All Forum Posts by: Jennifer Guertin

Hi everyone, I'm trying to fill a 1BD apartment in May and have a couple that would like to rent. I require monthly incomes to be at least three times the monthly rent. Each person has excellent credit and separately they currently rent studios at $1700 total. My rent would be $1250. But their income is sporadic as they are artists. One person said indicates that they make "about $2K" and the other said "$2k-2500" on their application. I've only rented to folks on a fixed income and have no experience with a co-signer and have read in the forum co-signers are not recommended. If their annual income is $48K give or take, do you recommend I request old paychecks to verify and check with old landlords on payment history as part of the reference check or just move on and pursue other prospective tenants? Thanks for sharing your experience and suggestions, Jen

Hi All, I have recently acquired a multi family and one tenant now wants to break the lease early. Her car was broken into and a porch that was found to be a liability during the home inspection is no longer accessible to her. I am working to get bids but have advised work can't start until the spring and have dropped rent to accommodate this loss for her. I've just learned that she wants to leave due to the above and a fire and mold in the apartment that were not previously disclosed. Also she just reported a crack in the wall as distressing her too. Heading over tomorrow to evaluate all this and my gut is to help her break the lease as I'm concerned she is not taking care of the unit but I also want to and need to address all the new issues to protect the house. Lease clearly says tenant will advise if any mold or fire. I wanted to get advice from others who have been through this as to how to approach this situation. Thanks, Jen

If anyone has instructions for tenants (and new owners like me) to secure rent with no fees for either party can you pls share?  THanks, Jennifer

We are fans of cozy.co and I appreciate the issues related to cozy detailed here. 

HI Natalie, I live right around the corner from R House and would love to attend your next meet up. Thanks, Jen

Hi Tim, here are the numbers, not sure if you can access the report?  Asking price: $249K, current rents $2100, taxes $220/month, insurance $115/month, estimating cap ex and repairs at 5% each and 8% vacancy just as plug figures.  With 25% down, P&I would be just about $1K/month on a 30 year loan at 5%. Thank you! Jen

Thank you @Ned Carey for sharing this. Have a great weekend! 

View report

HI All, I'm looking to purchase my first multi family property this year and ran the numbers on a 3 unit here in Baltimore city with info provided by the sellers agent. The ROI is a mere 3% and the cash return is too low for current rents. The place will benefit from new kitchens and baths and I could raise rent from $2100 to $2500 easily. What would be a good offer?  This last sold in 2014 for $175K and seller is asking $249K. Seller will let me make offer before this goes on the market this weekend. I can seem to get numbers to work at $215K but eager to get more experienced folks to comment. THANK YOU! Jen

*This link comes directly from our calculators, based on information input by the member who posted.

We are fans of cozy.com but have not tried the other sites. I have no reason to look else where because the cozy platform is free, intuitive and my tenants can use it. It works! 

HI Mindy, we annually purge items we haven't used in the past year and bring to the Salvation Army to claim as a tax write off. Teaches us to be more selective with non essential purchases.