All Forum Posts by: Julie Hartman

She definitely sounds like a flake. I think @Nathan Gesner is absolutely right; you probably won't hear from her again. 

How well do you know and understand the security deposit laws of your state? Deposits are very tricky territory and you could find yourself paying Treble damages. I know here, tenants have 7 years to take a landlord to court! Once they file, you will probably hear something within a week or two but the courts are all backed up right now so it could be much longer. Is there a way to have a rational discussion with them about the issue and try to work with them? Courts are tenant friendly now and you do not want to be in front of a judge unless you think your position is an absolute certainty. Good luck!

As others have said, without proper context it might be difficult to help. I would start by carefully reading the management contact though. With that said, my understanding is that a text message is legally binding so that should suffice as a termination notice and should serve to get your property status re-set. If they initiated termination, then I would think you don't owe them anything other than any actual costs they incurred on your behalf for an app fee. If this was an unwarranted termination and they are holding your property status "hostage", then I would file a complaint with your local RE commission asap. 

Here in CO we are only allowed to charge an application fee that is the actual charge of what we pay to run background checks. We don't give out an application to a prospect unless we have 1. phone screened them and 2. met them in person after showing them the property. It's a waste of time for us and the applicant to allow a bunch of applications to flood our inbox if we don't even know they qualify for the property. Many applicants will try to talk their way around the 3x income qualification. 

We managed a single condo in Cherry Creek, (1 block from the mall), for several years. It was in a high end building which only had 6 units total. We never had a shortage of well qualified tenants and good rents but because of the nature of the unit, we seemed to have constant issues. The main problem was noise from the upstairs unit and/or an intrusive HOA. Some if also had to do with the high rent being paid, the tenants typically seemed to feel entitled to complain. I am sure you will hear form others that have really good luck there and love it. I think it depends on what you are looking for in CCN, I am sure there are excellent prospects there. Good luck!

If your lease indicates that all tenants are responsible through the entire lease (even after they move out) then the vacating roommate still needs to pay you. Let them know it will affect their credit and you will send to collections if they don't pay. They violated the lease agreement by terminating early. If that doesn't scare them, does the remaining tenant have someone in mind that he would like to apply for the spot? I would think that if he believes he is suddenly responsible for the entire amount of rent, he would hustle to find a replacement roommate. I would try to work with him on this and let him know that if he has someone in mind, you will send that person an application so you can screen them. If he can't produce a suitable replacement, and cannot afford the rent himself, you may need to work with him and let him out of the lease so you can re-rent it to someone else who will pay. Maybe others have more creative ideas on this but the eviction moratorium really throws a wrench into things. 

I am still learning things about the BP site myself so I don't know how to respond to two comments at once other than to do it as you already did. Maybe a long term site user will weigh in on it. 

I know I am biased but I would say it would be worth it to hire a PM, at least to start out. Do you know all the tenant/landlord laws of your state?  If not, you could be asking for trouble when a wise tenant figures out you don't. Who will handle maintenance if you go on a trip? If you don't already have a trusted network of service providers in your area, start gathering that information now. Do you have a tenant screening policy/process in place? If not, write one down and be consistent with it for all applicants. Have you taken any fair housing classes? If not, start taking them and stay up to date. Are you willing to answer the phone all hours of the day/night? Can you be firm with a tenant when they are living in the same building and you see them everyday? This is probably more information than you wanted but it may help you in the long run to fly solo. Hopefully that helps. :) 

We have about half of our property owners raising rent to cover increased taxes and HOA's. The other half don't want to risk losing a good tenant. Our market can definitely sustain increases but for our owners who want to increase, we caution them to split the difference since the market has gone up so much especially in some areas of the city vs others.

I would reach out to PM companies and see if they would be willing to do an a la carte type arrangement with you for a short period. They will most likely either say no OR they may do it for more than their average fee since it's short term. Another idea is to reach out to an agent you know in the area and see if they would be willing to do this for you for fair compensation. Is one of your trades providers a handyman? If so, would he/she be willing to do this for a fee? Failing all of those ideas, you could advertise this "job" and see if a young person who is trying to get into the RE business would do it. It would be great on the job training.