All Forum Posts by: Kyle Meyers

Marc, I was hoping you might have something to add to this, thanks for your comments. As I recall, you keep the water on your rentals in your name and have higher rents to cover the additional costs which should help you avoid these letters, have you ever gotten one?

The letter cites the Indiana code that allows the water utility to hold property owners responsible for unpaid sewer bills, it does not mention the water bill. The letter asks me to encourage the "resident to pay the sewer to avoid the collection procedures".

I was actually glad to find out (though not in this way) that Indianapolis Water has these notices. I had asked when I was transferring service to the tenants names and they told me they did not have a way for me to monitor that the tenants were paying.

I guess I will see on Monday if they have paid or not and give 10 day notices if the water is shut off.

"Tenant is responsible for the following utilities and services: Water, Gas, Electricity, and Sewer and is required to register the utilities and services in Tenant's name. Tenant understands and agrees that essential services are to be maintained and operational at all times."

I would consider water/sewer an essential utility/service and therefore having it shut off would be a violation of the lease. I am writing a new lease now to use on all future rentals and will be sure to update this clause to clearly indicate which services are essential and state that if they are not maintained the tenant will be evicted.

One of my tenants is living paycheck to paycheck and is getting paid today (Thursday) so I believe the payment will likely be made tomorrow. The other tenant told me they would call the water company tomorrow (they were closed for today when she told me this) because she had paid a few days ago.

I tend to believe what my tenants tell me most of the time, maybe that is because I am new at this business. If I recall your other posts correctly, Bryan, you deal in lower income rentals. The units where my tenants are not paying the water are lower income, so I think your thoughts on them not paying and the water being shut off may be correct, but I hope not.

1. I would say you don't need a property manager. Make sure you educate yourself on how to manage it and ask any questions you have on BP, there are a lot of people here who can help you. Before I rented out my first unit, I read Property Management for Dummies, it gave me a lot of information that I needed to make sure I did everything the right way. I wish I would have seen this site then, it would have saved me a lot of time searching for the answers to a few questions the book didn't answer for me. Once I came across BP, I read through all the blog articles that related to fixing up and renting properties, there is a lot of information there. If you read up on everything, you will have almost as much book smarts (maybe more) than a property manager you would hire, you will only be lacking in experience, and hopefully the experiences of others on BP can fill that in some for you.

2. Obviously anything that is wrong with plumbing, electric, hvac, or appliances has to be fixed. Any stained flooring should be cleaned or replaced. Anything that doesn't look like it is up to par for a $1500 rental home should be fixed up. Potential tenants will notice cosmetic problems. Once tenants move in they will notice any functional problems.

3. The flooring choices will depend a little on what your competition has. If most rental homes in the area have carpeted bedrooms, so should yours. Carpet will not hold up as long as other flooring options, so you may want to put hardwood or tile in the office and living room.

Other things to consider: screen your tenants, you don't want someone with 3 evictions and no job moving in. Get a good lease that complies with your local laws. You will have to read up on the laws yourself, or find a lawyer who can do that for you.

I was the lucky recipient of 2 letters today from Indianapolis Water informing me 2 of my tenants are behind on their water and sewer bill payments and that Indiana code allows for the sewer bill to be attached to my property as a lien. Fortunately, the water bills are not too high yet, under $200 combined.

I first contacted the water company to verify that the bills were still unpaid and see what steps they and I could take. The confirmed neither tenant had paid their outstanding bills and informed me that the water would be shut off on Monday if they did not. I was happy to hear that the tenants will have to pay their bills to keep the service on and won't be able to run up the bills much higher and leave them for me to pay, I don't think my tenants would do this, but I have heard the horror stories.

I have contacted both tenants and they both indicated they plan to pay the bills tomorrow and keep the service from being cut off.

Is there anything else I should do? What if the water is shut off, do I need to do anything to make sure there are not problems with the pluming from that?

I have read the posts on BP discussing putting water in your own name vs. the tenants, and I am of the opinion that it is better if it is in the tenants name because the water company will shut off service to them for non-payment, which I would not be allowed to do. If they did not pay a water bill to me, my recourse would be to evict them, is that correct?

I plan to follow up with the water company and the tenants Monday.

