All Forum Posts by: Melissa W

Don't rent to him if you are that concerned up front about evicting him.

If you do rent to him, consider a short term lease.

I look at my vacancies and think about what people would need to be in that area for school or work. Then I target the workplaces and schools.

For one near a hospital I've gotten a friend of a friend who worked there to put a flyer on a break room bulletin board - ended up renting to two nurses.
I got some of my rentals on the housing list for a community college which is a few miles away. Some of them are near Syracuse University so I advertised on a site that is specifically for off campus SU housing and I emailed info to some friends who work at SU.

This is in addition to postlets/craigslist.

Look on the HUD homestore site, there is a tab that will say addendums, then look at the PCR and it will give a list of what they think is wrong with it.

I wouldn't bet on them being correct about what the house needs, or overlooking major repairs. I don't think the people managing and servicing the HUD foreclosures were very competent at all.

I wouldn't buy one without having contractors that I actually use for my properties look at them and give estimates for rehab.

It only matters if you are getting a loan. As my loan agent explained it to me, IE is Insured with Repair Escrow and the loan is a 203B. The repair escrow is an amount of money that the buyer must deposit into an escrow account with their lender. Some lenders require 1.5 times the amount of the repair escrow. Then you have to complete the work HUD requires within a certain time period, and they will give you the money back from the repair escrow. You must turn in bills from a contractor, even if you can do the work yourself. The loan agent said this is a major, major headache. My client decided not to buy a HUD house.

Or you can get a 203K loan, where they loan you the money to do the repairs as well as the purchase price.

Or, just pay cash.

I never tried to sell an insured HUD property, but I would guess there isn't as much damage and they don't make you do the escrow if you have a loan.

It really depends on the market and the type of properties you have.

What exactly is your property manager doing to prepare the property, advertise it, and screen tenants?

I take this process very seriously. I do great ads, get a lot of response, select the best applicants and screen thoroughly.

I get paid the same leasing fee as agencies who don't advertise and take the first person who walks in with the money.

So it's really worth asking your manager what the leasing fee is paying for and if they will share applications and reports with you.

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OvR-bu3Sp3e20nzNWtqFIwLepG9Q-VA5FcHQaKTzHEw/edit] That is a link to the basic document I use. I can't figure out how to make it an active link though.

I got the idea to do this because my grandmother kept notes and phone numbers inside her cabinet by her phone. Most people will lose rent payment instructions if you just give it to them. I had a guy who used to call me every month to get my address.

I have a 1 page sheet that goes on the inside of a cabinet door in each apartment that has building rules and useful info, like when trash day is, don't store stuff in basement, what the parking policy is, when rent is due and how and where to pay it, maintenance number, office number, utility company number etc. Tenants can't say they didn't know - it's right there in their house! Actually several of them have told me it has been very useful.

Sometimes the codes department will help with this type of thing. I've had tenants who were slobs - not really hoarders, but had clothes, toys and junk all over the floor. The codes department made them clean it up so that emergency crews could get into the house if needed.

I've had this happen so many times! Now when I have a house for rent I just put the cross streets and not the actual address. Have not had one since. The scammers that used my ads tended to be "missionaries that just moved to Nigeria" that wanted the people to go look at the outside of the house and wire a deposit for keys.

The police told me to put NO TRESPASSING signs on all my properties, so that if someone moves in they can be arrested instead of evicted. These signs have to be both glued and screwed to the building so they can't be removed.