All Forum Posts by: Jin Kim

Single graduate students are always my best choice. how would you prioritize for other cases at 1 bedroom apartment?

1. undergraduate students – usually they come with a roommate. (like 2 girls or 2 boys)

2. working professional – single guy or woman – making over 100K (they tend to move out in the middle of school years, and sometimes it makes me hard to find next tenant).

3. graduate student and their girl friend or boy friend.

4. working professional with their bf, bf, fiancée or spouse

5. family with kids

@Jeremy Pakalka Thank you Jeremy for your input. It ended up with we did not offer, and someone else still made an offer with higher price and NO contingency. And they got it. It's so hard to get something I like!

I am trying to buy this single family house. Right before I was going to write an offer, my realtor found out that there's title issue. What happened is the owner (the owner actually passed away a few month ago, and her son sells this as a heir, trustee sale) bought this foreclosure house 40 years ago, and title company did not make it the loan ($150,000 the previous owner borrowed) from bank of America has been paid off. Now her son is trying to find the evidence that she paid, but he couldn't. All he could do so far is he opened a case and got a reference number from the bank. My agent suggested that we can write an offer with 10 day title contingency. I wonder if this is a good idea. how long does it take to resolve this kind of issue? I do not want to my earnest money locked in for a while. And how long does it even take to receive earnest money back from the escrow company? I like the house. I do not want another buyer to come in the picture. My husband thinks we should just wait until the title issue is all resolved. should we just move on?

So it is 1 year lease and then month to month after. His lease ends 10/31. He told me he is leaving on 10/7. With 30 day notice, he is moving on 11/7. He is very cooperative to show the place to people and stuff. And he let me use his internet for security camera and stuff. I was not aware that it would be this hard. 

This tenant (@ 1 bedroom and 1bath) gave me a notice that he will leave at the end of this month. He is a post doc researcher, makes 30,000 annually after tax, wants to move to 2 bedroom apt and share with his friend to save rent.

I found that it's difficult to find a tenant right now. All the prospectives are picky and they a lot of times disappear even before visiting the place. Currently 1 bedroom rent is $2000 (Berkeley). How much should I go down to fill up the place? Is there any other ways I can attract more leads? is there a lot of move around xmas time as they want to move to somewhere else for next semester?

And even after we find next tenant, I want to be preemptive, not to look for tenant in the middle of school year again. How can we make them leave when school starts again? I'd like to do year to year only, but I am not sure if this can be too much that I can't even find a tenant right now. 

This unit for section 8 tenant did not pass the inspection this month. In order to pass the 2nd test, we will have to 1. replace the carpet, 2. find the door knob for shower door, 3. door knob for oven as well. 

This tenant moved in 2009. We took over this property just a few month ago. 

I thought we will change to heavy duty laminate instead of carpet again. But my contractor thinks that laminate will be scratched anyway and downstairs will complain as laminate makes noise. And I've been researching around on the internet it looks like "wood like tile" seems very durable solution. but my contractor told me it's very pricy - 3 times more for material, 2.5 more for installation. 

How much do you spend to re-floor the 1 bed apartment? and what would be the best option for this case. I went inside a few times. the whole place totally stinks and it looks like he has never cleaned for many years. spider webs are everywhere. Plus he has a big dog. I wonder if the dog is potty trained and if not, the tenant actually cleans up after the dog. 

what kind of floor do you install if you accept dogs? 

@Jennifer Sleider

Thanks for encouraging the reply.

@Anthony G

It's 7 multi unit property. 

@Michael Stanton

Thanks for the reply. Have you ever posted at craigslist for this? Do you think the written contract should include something about injury?

It looks like each tenant throws their own garbage bags in the garbage cart and this guys drags the cart every week

@Al Williamson

Thanks for sharing. It's good to know under $500 doesn't need documentation. Do you know the period of $500 (day, week, month, or year?)

@JD Martin

Thanks for your input. The property is in Berkeley (extremely tenant friendly city with crazy rent control). The former owner did it. I feel like when we change them, we have to reduce the rent too.

Hello BP. This is a new landlord of 7 units. 

During the escrow, the agent answered me that one of tenants (who has a lot of time as he can't work for a health reason) takes out garbage carts every week and bring them in for free. It turned out that previous owner paid another tenant $100 per month for this job without written agreement. This is actually the tenant' son that other tenants complains and his story is here. https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/340...

I'd like to learn from the experienced BP landlords holding around this size multi property what the best practices are to handle garbage duties. Do you include worker compensation from the insurance for garbage person? Do you ask tenants take turn each week? Do you hire a non-tenant? If so, where do you find them? 

Thank you in advance

@Alexander Felice 

@Gail K.

@Kevin Harrison

@Yvette M.

@Robert Melcher

@Greg H.

@Thomas S.

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Thank you BP for answering and all the sharing. just wanted to update you where we are at this moment. I've talked to a lawyer and he recommended us to install a security camera in the laundry room with intention of buy out or eviction plan. And we caught the scenes of that night we set up the camera (of course, Carrie came in like her own room and she set up to sleep and all that). And next morning, Lance found out that there's security camera and he covered it up with a plastic bag. I asked our contractor to go and take out the bag. He went there in the evening and found out Carrie was sleeping on the floor all drunken and completely passed out. We called the police, and got the police notice. Since then, nobody has been hanging out at the laundry room. It's been a week now. what a relief. Hoping that this is the last thing we had to do. ps. found that Lance is 57 years old. 

we have a section 8 tenant who is 93 years old. She is still pretty good to talk to other people, remember things, but her son who is not a tenant but practically lives there is very problematic.

Joyce - 93 year old section 8 tenant

Lance - Joyce's son (look like around 35-40)

Carrie - Lance's girl friend. 

Please see the email from one of the tenants below. I wonder whether I could contact the police or lawyer. what would be the best way to resolve this

I'm sure I'm not the first to report this, otherwise you would not be asking, but Carrie (Lance's friend) is responsible for all of the items remaining in the laundry room. Lance has allowed her to sleep in there for weeks at a time (she's homeless), and I have had literally dozens of unpleasant encounters when trying to do my laundry. I have even walked in to find her sitting on the dryer with no underwear (disgusting and unsanitary to say the least). Just last night (Thursday, August 4th) I came home from a late night at work to find her squatting in the mulched bed in front of the building urinating on the fence in front of Unit 1. When I confronted Lance about it his repsonse was: "So what man, she's drunk."

They also sit outside my unit (in the back by the trashcans) cursing, smoking, drinking, yelling, and all around just ruining my peace of mind. If its not back there, its in front on the steps in front of Ronald and Carla's unit or in the covered parking spaces (she has passed out there drunk when I've forced her to leave the back area). I have confronted both of them about this many, many, times of the past two years. and contacted THMS on several occasions. Dave has also been forced to engage in arguments with them, as he also is affected by this.

I have never contacted the police as I do not want to make myself a target of their discontent, which is why I would like to remain anonymous in this matter. But it is an extreme ongoing problem that is really unfortunate for everyone in the building. The main problem too is that Ms.Kelly is otherwise a great tenant whom we all like very much, and I don't want to cause any problems for her.

Thanks for your attention to this matter, and for your discretion on my behalf.