All Forum Posts by: James Galla

@Pam Holbrook,

I think you may have a lesson in the future that even ONE day of delay can cause you to lose a property. Or, imagine where the seller is sitting on multiple offers, many of those having a timed expiration date of 48 hours. If your agent is taking his time in responding, you'll lose it because of his incompetence. Deals can often come down to competitive bidding, and if your agent isn't there working for you, you need another one.

That agent sounds lazy and not motivated to ensure you have good customer satisfaction. Not to mention, the conflict of interest is glaring.

Hopefully you find someone soon!

8 feet above grade? What? So a MASSIVE concrete block/slab? That doesn't make sense. No one builds an above-grade cube of concrete. It serves no purpose.

Maybe you ought to come back down to reality and ignore it. You're either overemphasizing the impact of the structure or you aren't perceiving it properly.

Frankly, if the issue is arising through county setback requirements, you ought to consider another investment path. The normal renter isn't coming through and cross-referencing the neighbor's lack of meeting the setback requirements.

I mean, are you dealing with high-end rentals or something? That's when this stuff may be applicable.

In one of the worse-off properties I have, I've seen credit scores in the 300s (lowest being 300, which I think is the lowest possible score). In these cases, you must check out their bank statements, credit report, and other sources such that you can do an in-depth audit to verify their capability and willingness to pay rent. 

@Jessica M., oh yeah, you definitely need to learn how to tell your tenant "NO." So, you should keep the essentials functioning, but minor cosmetics that were with the property before she moved in, should remain.

The only thing that has merit is the complaint regarding spraying the property - as a courtesy to the tenant, I normally do this automatically. Vacant properties attract bugs/spiders/etc, so I normally don't demand that the tenant has the responsibility of spraying the property. During that vacancy period when the tenant moves out and the new tenant moves in, I have the property sprayed.

I have a tenant right now that consistently complains about cosmetic issues with the property. I consistently tell him no. The only real complaint he had was regarding doorknobs, which I replaced (although technically functional). Doorknobs/deadbolts naturally relate to safety, so I'm not willing to risk that issue given the circumstances of his request (doorknob/deadbolt appeared faulty).

I think the biggest piece of advice I can give you is to process the requests like a robot. If you take the requests personally, you'll feel an impulse to give the tenant what they want. You need to process the request like you're a non-personal employee at some management company - aka you can't process the request. If you can't process tenants like a robotron, then you ought to hire a management company. The management company will displace the personability between you and the tenant.

"eyesore" Yikes. Are you trying to say the neighbor cannot install a concrete slab on their land?

You should explore three paths:

1. Ask them to uninstall the foundation

2. Complain to the appropriate city department so they possibly get fined

3. See a lawyer. Maybe you can sue them.

To be honest, as someone that owns property with an "unsightly" (whatever that means) structure on it, I'd just throw your request in the trash.

Seller-finance simply means that the seller carries the loan and you make your mortgage payments to the seller. This avoids the cost of seeking out a mortgage loan servicer but places the burden of foreclosure on them. To carry out the deal, you ought to seek out a lawyer in the area to draft the paperwork and record it.

The first thing you ought to do is decide what your business model/strategy will be - this will determine who you need on your "team" and what materials you will need to look to in order to become proficient in the industry. Regardless of what you do, you'll want to consult an attorney regarding business structures. You'll be able to include them in your "team" later.

The idea of forced appreciation is dependent on your market and the quality of the property you purchase. If the property is upgraded to what the market will allow, then you won't have much of an opportunity for forced appreciation. So, you generally want to seek out properties that are low-value/low-quality in markets with a high capacity for value/quality - the run-down property in the nicer neighborhood. This means you need to evaluate your metro area's neighborhoods.

@Kyle Witthuhn

The opportunities under a developer depend on the size of a developer. Small developers may have an opportunity for an underpaid secretary that does more than just secretarial work. Larger, more established developers have a full range of opportunities from attorney positions to in house accountant positions, property managers, etc. I think the typical position for someone in business/finance (not sure about economics) would be under a project manager. There, you'd typically negotiate contracts, draft budget reports, market studies, etc.

Being an appraiser has its own requirements. You ought to check with your states licensing board to see the educational and employment requirements to even proceed down that path. It's a very independent job in which you pretty much schedule appointments to take pictures of homes and proceed with market research to generate an opinion of value.

Urban planners often work for the government, and they typically want an urban planners degree. There may be certifications required before you'd pursue that.

Hope that helps to give you a general idea.

Roommate compatibility is always going to be an issue with house hacking. That being said, you don't appear to have roommates that have been with you for a long time. A couple months isn't a big commitment on the first roommate, and the notion of partial rent for them is not appealing - they pay for the ability to use the space - whether they actually use it or not is irrelevant.

However, roommate 2 isn't totally plesant-sounding, at least the way you made him out (roommate 1 describes them as weird and then you describe them as eccentric on here). To reduce tensions, you out to pay extra attention to screening. Picking weird roommates is bound to get you into tense grounds with others - even yourself. Maybe his weirdness gave rise to your input on points 1 and 2 - there's nothing objectively wrong with "hanging out in the common area" or "having guests over."

It's business, so if roommate 2 is driving your customers away, anticipate it to occur again. However, don't just now down to roommate #1s gripes - inexplicable weird "vibes" doesn't sound too convincing. Maybe roommate 1 is over sensitive and not geared for renting a room.

If you adequately screened roommate 2, I'd probably tell roommate 1 to get lost. I wouldn't readjust rent simply because they choose to spend the night elsewhere while the room is reserved for them. I also wouldn't find "weird vibes" to be an argument to get rid of roommate 2. Having guests over and sitting on the couch aren't good points either. Using the fridge isn't convincing as well.  If a tenant wants to share a room, they should be able to handle other folks' basic proclivities. Otherwise, you just invite yourself to be a moderator all day. That's what you want to avoid.

At the very least, I provide dehumidifiers for all properties. Make sure it's run to the floor drain so there isn't an additional tenant responsibility.