for landlords/PMs (and a corollary to vacancy), but a PM could take two months getting a property ready to list, and then list it and get it rented in 10 days, reflecting 10 days of vacancy in some customer facing metrics. But isn't it really 70 days of vacancy? (And what if the 60 days of vacancy was planned by the owner as part of a rehab/repositioning and resulted in a planned 50% rent increase - How is that a bad thing?)

Even landlord retention is tricky. It sounds like a great metric to use, but consider: A PM with 10 owners who lost 2 owners because they sold their rentals at the peak of the market has 80% retention, while a PM with 500 owners who got fired by 50 of them for being negligent has 90% retention. Which one is better?


@Matt Speer

Start the eviction process immediately. This will not get better with age. 

It is never a good idea to rent to a tenant who cannot afford to pay the initial security deposit. That was one of your first red flags. 

This has the potential to cost you thousands of dollars in legal expenses, lost rent, and repairs. It would have been much more profitable to hire a professional property manager in the first place. 

We've had solar on our primary for several years here in Florida, and generally love it. 

Some things to be aware of:

1. There are different business models. You can buy the panels outright with cash, you can finance them, or you can lease them. Figure out what works best for you.

2. There are also different models in terms of metering. Some utilities offer "net metering" - which means if you are fortunate enough generate more energy that you use, you essentially sell it back to the grid and reduce your utility costs accordingly. In other cases, your generating capacity might just power your home, and if you make extra, it just goes unused rather than going back to the grid. 

3. Invest in solar for the reduced utility costs (and in some cases, the tax credit). Don't expect them to add value on resale or appraisal. The market just doesn't seem to support this yet. In most cases, this means it needs to be a long term hold where you pay the utility costs in order for it to make sense. 

4. The panels do have to come off if/when you re-roof. Many installers will include one time removal & reinstallation (later on) in their initial bid. This is something to check on (and them hope they are still around in 10 years when you need to call them on it!). 

I'm not aware of any reason you cannot ask an applicant "Why was your SSN not issued until after 2011?" and it seems like a very good question to ask as part of your due diligence. The reason could be something very simple and innocuous. 

In my experience, coin-op will likely be a net negative for you (as far as income and expenses are concerned) on a triplex. 

The machines cost 3 times as much, and cost 3 times as much to service and repair, and three rental units just will not generate enough income to create any positive ROI.

A rule of thumb I've see and experienced is around 10 units is the breakeven point for coin up machines. 

One alternative is to just implement a flat monthly fee for unlimited use of the non-coin-op machines. 

In a coliving setting, two of the big draws for tenants are 1) all utilities included, and 2) flexible lease terms.

You should be collecting premium rent (compared to a traditional LTR), and that single rent number should include utilities for the tenant. 

Of course, you do whatever works for your business model. This is just my opinion. 

Do you mean approaching your buyer's agent about offering seller financed terms to a seller?

This is pretty routine. Real estate agents put together seller financed offers all the time. In a lot of ways, they are much easier transactions to manage as an agent than those with traditional bank financing. 

You would simply tell your agent the terms of your offer, and they'd write it up and submit/discuss it with the listing agent. Not much different from any other offer really as far as your buyers agent is concerned. Most states even have preformatted contract addendums for seller financing, so your agent would just full in the blanks with the broad strokes of your offer. 

It's more important to understand when seller financing is feasible and appropriate.

Check out https://www.biggerpockets.com/... for a more in-depth explanation.

In most cases, a valid lease survives the sale of a property, unless there is a terminate on sale clause in the lease. 

Ideally, you'd need to see a copy of the lease to fully understand the terms and conditions. But it's fairly safe to say the tenant has the right to continue their leasehold until the term expires and proper notice of non-renewal is given. 

Another option is to negotiate with the tenant to terminate their lease early or "buy them out" of the remainder of the lease. 

They will primarily be concerned with the asset: Income, Expenses, NOI, and DSCR.

In real estate, it is not uncommon to create a new LLC for each property, so they will be less concerned about the entity itself.

More like 80% asset & DSCR, 20% borrower (credit score, cash reserves, etc).