All Forum Posts by: Laura Johnson

Thank thank you for all your input. We're going to speak with them tonight and let them know they can break lease because of this medical condition. We won't make them pay their 2-month early termination fee, but will ask them to continue paying the rent until we find another renter as per our contract. It shouldn't take long though, this is a hot market.

As much as we would like to keep them as renters, have great potential to be there long-term as they were in their last place for five years, we cannot justify spending $4,000+ on new flooring for them when we could get another family in there without spending a penny on new flooring.

I I am right in the middle of this scenario. Three weeks ago we purchased a new home for our family with a mother-in-law in the basement. Well not a complete mother-in-law, but we're going to make it into a complete mother-in-law. Just needs a few tweaks. We plan on renting this out for 40% of our monthly mortgage. We are keeping our previous 4 bedroom / 2.5 bedroom home as a rental.someday, when are for children are grown and gone, or perhaps with the last one as a home, we will move into the basement and rent out the upper level. It will rent for significantly more, and will give us a lot more cash in hand and an opportunity to look at buying another place.

Bebe careful on the idea of renting out both levels if it's not a legal duplex.  Most cities will crack down on you. 

I suggest you call around and talk to the zoning department in every city that you are considering. For what it's worth, Orem and Provo can be beastly to get registered with. There are a lot of rules about how many people can live in the home, and lots of restrictions and regulations. Pleasant Grove has the most lax basement apartment registration I've seen.Saratoga springs absolutely does not allow them, although many people there have them illegally. Lehi City council has been debating on there regulations about 6 months ago, but I stopped looking there so I haven't followed up. Spanish Fork a special zoning areas, and they also require you to split your electric and utilities, that can be a costly hassle.

if you're looking for a good recommendation, we use a realtor from Highland named Carolyn Hardman. She did a fantastic job helping us. She works with quite a few investors. She helped us put an offer in before we found this house and we were able to get it for 30,000 below asking, but ultimately decided it was not the home for us. (It's actually still available in PG. It had a fantastic basement apartment set up). The home we purchased she helped us get for 15000 below asking, and that was after they drop their price twice. She has some great tips and tricks.

Good luck.

Our tenants child (1.5 yo) is allergic to dogs. He gets severe excema all over from them. These tenants have been in the home 2 weeks and he is having serious breakouts. I am not sure what the best options are to remedy this situation.

Background: We advertised as a pet friendly rental because we have owned a dog in this house (we barely moved out and have turned it into a rental). We informed them that we had a dog there, and because we are allowing pets we would not be changing out the carpeting. We would have it cleaned (which we did the day before they moved in). If we were going to pay for all new flooring, we were not going to allow pets.  This was all discussed when they came to see the home during our open house. They actually own a tiny dog, which stays on the tiled kitchen floor (he is trained very well. I went to their previous apartment to check it out and he is very good about not coming into the carpet). So they need a pet friendly rental, but their son can't be crawling on carpet that has animal dander.

We know they love the home. They have already cleaned up the yard and purchased a chicken coop. They have friends in the area. Their other child is registered for preschool. We can forsee them really enjoying the neighbors and staying for a while. But...the allergies.

So...options:

1. Allow them to break lease because of medical condition? We have a clause about ELT that states they can buyout with a 2 month rent due and 30 day notice, but I don't know if having a medical condition is under this. We can offer to find replacement renters and only charge them through when the new renter's move in.  ???

2. We can offer to refloor the home, but I would want to charge more of we are putting in all new flooring. Part of the way we priced them home was because the carpet is older. If we put down LVP in the main living areas and new carpet in the bedrooms, I would want to add another $50 (at least) to the rent. We are already on the lower side for a pet friendly house ($1685 for 4/2.5 split level in Silicon Slopes, that's including pet fee). I was looking at available rentals online tonight and most homes are $1900, they all have some carpeting in the houses, and none state "new carpet" so I believe they will have this issue at any other home they go to.

Are these viable options? We can offer to clean the carpets again, but the carpet guy said pet dander is a beast to remove. I know as a landlord we have to provide reasonable and good efforts to fix this issue, but reflooring without a rent increase seems above and beyond "reasonable".

And hey, thanks for reading my long and lengthy post!

Does does anyone know where I can purchase FRP panels in the greater Salt Lake area? I would go anywhere from Spanish Fork to bountiful to get them. I would like to purchase smooth FRP panels, not the cheap bumpy looking ones from Home Depot.

We have a basement rental that has a horrendous looking tile job in the shower. I would like to cover the walls with a nice white smooth FRP panel. Something to make that shower look better for a low-cost.

