All Forum Posts by: James Mc Ree

@Jorge Newbery Thank you for the update, Jorge.

Has the lender who AHP claims took its assets filed any claims against AHP? Can you share their name here, please?

I am guessing there is still a large part of this story that is still missing. AHP claimed their lender just took their notes and sold or reallocated them for their own benefit. That may be true; however, we haven't heard the lender's side of the story. My guess is the lender had a claim against AHP to satisfy and that is how they did it, but that is just a guess.

I have 2 other investments with the same firm that were facing this zombie investment status where they might be dead, but aren't dead yet. The firm tried to give investors hope they might recover something in restructuring an investment, but the timeframe was years out and it would be a tiny recovery. It was a great disservice to the investors as we couldn't claim the loss. They fixed that mistake with the 2nd investment and declared it lost.

It doesn't sound like AHP is declaring it lost yet. It looks like they are setting our expectations for a couple years of litigation.

Your lease is a legally binding contract. Read it to see if the landlord has the right to cancel. If not, you can point this out to the landlord and tell them you are moving in in a few days or you will meet in court. That approach might not get you into the house, but you could offer the landlord an opportunity to buy out the lease which would help you with temporary space and the next rental.

You are probably out of luck if the lease says the landlord can cancel the lease. Look at the terms and conditions if that is the case.

There's great advice on gutters and grading above for your own stormwater. Also, check for stormwater management on the property as a whole. Is the water running towards your home, such as running from the road, down your driveway and into your yard, for example? That could be a source of your water as well.

Check your seller's disclosure. It should state the seller was aware of a wet basement if the seller held the property for several years unless this storm was one of those 1-in-100 year storms that happens every few years now. You might have a legal option if the water issue was known and not disclosed. It would be strange for someone to spend the money to finish the basement, knowing it would get wet.

I have a 5% deductible which is around $10,000 for my properties. This gives me a lower premium and I only plan to use insurance for bigger losses. A small house fire was 95% covered by the insurance company, but it still meant I had to pay about $8,000 in that case.

I recommend you tie this decision to the size of the reserve you maintain. If you have no/low reserve, then you might not have the $5k or $10k to repair, so be sure to have a reserve that is at least in line with your deductible.

The lease modification path is probably a dead end for 12 months. He has a lease. You can propose a modification, but he has to accept it. I don't see why he would accept it unless there is a carrot in there for him. Could the carrot be that you offer him a renovated unit in exchange for good behavior? That might be your opportunity for a new lease if he accepts.

I think the police path might be the better course. You can call the police for him harassing the contractors and ask the contractors to do the same if you are not around. The police can issue a "Do not contact" order to keep him from interacting with the contractors which may help. He may find another way to be a nuisance, but at least that one will be closed off.

If it persists and you have police reports, you may be able to use them and your existing lease to evict if your lease has terms about quiet enjoyment or criminal activity. The downside is you might need a conviction to use them and your 12 months will be up by then.

@Hyeseong Park You are probably running the risk of driving away your good contractor. Good contractors are hard to get as they are often busy. You may cause your good contractor to find another good customer if he feels you are too hard to deal with. I don't do this with my very good contractor who is always late. I just plan for his "actual" completion date which I am now pretty good at estimating.

I recommend following-up a phone conversation with an email to your contractor. It would state something along the lines of, "I am just following-up on our phone conversation earlier today to document our agreements... Please let me know by tomorrow if I didn't get this right." That will get you out of the creepy zone of recording phone calls.

I agree with @Bruce Woodruff in that you may be focusing too much on deadlines. Missing by a day or two doesn't really matter if you are getting good quality work. You don't want your contractor to rush to hit the deadline and do sloppy work that you don't discover until later. I break up my work into milestones and pay on milestone completion. I find contractors are highly motivated to hit those milestones to get paid. If you feel you need a penalty, you could propose doubling the allowed time excluding waiting on materials and customer input and see what your contractor says.

An approach that works well for me is to visit the work site once or twice per day. If I find it vacant or work not going as expected, the contractor gets a call asking what is going on. That way, the contractor knows I am paying attention and holding him accountable if only to explain what is happening.

You can work with a realtor to post your properties for rent in the MLS. That will likely give you the most exposure since the other sites source listings from the MLS.

The benefits of the realtor are experience, time savings and screening. A good realtor will know how best to position your property, give you advice on lease terms and help keep you legal. They probably have a lease you can use. They will handle all of the up-front people interactions, open houses, etc, which is a huge time saver. They will also reduce the "many" applications to just a few according to your instructions. It will be up to you to interview and choose your tenant.

The cost is usually 1 month of rent, which is split between your realtor and the tenant's realtor if they have one. That can be expensive compared to other options. The realtor guarantees nothing beyond signing the lease and does nothing afterward in a traditional engagement. Be careful you don't sign up to pay them another commission if your tenant renews the annual lease!

I have rentals in Delaware County. My vacancies are often filled by word-of-mouth from my existing tenants, then by realtors if I am ready to rent and don't have a tenant lined up. Feel free to DM me if you want to tell me more about your situation. I can recommend an excellent investor's realtor if you are interested.

BP has a nice library of lawyer-reviewed leases for every state in the country. You might want to check that out.

Ask your current good tenants for referrals. Most of my tenants came from referrals from my other tenants. Of course, this assumes your existing tenants are willing to recommend you to their friends and family. 8-)