All Forum Posts by: Marian Smith

@Adam L. Sell. Tenants are hard on a house and you’ll be a long way away and busy. Plus, you can never be priced out of Texas. Land out the wazoo and cheap labor. You may be priced out of your neighborhood but it may not be the same neighborhood when you return. And you may just as soon live elsewhere in the Austin area. They are promising a new “Domain” in both RR and Cedar Park and even if that turns out to be an overstatement, you may end up in Nashville.

Worth it for yourselves, but you really need to look at your competition to know if you are over doing it for the next unit.  Imo.   Tenants are hard on properties so it’s a balance between investment, increased rent/length of tenancy and wear and tear.  I would guess your kitchen is worth the expense at least of opening it up (depending on what you spent but you can cut costs by keeping the existing cabinets, etc).  Bathrooms just need to be clean, not grungy, and again, really clean.  If you cannot get a clean feeling with fresh paint, caulk, faucets,  maybe a new in stock vanity top from a box store, you may need an overhaul.  But paint is amazing.  Paint= New and clean.

@Seth Larson I imagine your tenant is not going to stay and your decision is whether or not to offer her a deal to end her lease...my daughter bought out of her lease with a 2 month rent penalty with an apartment complex. She may or may not take the deal. She may not have the money to do so. She may have to risk you filing a judgement. I think you already signed up for the risk you took in allowing roommates dependent on each other to afford rent and your tenant is acting honorably in communicating vs sneaking out in the middle of the night. You can lower the rent to what she can afford with the stipulation that you can show the place to prospective tenants and give her a reasonable notice to move once you find someone. While she tries to find another roommate. That might work. Preserve her credit and give you a little break on vacancy costs. Or have her move back with her parents and pay partial rent during vacancy. She knows you will do your best to fill the unit to get back to full rent payments. Kind of win-win lose-lose.

@Jonathan S. Sounds like the owner wants to sell first but take his time moving on due to his roommate. Makes sense to me. Make sure his lease is “as is” and make sure you photograph his unit on closing. How do you think he will take advantage of you? Demanding repairs? Calling the shots? The lease spells out the terms. It is likely you will need to repaint and rehab his unit anyway, so why not kick the can down the road?

@Jake Wong If the house was clean enough to be placed on the market for sale, it should be clean enough for a rental. Tenants are a little harder on houses, sometimes a lot harder. And kitchens see a lot of activity. So usually only improve what really needs to be improved. An ugly, dark kitchen will turn off females, but sometimes a coat of semigloss paint on cabinets will do wonders. Nicer matched color appliances will likewise improve desirability. They look like they clean and cook well. Countertops should not be an ugly, weird color, but need not be granite, high end. Entire cabinet replacement is usually unnecessary unless you are flipping. Some flips still just paint! My goal is to have a place nice enough that tenants are, maybe not proud, but certainly not embarrassed to host a kids birthday party with other parents attending. A house that nice will be a place a family can/will stay for years.

@Michelle Dalton Pretty sure yes. You would be coborrowers and coowners, just like a married couple....definitely be on the ownership deed if you are on the mortgage, absolutely. You can give her your portion of ownership at any time. Or give her a qualified life estate now with her paying the mortgage as a stipulation. (If she needs 100% owner occupied for lower property taxes, but they’d likely never check that). And deed on death your half to her. Sounds complicated but it’s not and you do not want to be on the hook for a mortgage and not have some ownership/control over the property. You just never know...so you need to protect your retirement.

We co-signed a car note with our daughter so she’d qualify for 0% interest financing, but that was under 30k. 2017. That car has parking garage dings and scratches all over it. But she changes the oil.

@Phil Kerb I might start by hiring a lawyer to write a letter telling the neighbors to remove their stuff. Not a lawyer myself, but I think sending the police out there should be step two after you have first requested they remove their stuff. You probably do not need a lawyer to write a letter but you probably do need a certified “demand” letter to show that you have requested removal of their stuff before step 2. I am not sure if you should tell them you aim to sell. It is none of their business and unrelated to them having stuff on your property. And besides, it is unlikely they will up their price as they are now getting free use of the land. You could offer to rent the land to them. If they were paying you rent it would stop any adverse possession type claim but a whole other can of worms might be opened up, plus you’d need liability insurance for the playscape.

@Alexandra Sales what do you mean by “account for this”? Did the engineer miss the damage in his report? Get a second quote. I am not at all experienced in the area but there is often more than one way to skin a cat. Maybe sistering up some floor joists or adding piers. It depends on how much damage. I would never go with one bid unless I had a good understanding of cost/solution and I had a previous relationship with the contractor. Also, Call your engineer and ask him what he thinks. He probably would consider it part of the work already paid for.

@Minka Sha Have you looked at 1040 Schedule E? You can depreciate the building portion of your condo over 27.5 years. If you have income below a threshold amount, you can write off loses in real estate. Add that tax benefit to property appreciation and principle paydown to get a little more positive view of the investment. I am not voting one way or another. Only you can decide. The alternative is putting $400 a month into the stock market. That is also a winning strategy. Maybe even a surer bet depending on your age.

@Lance Nelson Insulation from that era might contain asbestos. Vermiculite. Most common asbestos concerns with wall boards is ceiling popcorn or acoustic material, really popular in the 70’s. Maybe some patching material. I have sent popcorn to a local lab I found on yelp or somewhere. It was about $20 but that was years ago. Pretty quick response but I wasn’t in the middle of demo. You should always use a mask during demo of old nasty stuff and some of that vermiculite might have fallen into the stud bay. Google what it looks like. I doubt interior walls were insulated. Plaster, wallpaper, lathe all are non toxic as far as I know. Some vinyl flooring and of course those asbestos shingles that a lot of houses still have on the exterior are common.