I'm I'm a new landlord, we are just starting with our first rental. It is the home we lived in for 9 years. I posted it yesterday, and I've had some interest. 

my question is, how do you turn away applicants without getting in trouble? I have one girl that has applied, and her application looks pretty good. She has two dogs, which we are allowing because we're not going to be changing out the carpeting at this time. Overall her application looks fairly good, although I haven't contacted her previous landlords yet. And I have not received application for her fiance who will be living here with her. First thing I did waslook her up on Facebook. She had to buy a camera recently to try to figure out which dog is peeing on the carpet in her current home. She also talked about vaping a couple months ago, and we will not allow any smoking or vaping on our property. She also posted last week that she's looking for a new place to live and can only afford 1300 a month. We are asking 1664 per month. But the kicker is, she's engaged to another woman. That's fine and dandy, but the problems are the dogs peeing on carpet, and I don't think she can afford this home and I don't think she thinks she can afford this home. By having screenshots of her Facebook, is that enough to turn her away? I absolutely do not want animals in my house that are not housebroken.

can I turn her away before she's even seen the house because of these Facebook post? Should I email her amor personal application versus the rentler style applications, asking about lifestyle choices, such as and please include a picture of your dogs, are they housebroken, do you smoke, do you vape, things to that nature.

I understand that none of you are attorneys, and I might be calling one up just to cover my bases, I just wondered in your experiences.

I think it's a great plan. As for the legalities, I cannot answer those questions. I would suggest calling the local city's zoning departments around here and asking them. I live in Cedar Hills, and I know the city was just passing a new ordinance about home based businesses. I didn't look into a lot, but those are the things you want to look at. I would guess PG and AF will be your best bet. 

I would suggest doing your business in the basement, and renting out the top half of the house. You'll get a lot more for rent that way, especially if they get to use the yard and what not. Also, it would be cheaper for you to get a family up and going in the upstairs then trying to convert a basement into an apartment. For under 300K you can't find a place that already has a basement apartment, but you might be able to find one with a walk out basement. If not, it's approximately 8-10k to have an entry way created. The less stairs that need poured, the less expense.

If you're not planning to occupy the home, you might need to have 20% down. But, I'm not a mortgage expert 😁

Good luck. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will chime in.

As as beautiful as I think tile is, I despise cleaning grout and resealing it. We remodeled two bathrooms recently and have used these panels in both of them. I love them! Similar idea to FRP, but looks like high-end marble. They are panels you glue up. They have foam insulation on the back, so the walls are room temperature to touch, and not cold like tile. They look way nicer than an insert. We bought a tub for one bathroom, and a very sturdy shower base for another bathroom, and glue these bad boys up. You will have to caulk the joints, but we've had one of them done for two years and it's still going strong. The panels are vinyl, the same thing as a white vinyl fence you see outside. Very easy to clean. Very easy to install. Very easy on the eyes.

http://duraflexproducts.com/

They offer solid white or decorative choices. 

This company is located near Provo Utah, but they do ship. I don't know if shipping is affordable or not. For our bathtub, which is a larger than standard, I think the insert was around $425. Our 5x3 shower we took the panels to the ceiling, the insert was around $800. They come with trim. 

If I new how to insert a picture I would 😂 I'm new.

Thanks @Jaiden Olsen that's an idea we will discuss with our Realtor and lender. Thanks for the great idea.

@jaidenolsen I'm not 100% sure what you're saying. These are my numbers. Our mortgage is just under $1100 per month. We should be able to rent this house for approximately $1700 per month, and a lot of things are pretty new so we don't foresee any big problems in the near future. New bathrooms, new kitchen, new HVAC, new roof, all the biggies.  We know this house inside and out. 

So I think you're saying we should sell this, buy another house for our family, and put our extra money from equity into a fourplex. Is that correct?

if so, the only foreseeable problem I can think of is that we cannot find another home for our family under 325k. In my opinion that's not a cheap house payment if you're only putting 3% down. Also, any fourplexes I have seen in Utah county or Draper area are at least 400k. If we are not owner occupied we will need to put 25% down, and we won't have $100k after purchasing a new place and paying realtor fees. We would have more like 70k leftover. Also we have four children, so there's not many duplexes or fourplexes that we can owner occupy for 2 years with all these kids. At least not that I've seen.

Hello all :-) My name is Laura, I'm a wife and mother to four children, 3 in school and one still at home. We live in North Utah county close to silicon slopes area. I've been following BiggerPockets for the past six months or so. I follow the Utah thread and have been listening to the BiggerPockets money podcast.

My husband and I are currently looking to find a new home that has a basement apartment for us to rent out. We are planning to keep our current home in Cedar Hills as a rental.we are new to the real estate idea, although my father in Missouri is very into purchasing small properties in his areas. He does quite well with this, but it's a whole different ballgame here in Utah. He's purchasing properties for less than what my down payment will be on a place in Utah lol. I've been trying to do a lot of research, and we've been following the market for approximately a year or so. We have a very definitive list of what we want, which is pretty much a unicorn! Last year there was probably 10 properties came through that would have worked for our situation, but not all of them were in our price point.

Anyways, just thought I'd drop a line and say hi. From what I've seen so far, this is a fantastic forum group with lots of people willing to jump in and share information. I'm really enjoying it!