I would tend to go against the crowd here. I am just starting out and my second (of 2 so far) property is a duplex in a lower income area. I don't know exactly what everyone considers to be a war zone, but there have been a few murders in the surrounding blocks in the last few months. I don't personally consider it a war zone, there are definitely worse areas out there. I did a major rehab on the property once I got it (new pipes, wiring, water heaters, furnaces, refinished the hardwood floors, new kitchen cabinets, etc.) I got it rented pretty quickly once the repairs were done and have not had much in the way of problems with it.

I tend to agree that adding the additional bedroom and bathroom would not be best to start. You have the opportunity to get your feet wet with a little less risk and less to manage with the rehab. You can always do it later if you want.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

Do you sign the lease with only your first name? I try to keep myself anonymous to my tenants, but I don't know how I would avoid giving them my name. Also, I have to give them an address, currently I am using my residence, but that is soon to change to a PO Box, how do I keep from giving them this information and still sign a contract with them?

For my properties, I have checked rentometer to see what the area is like. That is just my starting point. I then look on craigslist and see what is listed in the area, and compare the features of each. I have tried calling the signs in the area, but strangely don't get an answer and no one returns my calls, I guess that is why they can't get tenants.

Once I gather some data I figure out what price I think it could rent for reasonably, then I set my price $50-$75 higher. If I get a lot of interest I keep it high, but otherwise I start dropping it every couple weeks by $25, I usually get a tenant to sign a lease after the first or second drop for $25 over what I had determined would be a fair rate.

Once the lease term is up I will slowly raise rents to keep them with the market and provide the market comparison to my tenants so they can see that I am not just raising rents to suck money out of them. I believe a good tenant is very valuable, but not to the point of keeping their rent level for years. I haven't been doing this long enough to be able to raise any rents, but I plan to do it slowly, just a few bucks every 6 months or so based on market comps (I will probably use rentometer since the rates there seem high to me, that way I can show my tenants that they are still paying less than the median for the area)

The apartment I am living in right now sends a bill each month with water and trash charges that we have to pay with the rent.

I have to agree with Mitch about the locks and the 4" sinks. I have recently had to replace both. A couple months ago needed to replace a 3 hole sink faucet, the faucet cost over $100. I am sure there are cheaper ones out there, but I needed to fix this one quickly and that is the cheapest at Lowe's. If I hadn't been in such a rush I would have taken some time and seen that it would actually have been cheaper for me to buy a new sink and a 4" faucet than just the faucet for the 3 hole sink. Won't make that mistake again.

Just yesterday, I had to change the locks at one of my properties because the tenants reported someone had come in through the back door the day before and they thought maybe a key had been lost or copied. It took only 30 minutes or so for me to change out 3 locks and have them all keyed alike with the Kwikset locks. I haven't seen the re-key kit, I will have to look for that, I just bought 3 new locks and changed out the keyed parts of them with the ones on the doors, $40 for new locks.

On my most recent property rehab, I started with the plan to remove anything extra that could break, but part way through changed my mind and went with the approach that if it is already there, I will leave it, and I have been happy with that decision, nothing has broken or caused any problems yet, it has only been 3 months, but I think I am going to stick with that plan for future properties as well.

I have been trying to research this question as well. I have some tax liens, don't have the deeds yet, but I will be getting deeds at the end of the year.

As I understand the law in Indiana, there are a few things that can happen when you get a tax deed.

1. The property is unoccupied and empty. This is the best situation because you can get to work right away. Change the locks and start fixing up anything that needs it.

2. The property is unoccupied, but has property inside. You must reasonably assume the property is abandoned which I would try to figure out by asking some neighbors and looking around. If it seems to be abandoned, you have to follow the laws in your state about disposal/storage of abandoned personal property and any required notification to the owners.

3. The property is occupied. In Indiana, this makes you a landlord. I would get in contact with the occupants, my new tenants, immediately. I would try to get a feel for their situation and whether I think I would like to consider them as potential tenants. If I want them as tenants, I would ask them to fill out applications and put them through the normal screening I do. If not, I would evict them ASAP. If the occupants are the former owners, I would make sure they understood that they did not own the property anymore and try to figure out why they let it go to tax sale, I don't think I would want to keep former owners as tenants.

It sounds like you may have become a landlord. I don't think you can assume the property is abandoned because someone locked up the door and fixed the window. I would not recommend ordering a dumpster or changing the locks without talking to a lawyer. You may want to try to get in touch with the former owner and see if you can work something out, cash for keys kind of deal. Getting her out by agreement will be easier than evicting.

Good luck and let us know what you find out.