All Forum Posts by: Maurice Smith

Hasn’t *

I had a good tenant of mines moved out of state back in November 2019. left my unit absolutely flawless during his departure. very thankful for that because I was able to re-rent that same unit without any upgrades within 2 weeks! During this time, rents were going of a considerable amount in my area. went from getting $700/ month to $800 a month! that was the good news! now here goes the bad news! This lady I rented to passed my screening ( job, income, credit , etc.). Also she has 3 kids so in my mind, keeping a roof over their heads and paying rent on time every month would be her first priority! This lady has been late every month sense she moved in ( she pays her late fees) but she is paying rent every month after the 5th. last month she waited until the 11th to pay! I understand stuff happens, so I had my pm speak with her and let her know if this continues I will have to file a notice to pay or quite . she wrote me a check this month, come to find out the funds were never in her account and her checked bounced! I just done refi my 4 plex. During this time. I had an appraisal, the appraiser needed access to the storage units to get pics of the water heaters, and time was of the essence because I didn't want my locked rate to expire ( 30 day process I was on day 25). This tenet was the only unit we couldn't get access to ( someone changed the locks) my pm went to speak with her the next day to see if she has a key, and some dude that wasn't on the lease ( guessing her boyfriend) answered the door and said they never got a key and they never used the storage unit. so my pm assumed it belonged to the previous tenant. so we had the handy man pop the locks the gain access for the appraiser. There were a couple things in the storage some trash and some tools. I removed everything. about 3 days later, we get a call form the lady, saying that she had stuff missing from her storage unit and she needs it back. we returned everything and she try's to tell me that there was a $1200 saw missing and she will not pay the ret until she gets it back lol!! so her boyfriend that's not even suppose to be there lied to my pm face because he obviously was using the storage unit for his belongings when he wasn't suppose to in the first place! so now she is refusing to pay her check that bounced, so I went ahead and filed and evection on her! I guess we will have to wait and see how this unfolds? pm is confident the judge will rule in my favor. even if she was to pay the bounced check, I still want her out! just a head ace to deal with every month she was requesting to have something to be fixed. non of my other tenants give me these problems and they have all been staying with me for several years.

Originally posted by @Brad D.:

@Jack B. if you're still deciding, I would say to wait. @Eric Fernwood I agree it probably won't be 2008 all over again, but it will definitely be significant. And it looks to me like Vegas will be the tip of the spear, from movoto trends:
https://www.movoto.com/las-veg...

Inventory is up YOY 70%, price is down 10%, days on market up a bit. It's worse than Seattle, Dallas or Irvine, other cities people are expecting to tank hard first.  But the good news should be that LV should have the buying opportunities first as well. 

Also, an interesting aspect to this is the the phoenix metro seems to be still doing well; I had thought (could be wrong) that LV and PHX followed very similar downward trajectory last time?

looks like you spoke to soon  

sometimes no credit is better then bad credit. as long as you don't see any collections on their report or anything crazy like that then you should be fine . How bad do you need to rent it? keep in mind not many people move during the winter months so it may sit longer then posting it in the spring or summer. I guess it all comes down to your situation. If you can afford to wait until you find a tenant that fits your standards, then by all means. speaking from the little experience that I due have. Tenants having no credit is more common then you would think. Its not the end of the world. Gives you leverage to ask for higher rent / deposit (check your state land lord / tenant law). worst case tenant goes default, just evict and try again. comes with the game. Good luck!

so your not planning on living in it at all? In that case be ready to have a 20-25% down payment and 2 months of reserves as well as 6 months of mortgage payments in the bank ( they will verify ) after all that is said and done with make sure the numbers make sense. are you investing for cash flow? or appreciation ? how long do you plan to hold? what is your goal? ask you self these questions, it will give you more clarity

Originally posted by @Daryl Luc:

Originally posted by @Maurice Smith:

sounds like some bs to me. Renters insurance doesn't cover landlord incase of tenant default. a security deposit does though. look on the bright side, at least theirs no " rent control" like we have in CA. so don't get to bummed out about it. It can be worst lol

I agree with you 100%.  I'm not seeing the math for how an insurance company gives both parties a better deal than they can work out on their own via security deposits.  If that's true, it's the first time an insurance plan benefited anyone other than the underwriter.

Now, here's another wrinkle that pulls money from the LL pocket....there's a movement in Cleveland, let's hope it dies an excruciating death too, to extend to the entire county (11+ suburbs!) free, no charge lawyers to tenants to fight evictions with an ability to make the eviction disappear as a sealed judgement.  No free lawyers for those who have their money invested, just the deadbeats or destroyers.

Oh wow .. that's news to me. Hopefully that wont happen. Thank you for sharing

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

The Oakland City Council is nuts. From advocating the homeless moms to illegally occupy property they did not own to now banning background checks. The mayor runs a sham charity that pads their bottom line by instituting insane parcel taxes. 

Fortunately this new law will not apply to our business as we only accept Section 8 vouchers. 

yea that's whole west Oakland situation was real questionable. All that energy they put into occupying a property that didn't belong to them, they could have put that same energy into finding them something. The funny part is after all that, they ended up being able to buy the house lol

sounds like some bs to me. Renters insurance doesn't cover landlord incase of tenant default. a security deposit does though. look on the bright side, at least theirs no " rent control" like we have in CA. so don't get to bummed out about it. It can be worst lol

Originally posted by @Cindy Cravenho:

@Maurice Smith did your friend benefit at all from this investment?

I cant speak for the next person so its hard to say. did I benefit from it? I enjoyed being around people who had the same type of goals and drive as me, but that's about it. I guess that just depends on your personal goal. If your new to real estate and need some motivation/ guidance it real easy to get caught up in the smoke and mirrors be cautious of that because people will try and take advantage of you first chance they get. I would value it at $500 at most. anything over that is a rip off in my opinion

Ohio is a good market. the rent to value is good out that way. majority of the property out in that market will meet the 1% rule . good cash flow, biggest thing to remember is location, learn your market. IMO I think having an investment in your own back yard especially for your first time is a plus. you can potentially save on having to use a property manager , which will increase your bottom line