All Forum Posts by: Jason Smith

@Chris A. You can look around on zillow if a place has been for rent for 43 days and has 20 contacts and 3 applications rent it is too high. If a place has been on zillow 1 day and has 100 contacts and 20 applications rent is below market. Find a places within a few blocks, that have been on the market like a few days and have a reasonable amount of contacts and applications. Look at those comps and adjust your price for better/worse location, a/c, parking and interior/exterior shape (especially bathrooms/kitchens).

I learned this the hard way too, if a renter reports a blocked or slow drain you have to specifically tell them (I would do it in writing) not to run any water until you get the pipe cleared. My renters ran a load of laundry on a non-draining pipe and it backed up in tub and overflowed the toliet. I paid the $650 cleaning fee ($7/sqft) for the bathroom and the $350 plumbing fee. The plumber was already scheduled to come in the morning immediately after they reported the slow pipe. I always check stuff out myself first, but this was like April 2020 (covid was new) and I didn't want any part of sewer drain line clearing. The plumber did retract the snake and there WAS wipes attached to the head, which they denied.

Not every house is on new lines or even to a sewer, so no wipes are not to be flushed and they were told not to in there 1950s downtown house.

He is asking $50-100 more than everyone in the area for a 4/2. But the house is 1280 sqft (300-500sqft smaller than the others) and looks worse. How can you justify 2k when this place is 1900?

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6940-W-Vernon-Ave-Phoenix-AZ-85035/7475517_zpid/?utm_campaign=androidappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare

@Bob Okenwa I am going to reveal your secrets it is the called Maricopa County Assessor website and Zillow. For my next trick I can guess OPs wife's name.

@Veronica Thomas I have them sign off on a checklist through docusign that has a check-in / check-out column (fans dusted, floors mopped, self-cleaning oven cleaned, shelf out fridge cleaning, microwave inside clean, toliet scrubbed inside and out, cabinets crumb free, no chemicals/furniture/toliet brushes/brooms left on premise, no large garbage items on street curb, etc, etc) . The document also has a room by room general description of everything and a link to a google photo album with like 50+ pictures. Once they give notice I give them the document and tell them the house needs to be in similar condition and to expect to clean several hours after their stuff was out. After I started doing this I give them a spotless house, they give me a pretty clean one back. Takes about 4 man hours total to turn it back over plus any repairs/touch-ups. I don't charge them. Before this I was getting empty houses with ovens/fridges never cleaned in 2-3 years, dirty blinds/fans/window sills, having to mop multiple times and everything generally clean but not "cleaned". A bunch of cleaning supplies they apparently never used but thought I wanted. And once a couch on the curb that I had to pay to get hauled away cause I gave their security deposit back to quick. Saves me cleaning time and keeps me from having to nasty initial cleaning of someone elses toliet and fridge.

Facebook marketplace I see one in Orlando looks OK for $340. You would have to rent a truck and pickup. Facebook says person selling is a friend of a friend/acquintance. Various used resellers $500-650 with 30 day warranty/delivery. Learn to fix it yourself when they break. They are easy to fix using google and youtube and parts are cheap.

@Barbara Pinto and the taxes are $2900 assesed at $150k, once you buy for $510k taxes will be like 7k

@Barbara Pinto looked up the place you were talking about. Your rent looks about correct. I don't know about $900 for that place in the back. You are looking at 0.64%. Not that great unless you anticipate appreciation. If you have to pay eletric, or the central a/c or old that would weigh in. Plus it is a 50s house you will have expenses.

I would disagree with most these posts and start early October. I would have the first line in the ad state - move in December 1st, and the first communication I had with a prospective tenant would be they are OK with a Dec 1st move-in. I would have a sample of the floor at any showings and say you would write in the lease the floor would be done before they move in. I tried to be nice to a tenant and let them leave a few weeks early, if I could find an approved tenant. The type of tenants that don't know where they are living in 30 days or less aren't usually the type you want. It seemed to attract tenants that thought I was desperate and willing to overlook qualifications listed in ad.

From my experience State Farm was jacking the rates up, dropping Coastal areas, or not renewing a while ago. It led to all these Security First, UPC, and all these alphabet named companies to come in. These smaller places doing $500 deductibles at reasonable rates. I think turned out to be a mistake. Roofer comes to everyone's door says I will get you a free roof (or our lawyer will sue the insurance co. and drag it out so long they give in as it is cheaper) and for you putting this sign on your lawn saying "another roof covered under insurance see if you qualify call RoofScammers Co" we will pay you $500 - this number happens to be the same as your deductible - which we are not legally allowed to pay. Now State Farm is back in non-coastal areas with good rates. However Farmers may be better. State Farm and Farmers are now charging what these smaller companies charged 2 years ago, but the rates of these smaller places have doubled or more in the last 2 years. However, the state farm and farmers deductibles are now 2% to get these good rates (pretty much shuts down the roof scam).