All Forum Posts by: Michael Smythe

We’ve found the best way to raise rent is:

• Determine market rent
• Share the proof with the tenant (they can see it on Zillow)
• Tell the tenant, given your rent is $x and market rent is $y, what do you think if a fair increase?
• Often, they may volunteer a higher amount than you were hoping for.
• Those that respond “$0” or something ridiculous, you can request income documentation from them to justify.
• Don’t be afraid to share with them how much your property taxes & Insurance increased and that YOU cannot afford to absorb them.

ALWAYS get an increase or something of value annually or tenants will start thinking they should never have an increase, making future increases that much more difficult to negotiate.

@Aaron Rodante did you confuse BP with a dating app?

Where are your real estate investing questions?

Toughie!

You are opening yourself to potential Fair Housing violation if you make an exception for this type of tenants, but not for all. Fines can be pretty high.

Recommend you discuss with some sources to see how likely it is you face a violation ticket.

The good news is that without an SSN, they are probably worried about anything that would involve the government.

Of course, they could also steal everything from the property, trash it and disappear and you'd have no legal recourse.

You made a mistake by referencing her job and more in your eviction notice.

Hope you've learned your lesson!

Tenant can't really use this against you - if you do everything better going forward.

Go to local landlord-tenant court and write down the attorneys that appear most frequently. 

Call them and interview to hire.
-the attorneys quoting you $3k are NOT eviction attorneys and are basically charging you as they learn.

Move forward with the eviction unless the tenant improves their attitude.

Go to the landlord-tenant court and lookup the attorney names you see the most often.

Contact them and one should be able to assist you.

Agree with @Mitch Messer, there's ZERO positives for an owner to tell a tenant they're the owner.

My boss had an evicted tenant's biker gang show up at his front door, back when he used to disclose he was the owner.

Have posted this story several times and no one ever has a great response to it!

@Jon Haney do you or the PMC have access to the utility bills?

Suggest just turning in a bill to prove service was on.

Proving the service AND the heat was on could be problematic.

Yes, you can probably get daily usage history from utility, but don't volunteer it until you're sure it will show good news.

Where's @Jim K., he'll know what to do:)

Take a video as you enter and walk through the property and narrate what you see!

Way better than pics.

Can help justify what you find is grounds to secure the property to protect your investment.

Get an attorney involved pronto.

Keep posting every month!