All Forum Posts by: Nathan Miller

Hi @Mark Douglas.  That's pretty common, unfortunately most banks don't know about their OFX (direct connect) systems as, in most cases, it was setup 10+yrs ago and remains unmaintained.  They generally rely on Quicken to do their support for them and often don't even have anyone on staff that understands the system.

What you need from them is to have your account enabled for "direct connect".  It's different than "web connect" which is what Quicken generally uses today.  Often your direct connect username/password will be different from your online banking, but not always, as it is bank dependent. 

While our system will connect to most banks, there are a few we've had trouble reported with.  Chase for example supports direct connect, but they use a different type of OFX than all other banks on the planet, so most people do have trouble connecting to them.

I'm not as knowledgeable as our support staff is on it, but oen bank that I know for sure works well with direct connect is Wells Fargo.  

Hi @Marc Bresseau - I recommend regularly raising the rent a small amount, never big jumps in rent all at once.  Here's an article that handles the how's and what's of rent increases and how to convey it to your tenants...

https://www.rentecdirect.com/blog/how-to-raise-the-rent-on-your-tenants/

For tax purposes you generally have to live in a home for 3 of the last 5 years in order to claim an exception on a gain..  otherwise, if that's not what you are after, please explain a little more on what you are asking for.

If you paid late you owe the late fees..  Maybe ask the property manager if they support ACH so you can automate the payments and not have to deal with the mail system.

For an investment, location is the #1 consideration for me, followed by cash flow.  If the location stinks, I'd skip it.

I agree with Eric, 60 day notice requirement and increase the rent to a month-to-month rate.

My super quick analysis based on it's current value and $2800/m rent says that it's not worth it.  It's less than a 6% return not even considering property management fees, repairs, and maintenance.  

There are tax benefits to renting (depreciation, passive income, etc), but for these numbers they don't really make sense to me.  I'd sell the 600k house in California, and buy three 200k homes in Oregon and rent the 3 for $4-5k/month instead and have a much much better return.

If you are in the US, then short answer, yes they can.  Long answer is that if this is within US jurisdiction they will have to get a judgement in court for the amount first, then they can apply to have it as a lien on your property.  You can contest the judgement.  For $500 it's hardly worth it for them I would think.  As far as venue, Your PM agreement should define the jurisdiction for disputes.

Feels like there should be some back-billing limit.  Best bet might be to negotiate with the city and settle on 1 year of back-billing vs 10 years.  10 years seems very excessive.

@Michael Hayworth - just fyi.  Rent payments with the bureaus that accept them are treated separately from all other credit accounts and don't affect their fico score or general creditworthiness.  It's also not uniform across all credit bureaus like credit accounts are and most don't even accept or pay attention to rental data.  It's a bit misleading if any company suggests it helps tenants build their credit.