All Forum Posts by: Marina Shlomov

Thanks @Allen_Thomas, it's a great point about the properties not appreciating as much as in other parts of the city. I'ts important to keep that in mind when analyzing an area for investment. 

I am glad I could encourage and motivate to try something different. Good luck and keep me posted if you see a difference in leads and if your conversion rates increase,

Marina

Hi Chris,

I am from Atlanta. Don't know much about Stockbridge, but it seems @RussBrantley does. I do know that the area of Marietta with zipcode 30062 and I believe 30066, or otherwise knows as East Cobb and a few surrounding areas, are highly regarded by the people living in Atlanta. Low crime rate, BEST schools in GA are located in East Cobb and the rents are substantially higher because of the area. If you are thinking about Marietta, look for properties around Walton High School, Pope High Schools and Lassiter High.

Hope I helped. Feel free to direct message me if you'd like to discuss.

Marina

Oh, forgot to mention. I have a blog that addresses a bunch of issues for investors including the one we discussed. I'll insert the link to the article of interest, but feel free to check it out. 

Hi Matt,

Why would you wait to take it out of a deposit at the end? The damaged occurred now! I usually inform the tenant that the breakage is their fault, the cost to fix it is $X and that $X will be placed on their account for payment ASAP. I'll do the repair, but will be pretty strict about collecting the money for the repair right away. No discussions, no alternatives. We do make sure that the price for the repair is reasonable and we add a service charge of $40 to the bill for the trip charge of one of our repairmen.

We are in GA, but we have a list of repair fees on our website: here's a link. It's published on our site, it's an addendum to their lease, and it's given to them in a "Tenant Handbook" where it's spelled out again. We also have maintenance policies that everyone follows by.  Feel free to check them out on my site (I've linked them above). Having polices in place, simplifies the day-to-day dealing with tenants and their problems.

I hope I helped. Good luck.

Marina

I'm in Atlanta, and the market here is very seasonal. Towards the end of August, activity dies down for the year. Not completely, but significantly. Especially in the suburban areas where people are more organized and try to settle down before school starts. We have also structured our leases to be 14 to 17 months and most tenants don't mind.

I wanted to mention also, that instead of advertising on Craiglist, where you get probably some of the worst prospects, try Postlets.com. It's free, and it will spread your ads to Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads and a few other engines where the quality of the prospect is much higher.

Good luck.

Facebook pages are meant for group discussions and expression of opinion and have absolutely nothing to do with fair or correct rental pricing. We use rentometer, mls and other methods to set our prices. If you are getting showings and qualified applicants, I'd bet your prices are average. Also, Craiglist is probably one of the worst places to advertise your rentals as the people looking on Craiglist, are not as qualified as prospects coming from Zillow, Trulia and Hotpads. All those search engines can be reached by posting to Postlest,com. It's free.

@Jason Bott. Hi Jason, thank you for the additional information. All the agencies I have spoken with here in Atlanta charge much higher rates. I don't know if it's the Atlanta market here, but our prices were around $20 per thousand, which is much higher then the rates you have mentioned. Is it possible that prices vary that much based on market area? 

I think if you have proof of damage to the carpet, walls, etc. in the form of photos, have a receipt (or a copy of a cashed check for paying to cut the grass), I'd respond to the email and let them know your explanation. We actually, have a page on our web site that outlines all the charges after the move out. We also have a policy that we adhere to (can also be found on our website), so there is no excuses from the tenants.

We have been threatened a couple of times, even by our tenants friends who are attorneys, but the money you are talking about are so small, that it's not worth for anyone to mess with. Your tenants threats are just a temper tantrum. As long as you have followed your state's policies for itemizing the return of the security deposit and you have your proof, I think you are safe and good to go.

Good luck.

After watching the video, my thoughts were to ask the lower neighbor to move as that type of behavior is not acceptable to us, however, my experience is strictly with single family homes and we never had to deal with such issues. I think the comments that I read above are excellent and after reading the comments, I wholeheartedly agree...stay out of it. If it's not criminal, they can figure that out themselves. 

Great comments.