All Forum Posts by: Jason Allen

A positive update, I advertised on Zillow yesterday and now have 10 people scheduled for an open house. I'm a bit shocked that all of these sites generated zero interest. 

What are your thoughts on pre-screeners and applications? 

Of course youd want someone to fill out a pre-screener right away, however how do you approach them filling out an application? Do you wait until they have seen the home in person? Ive read some people do it prior to make sure they are serious. 

Also, how to answer when asked if you accept "vouchers" for section 8?

My wife and I are divorcing (amicably). As part of that, we've agreed that I will take 100% of our shared savings and invest in an income-producing property that will will live in, house hack, rent etc. Be the landlord and do all that work. She would retain 50% equity since she's contributing 50% of the down payment. She cannot qualify for a house but I can. I will be on the hook for alimony but we don't know for how much yet.

This plan does several things: it allows me to offset a future alimony payment, gets me into investing, and helps to secure a financial future for us both (to whatever extent the property appreciates).

Two questions: 

1: Will I have to disclose to the mortgage lender that I will have an alimony obligation in my future?

2: What legal form (if any) should this arrangement take? I don't want her (nor does she want) any decision-making or expense obligations around the property. All income would flow to me and I would take all tax benefits. 

Surprised this has not popped up as much, but maybe people aren't printing.

How did Zillow support or so respond to you? I tried messaging myself but they don't have an easy support service to reach ...

Hello all, 

I am curious if the market is slowing down or is it just a bad time of the year to market a home near the Denver area? 

I recently had marginal tenants move out of my Lakewood home and have spent just over a month fixing and cleaning things around the home. 

I know the best time to market a home is between spring and end of summer. However, I remember in the past people would blow up my inbox with requests to view the home. 

Now, its been on the market over a week with no views. 

I am currently using Turbotenant to market the home, which utilizes many websites (mostly free sites) however it does not post to Zillow. 

Would you recommend using Zillow? 

Thanks

 If you normally do a background check, then do one.  Also proof of income is a good move regardless of what the income is.

Hello BiggerPockets community,

I've been exploring the idea of investing in a Section 8 rental property in one of the Tier A-1 Full Coverage zip codes listed on the payment standards for my city. Most discussions on this forum seem to focus on Section 8 investments in lower-income areas, but I'm curious if anyone has experience purchasing a property in a more affluent or decent area for Section 8 rentals.

I understand that the dynamics can be different in these neighborhoods, and I'd love to hear from anyone who has taken this approach. What challenges did you face, and what were the advantages of choosing such a location? How did you find the right property, and what was the tenant screening process like?

Your insights and experiences would be greatly appreciated as I consider this strategy. Thank you for your help!

Calling attention for Landlord and Realtors, how would you approached the listing the rental properties? I have just finished rennovating my duplex in central New Jersey. And have listed for a week now, only have two showings. As I am anxious to rent them out and wanted to know why there is so limited showing. Below are some of my observations and I wanted to get your opinion, and how would you have handled this to attract more showings and speed up the process. 

1) I tried to look up my rental property online ( my realtor listed this for), I am not able to find this property as an active rental on Zillow, trulia and apartment rental websites, I know it got listed on MLS. Does my agent put too much limit on where to advertise the rental property?

2) My agent has gotten approached by quite a number of potential tenants, but instead of showing them the property first. She sends application form and background check forms for them to fill out before they even get to see the property. Her rational is that she is not comfortable about showing the property without knowing much about the candidates. 

The more I think about this approach, the more I think there is a mismatch here. Number 1 proberly limited potential quality tenants finding this active listing, number 2 deters potential good tenants because of the strict process in place before showing. 

I started to wonder if this is a mis match of the project and the agent. She is a good residential agent and excels in buying and selling. But she was not extremely comfortable about taking on this rental project from the very beginning. A few things included not willing to use my contract template but realtor standard template, and told me she does not do much rental, and the time she spent on rental is just as much on buy & sell but much less commission. I also realzied she lives a little far from the rental property and possibly becasue of all of these reasons that she went with the approach 1 &2 as I mentioned above? 

Look forward to hearing your perspective and feedback. 

@Keith Tarasiewicz I have family in Upstate New York and periodically think of buying something there. Then I am reminded of how difficult NY is to landlords, how much red tape there is for permits, how high taxes are, how awful it is if you are an out of state investor, etc etc And I do not buy there.

Zillow Credit Scores are not only wrong, they are totally random!! When you hit print on a Zillow Application Credit Score, you get a different result every single time. WTH!!  Can someone explain this?

I tested this several times, even went to a differnt computer. The 3 examples below were printed within minutes. Its basically pick your own score. If you did not like the first one, just print another one. I did some research and looks like I am not the first one to discover this?

There is no way Zillow is not aware of this!!

We have literally an eviction at the moment with someone, who per Zillow had excellent credit. We based the decision on the score shown on the screen and when the troubles started we brushed it off as a misunderstanding, because the person had excellent credit. Until we discovered the score is different every time you print!

Can someone verify what we are experiencing here?

I'm for it because I support freedom of choice on the part of investors. However, this doesn't fully absolve syndicators of the responsibility of understanding their investors' situations and qualifications.

Syndications are highly illiquid investments; someone who passes this test but still has a net worth of, say, $100,000, should not invest in the typical syndication that has a $50k minimum. If these tests are legally approved, syndicators should continue to evaluate and understand their investors' financial positions prior to bringing them into a deal.Syndi