All Forum Posts by: Mary M.

@Nathan Gesner My point is that in this situation she needs help. She may be able to evict, but  given that the tenant is disabled is not the time to do a "self eviction" 

I also want to comment that PMs would of not allowed this to happen. This is not true. My worst tenant ever was in a building I bought and allowed to move in by a PM. The PM completely missed the evictions and BKs that the tenant has.  This tenant did not pay rent for 9 months (thankfully i got the rent paid via the feds) destroyed a brand new apartment and will cost me thousands of $$ to repair. Soooooo PMs are not the solution - good screening is. 

wow, the very first thing I would do is talk to an attorney. This is a person with a disability and you are talking about evicting her and asking people here how to do it???  good way to get sued IMHO.....  call your attorney and discuss with them.  This is not a situation where you want top make any errors. 

I dont like to be a debbie downer, but this new version eats up all my screen for only a few threads and honestly I cant spend all day scrolling to see if there is anything interesting to read.... 

I dont really understand why you cant just buy  already existing forum software that is easy to read, search, respond, etc. ,

Do you have an application with an emergency contact?  Do you know any family? That would be my first action.  If you cant find that info then see if you can find a local elderly services place and call them for help. 

yay.....  tenant fun :) the only thing I will point out is that technically you should only charge tenant for the un-depreciated portion of the damage../...  so if they say broke the stove and the stove is a 15 year item and it is 10 years old you should only charge the 1/3 of the cost of replacement.  For the accent walls you should be able to charge full amount but the other walls? Not so sure - you might check into it. 

I am sorry to hear about your wife. That must be a challenge for her and you. 

With about 400k to invest you absolutely can buy a small MF building. I might suggest starting small an d seeing what you are wanting to do and where you want to go with this.  If you are in a college town, or if there is one close by that is always a good place to invest. You might start with a 4-10 plex and see how it fit then reevaluate in 5 years. This will give you time to learn.   I would stay away from riskier investments.  I personally think investment type properties are better than SFHs.  The way they are sold, managed and financed is just much more businesslike . 

You will get many different responses, but be aware that many that respond are selling something and may not have your best interest at heart. :)   

Self managing is easy as long as you are willing to learn... getting the books mentioned is fine, but I highly recommend you finding your local rental owners association and signing up then taking all their classes.  Also read your states/locales tenant/landlord laws. 

For background checks I use www.myrental.com (i am NOT affiliated in any way with either of these websites) and I use www.tenanttech.com for my forms/leases/etc 

There is no law that says you must increase rent to "market rate" ....  You had a number you had in mind when you purchased the property - what was that number? 

How much work do these units need if tenants vacate? How much will it cost you to bring up to "market condition' and how much will you loose in vacancy costs while you renovate and then search for a tenant?   Do you know GCs are very very hard to find and they are scheduling 6 months out? 

I think you need much more info to make a decision.   An increase of say 3-7% might be a reasonable increase if you just want to do nothing and raise rent. 

my opinion is that there is no law that says that I have to increase rent on good tenants to "market rate rent"....  I will do annual increases between 3-5% and when a tenant vacates I will bump the rent up to close to market.  I always want to be slightly below market and I always want to keep good tenants. 

 think in this instances you can have a dialog with the incoming tenant and you both decide what works. Usually you will have success if you both are flexible. Have you talked to them?  If you agree on a move in date that you both are happy with then just write a lease that states the move in date will be X unless the current tenant has not moved out yet and if that is the case then the new tenant will move in once the current tenant has moved out. 

Have they completed an application etc?