All Forum Posts by: Mike Hanneman

Being there is no lease in place when she tells you what the increase rent and pet fee will be and you pay you are agreeing to her terms. As long as there is no lease in place she can come up with any fee/scenario she wants, within the letter of the law. She obviously doesn't want you and the dog there and is trying to price you out of her property. 

Also watch out for the "long" lease. Anything over a year is not an option in my book. A lease protects the tenant more then anything, as they will still leave with or without a lease but you can't get rid of them easy or increase rents, etc... for the term of the lease.

For the record if you "need" to rent to these tenants then make it a month to month to start so if they fall behind you can tell them you're not renewing their lease after what ever month they are late.

I believe in second chances but you have to lessen the liability on your end at the same time.

How does your advertisement read?

Put in it that "you do credit/background checks and minimum credit score 640"  or something similar. Also state previous evictions need not apply.

Try something that weeds out bad tenants before they even call. Craigslist is a good source of advertisement as well.

It doesn't make it harder if you quality, the criteria is the same. Your down payment will be 25% if you get an investment property loan vs. 20% for a primary loan.

Have you thought about house hacking/living in one of the units of your investment property? You could then get an FHA loan with only 3.5% down but you'd have to live in it for a year. Using this strategy gets you a property, that if purchased correctly, will have the tenant/s pay most if not all you mortgage.

If I could go back in time this is the strategy I would use.

Thanks Chris that is very informative and clears up a lot of stuff.

The question is, if you can put 20% down why don't you get a conventional loan to begin with? That would help to tell us about the refi.

Any time there is a theft of your personal belongings I hits close to home, no pun intended! If you ever see a magnolia tree in your neighbors yard you'll always be left wondering.

I hope everyone understands that electrical and plumbing are a code issue. A house can have perfectly good working electrical and plumbing systems in place that are 100 years old, but the moment you start a rehad or open up a wall you have to bring them up to todays code.

Make sure to figure in a complete electrical rewire in you budget, by the looks of your pictures.

@Jeff Gates do you have another reccomendation then? What do you use?

I wouldn't want my agent to give more comps to adjust the appraised value. I would want to get the properties at the reduced price. I wouldn't think of bringing cash to closing if the property doesn't appraise. You'd be starting off underwater where you wouldn't have a viable exit strategy without losing money.