All Forum Posts by: Kaleb Carsten

She sent me a text today saying she would like to stay, depending on what the rent is.  I would prefer to get her out and put a new tenant in but both units need some updating and I wasn't planning on having an empty building while I was fixing up each unit.

the property is in Mitchell south Dakota.  I had spoken with a lawyer last week to make sure the lease I had was completely legal in South Dakota. 

Hey BP,

I need some help. I just closed on my first property at the beginning of this month. It's a duplex that I bought in a partnership with my parents. My parents put up the capital but have said they want no part in the management side, I am fine with that. However I now have an issue with the tenant that stayed with the property.  Here is a little background about the place and tenant. The tenant had lived in the 3/1 unit of this duplex for the last thirteen years when she moved in the property was being taken care of and managed by the previous owners husband.  He passed away 5 or 6 years ago and his wife hired a broker to manage the property.  The lease had been a verbal contact for most of the time. The landlord couldn't find an original lease from when the tenant moved in. And the last lease she signed was a year ago.

She is on a month to month lease and after the offer was accepted I was informed that she has been paying late for quite sometime. Her rent is due on the first with a grace period up to the seventh.  She normally pays her rent on the tenth with a note saying do not cash until the twenty seventh.

I knew that it was going to be an interesting process to get her to pay on time. But I have not been able to speak with there tenant.  I dropped off a letter to days before closing to introduce myself as the new landlord, let her know rent is going up, and to give her the new contact number.  A week later she had not paid her rent so I sent her another letter saying your rent is late and per the lease the late fee is x amount.  I had not heard from her I stopped over to the house a few times to speak with her and never saw her. 

She still has not paid rent and when I was at the property doing some maintenance on the exterior a car pulled up saw me working and drove away. I came back a few hours later, the same car was parked out front and the lights inside where on. I could see the tenant inside the house. But she would not answer the door or move from where she was sitting by the window to come speak with me.  I was hoping she would grumble about the rent increase and being held accountable to the due date. And i would have a few months with a tenant so I could renovate the basement but still have some income.  

Is there something else I can try before I serve her a the day notice to quit?

the last one I finished was Real Estate: Mastering the Negotiation Process by Jim Baker, Jerry Anderson, and Mike Lipsey

We have asked for the security deposit to be transferred, however the original lease was misplaced when the current owners husband (who managed their properties) passed away several years ago.  It is a month to month lease though so it shouldn't make a difference should it?

Hey everyone

After about a year of learning and six months of looking for a good deal. My partners and I have had an offer accepted on our first rental property. It is a duplex with a 3br/1ba unit and a 2br/1ba unit. Both need a little work but the large unit is currently rented.

After the papers were signed we realized we didn't ask enough questions about the current tenant.  Here is what we found out.  

The tenant is on a 30 day verbal lease and is currently paying $600 (originally we were told $550) per month and that she has lived there for the past 13 years.  However the rent is under market value  so we planned to raise the rent to $650 to bring it up towards the bottom end of market value because the unit does need some repairs and we don't want to have both units empty while we make repairs.  

The other big issue we were later informed of is the tenant's rent is due at the beginning of the month however the previous owner was very relaxed on that issue. She normally writes a check in the middle of the month and adds a note saying do not cash until the end of the month.  

Any ideas on how I can retrain this tenant to pay at the beginning of the month? Should I raise her rent by the full $50 or do it incrementally?

welcome to BP Darrin! I attended the three day seminar last December and your right it does seem like it's a sales pitch. I went with two other people that were going to be business partners. We decided not to do the program and 2 months later the others decided they didn't want to invest in real estate.

I'm a currently working on my first rental property and I'm not very familiar with flipping houses.  So I'll leave those questions for someone with more knowledge of the subject.

Sorry Sioux falls.

The requirement varied slightly depending on which lender I was looking at. But that was last year when I was looking at doing an owner occupied rental in six falls.  

Welcome to BP! There is a massive amount of information on the site, I would recommend checking out the podcasts. There's a lot of information on a lot of strategies and it is a good way to fill the time while commuting.