All Forum Posts by: Michelle Fenn

Jim is absolutely correct.  To attract qualified tenants I would recommend a suburban neighborhood with a well rated school system.   The trendy neighborhoods close to the urban core will also attract a good tenant but I find they tend to move on in a year or two, so you are filling vacancies much more often.   

I did ultimately get my license but I debated it for 2 years.   The classes required to become an agent are not expensive and will give you a good understanding of the laws associated with real estate.   Once you become an agent you are then subject to the ethical considerations of the profession.   IE  you can not deliberately underestimate the value of a property to obtain a great purchase price.  Over the years I listed properties that sellers accepted purchase offers that as an investor I would have seen as a great deal, but I was unable to make those offers due fiduciary responsibility to my client.  On balance being an agent has benefited my investment business.  I work for a broker that allow me to sell my own properties for free.   This has given me an opportunity to sell and  use 1031 exchanges without the concern of the cost of a listing commission. 

I am in the Cleveland market and our applicant requirements are very similar to yours.    In C  class properties I am having problems with finding applicants with even our minimum 550 credit score.   We exclude applicants with evictions, but I am told they have no evictions only to find multiple filings.  

I would pick a tenant with a good credit score and income less than 3x the rent, rather than the other way around.  

As the banking industry refers to the 3 C's of credit     Character, capital and capacity.   I feel Character is the most important.

About the only things we can use to exclude applicants finances and cleanliness.  Some housing activists would like to make felons a protected class but we are not there yet. We always include a minimum credit score and no utility delinquencies on our online application instructions.   We also state that anyone with a violent criminal background will be rejected.    After reading our introduction to the online application most persons that we would reject elect not to apply.  

In general if a tenant moves without forwarding information, usually after failing to pay the last months rent, I start checking social media.   It is amazing they sneaked out on their landlord but announce to the world their new employer.   I then have them served at work.

City POS requirements are not waived in economic opportunity zones.  In fact in Cleveland to get 15 year tax abatement you need to follow green guidelines which mean the garage needs to be detached.   ???

Absolutely do not try to bypass city POS and building dept regs.    You can end up in court.  If you want the east side, bypass Cleveland Hts, Shaker Hts, South Euclid, Maple Hts,   They all require 100% and higher escrows.  Euclid is 50%, Garfield Hts has POS but no escrow.   Cleveland does not have POS but in 2021 or 2022 you will be required to get your investment property certified that it is lead safe.  

Many cities have what I like to call drive-by POS.   Which means they require the exteriors to meet code.   Most of the cities also require home owners to meet the same requirements.   This actually helps maintain  neighborhood minimum standards which is a plus for all of us.

When I am representing buyers that do not agree with the listing agents pricing, I make sure I respond to the showing feedback with facts and realistic repair costs supporting why I believe the pricing to be out of line.   Then when the "low ball" offer comes in, it is not unexpected.

Due to covid many tenant occupied investment properties will not allow showings without a purchase offer with an inspection contingency.   Once the  offer is accepted, you are required to perform your inspection in 5-10 days.  The listing agent should get you or your repesentatives in the house for inspections.  Your realtor.com agent should have also recommended a good inspector, cost would be around 350-450.00  Seller upon request should be able to provide a ledger accounting and lease.  If you do not recieve these documents assume that you will be doing an eviction.   Do not feel to bad about loosing the investment opportunity.  I just turned down representation of a property on that street. 

Our property management system Buildium automatically sends our listing to a number of free listing sites.    I get a decent amount of leads from Zumper and Apartments.com.    I manually post all our listing on Facebook Market Place.    By far I get the most response from Facebook.