All Forum Posts by: Julie Hartman

I will give you the PM angle on this - to answer your question: yes this is common. We have managed several condos and had issues with water related repairs at nearly all of them. We've had at least 4 with either upstairs or downstairs neighbors coming to us looking for the owner to pay up on a leak. This is even before any investigation was done on the origin of the leak and who the actual responsible party was. The HOA's want to hide whenever there is a repair because sometimes they are responsible and it's like pulling teeth to get them to move. We had one of our owners hit with a 15K "special" assessment due to roof hail damage. Luckily, he had coverage for the fee gap in his insurance policy but it was still a shock. Out of 10 HOA's, there is usually 1 that is responsive or easy to work with. I wish you much luck with your decision!

We get older applicants all the time here and it's usually due to them cashing out of their primary residence while prices are sky high. We do the exact same process for screening for all applicants and that includes asking for tax returns/bank statements/retirement account statements, etc. As others have said, nail down your process and stick with it. He'll probably be a great tenant for you. Good luck!

Sorry but bleach does not work for porous surfaces like drywall, so you will need to research a product that does. Or replace the drywall in the affected area. 

We had to add in along with no smoking cigarettes, no vaping or marijuana. Tenants don't understand that just because weed is legal in CO doesn't mean it's legal at the federal level. We also don't allow grow ops. It's sad we actually have to spell this stuff out for people now. 

Yes, we are having the same issues; it's very bad. We remind our tenants to mail rent as early as possible and we will not cash checks until the 1st at the earliest no matter how soon we receive it. We also encourage our tenants to pay via ACH instead of mailing checks. Right now, with the eviction moratorium in place, late fees bounce back and forth between allowed and banned so we are careful with those. 

We don't do them very often but when we do it is usually due to chronic late payments, not caring for the property per the lease, owner selling, tenant is difficult to deal with, etc. 

You will most likely need to remove all flooring down to subfloor and paint Kilz over the affected areas. This will seal out any odors and then you should be able to proceed with laying down your new flooring of choice. 

If you aren't getting any traction, your price may be a bit high and you don't allow pets. We find that not allowing pets will delay getting tenants by several weeks. Your listing on Zillow pulls a rent estimate much lower than what you are advertised for and prospective applicants can see those numbers. However, your listing prices well on Rentometer.  I would drop the rent a bit and consider allowing a small dog with pet deposit and pet rent. In more than 10 years of PM, I have yet to see a dog do damage to a property. It's usually people that cause damage. Also, in CO, the app fee can only be exactly what you pay for screening and no more; they changed the law last year on that. 

So in Georgia, you can't charge for touch up painting from tenant damage? That seems odd but whatever your PM told you is probably the law there. It seems reasonable to charge to touch up over the scribbles and soot marks especially if there are photos of the damage as evidence. I would charge for whatever is allowed and if the tenants dispute it the PM can cross that bridge if they get to it. Touch up paint done by a handyman is not that expensive and I highly doubt the tenants will bother disputing it anyway. 

Are you looking at more than just the score? When we run across a low score, we put it in some sort of context like student loan debt or medical debt. If it's one of those two, we will ask about it and most likely give them a break and may ask for a larger deposit depending on what they say about it. If the low score is due to being fiscally irresponsible, we will usually reject them.