All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

This is great. I might actually start using some sort of a gray. I've been using Navajo White from Home Depot which is a soft tan color. But I do like the look of soft grays.

What's your favorite paint brand and color for your rentals?

@Victor Drazen so what did you end up doing?  Is it all resolved?

In CT, rent isn't late until midnight on the 9th day after the day it's due, so you can't really charge a fee until the 11th of the month if it's due on the 1st.  I had a tenant that was usually conveniently unreachable until like the 8th or 9th of the month and then would pay just before the 10th.  I'm guessing that he wanted to take his time paying and didn't want to be bothered.  So now I don't remind anyone about rent that needs to be paid. They have the lease and know when it's due.  They'll get a notice if it's not paid after the 10th, but somehow it always is.

You really can save yourself some aggravation if you just wait the required # of days, then serve the notice, then things will move a little quicker.  I'm guessing that if he still has stuff there, it would still probably be hard to tell if the place if abandoned even if you got in. 

Perhaps a quick half an hour meeting with the accountant would get your questions answered and they probably wouldn't barge you much. And you'll have everything lines up properly every month.

I have a weird problem (at least it's weird in my opinion) issue with central air.  In a 2 story townhouse, the air doesn't seem to be getting up to the 2nd floor.  I had a new HVAC installed a few years ago and it didn't fix the problem.  There are some vents that you can open/close that lead to upstairs and I opened and closed them a few times -- didn't make a difference.  The people that installed my HVAC said that it's how the townhouse was built and the air just doesn't get all the way up there cause all of it comes out downstairs....just can't believe that this is true but not sure what else could cause it.  Any ideas??

@Tim Healey didn't think of that but it may be a good idea to just include it with the lease.  That way I can advertise that I include certain services and may be able to attract tenants with that.  And yes, it ensures that the property stays a little cleaner.

@Edgar Claudio AC filter changes are a great idea.  I currently provide all the filters and ask that the tenants change them once a month, but no matter how many times I show them, they forget how to do it (and to do it) every time.  I sometimes find out that the filters go without changing for 6 months!

Does anyone offer add-on services with their rentals?  For example, offer an option of paying some amount more a month but getting the carpets professionally cleaned once a year (on a longer lease).  Or paying a bit more and having a cleaning service come in periodically. 

If so, what else have you offered?  Is it worth it?

I do what you just mentioned, which is track everything in a spreadsheet and then submit at year-end to my accountant and she sorts it all out and categorizes all of my income, expenses, and anything else. Gives me peace of mind that someone who actually is an accountant is making decisions on how to categorize and apply everything. I tried it once and was nervous that I'm not doing it right. Last thing I need is to get in trouble on my financials and taxes.

I have a list of my go to companies / contractors / people that much more handy than me that I use after a tenant leaves.  There's very little that I will do myself.  But I am the one that goes through and inspects everything and decides what needs to be done -- but I run a very small operation here so it's not worth it for me to oursource that.

At the very least I have professional cleaning + carpet cleaning.  It's a good idea and tenants like to know that the place was cleaned professionally.  For any small things that are broken and need fixing I use a handyman.

I also use the in-between tenant time to do some proactive upgrades if I think something will need to be done soon anyway.

@Account Closed I'm pretty new at this so I am wondering if I'm not even looking at everything I should be looking at.  I am working through an agent and what I received for review was the filled out application as well as a report that looked more like a summary rather than the credit report itself.  Honestly, there was nothing negative on it other than the score itself.  I just looked back at it and it's called the NTN Decision Point Plus Instant Resident Selection System -- must be something the agency uses? So the only thing that was negative was the score - 596.  The applicant said they have some accounts in collections related to that rental property they own, but there was nothing that mentioned it on the report I got.  Maybe I should start doing the screening / pulling up the credit reports myself, because what I'm receiving is very abbreviated.  Unless this is the only stuff I'm allowed to see?