All Forum Posts by: Juliette Olsen

 You’ve seen both sides, which is awesome. I’m wondering what your vetting process is for tenants. @Alecia Loveless mentions having a good feel for tenants, and I think that’s amazing she is skilled in that. I am not sure I’d be so great at this or at lease I not sure I’m willing to risk. So looking for recommendations on vetting. I’ve read to have your criteria high but not so high you’re sitting on your hands for 3+ months to Find the perfect tenant. 

Appreciate your insight !!

respectfully, juliette

Christian—

Thank you so much for the reply! This is great insight— and yes, about the benchmark we were expecting as far as costs for a PM. 
I think we’ll likely move that direction as tenant vetting, listing, showing property is going to be a challenge living out of state. 

Regards,

Juliette 

Hey JD-

thanks for the reply! And yes, we’ve heard the same—and nightmares! 

thank you for the referral.

-juliette

Hi!

We’re planning to rent our home when we move—but we know we will be moving out of state. 

Question is:

Self manage out of state? 

OR 

Hire property manager and eat the costs until you have cash flow coming in? 

What’s the major perks in your opinion of having a property manager? Are they worth the costs? 

Share your stories! And if you are a property manager company in Orlando, Fl, would love to chat. 

With gratitude, 
Juliette 

We just did this— it’s a lot of work but we are happy with the final product. 

We only lightly sanded/roughed surface of cabinets after a thorough cleaning and time to dry, then we primed with a water base heavy duty primer (we used 1-2-3) and got Enamel Sherwin Williams paint (like $100+ gal). We used roller for primer and sprayer for the top coat…and they turned out beautifully after one coat. It was a messy job. But I really love the results.

painting cabinets I think can be very subjective and it can depend on the comps in the area your comparing your property. we also started from the ceiling and move down with this refresh— painted the ceiling and installed new light fixtures to Brighten the space—and sometimes that’s enough to “refresh” a space but in our case we wanted to move forward with painting the cabinets from the orangey oak. 

before 

after

Hi! 
Novice “future” landlords here—

Where did y’all start with getting your lease and even a property manager? 

Did you find a generic lease for State of Florida online? 
Did you hire an attorney to help script a lease?

Did you hire a management company?

If you hired a management company, what was your monthly cost and what did it include? Did they write a lease for you? Did they have their own handyman contractors or was that something you had to have on your own? 

How specific can you get in your lease when it comes to tenants responsibility for repairs of things to the house related to negligence, ie flushing sanitary products down toilets, appliances, hoa fines related to negligence of caring for the yard or following hoa rules etc? 

we’d be managing out of state and I’m not sure I’d be okay with doing that without a local property manager…

with gratitude,

Juliette

Hi Eric—

Thank you so much for your reply and ideas! That’s what we were thinking. Just filling and touch up. But bummed about the hardware missing from this cabinet. I don’t this it will look bad—but definitely not uniform as we wanted. Whoops! Literally no hardware can go here though—so we’re kinda stuck. 

There is really no wiggle room for reconfiguring layout— and not worth simple hardware missing (in my opinion).

here is a photo of the current setup. To the left of the oven from this view is the entry way into the kitchen. Over the oven is the microwave/vent setup. To the right is the door& drawer of conflict. 

We are novice home buyers and novice renovators. But we both are determined, have an eye for design, and enjoy the learning process. 

Made a rookie mistake by not putting the hardware plans down on solid paper when we painted the cabinets and drilled holes For hardware. (In our defense— our oven went out before we started on the kitchen and he hadn’t used/ opened the oven door in several months so it was in the way way back of our mind). 

Welll— we got a new oven and realized the hardware closest to the oven won’t allow for the oven door to open— whoops! Holes have been drilled. 

Any creative recommendations y’all could throw out for this rookie couple “refreshing” their first home? (Photos of oven next to the cabinets of conflict— then photo of the hardware itself on other cabinets completed.) 

With gratitude,

Juliette