All Forum Posts by: Steve Moody

@Hugo Salgado, I was looking into the same a while back and it took me a while to track down what the industry calls these policies. I kept finding either homeowners insurance or renters insurance. If you google 'landlord insurance' like @Steve Karpowich mentioned, you'll find that most of the big ins. companies have info on these policies (All State, Liberty Mutual, Farmers, MetLife, etc) 

@Account Closed I've found that some people will spend 100% of their income every month, regardless of how much they make, or how much their income increases year over year. These tenants are used to paying a certain amount for rent, which hasn't changed in a long time. I believe them when they say that they can't pay more than $850, because they've chosen to spend their income on other things. If they had an additional $600 laying around every month they wouldn't be living in your place that needs work. Or they'd have saved up the $28,000 over the last 4 years and would be looking to buy a place. 

I  admire you for being compassionate, I hope that I would be too, but you still have to do what is right for your business. Maybe in 20 years when you have 50 units and own everything outright like Jim you can afford a few hundred dollars to help people out, but you're not there yet. It's ok to raise the rents, and it's ok if the current tenants can't afford it and move out. You'll be much happier with a nice unit, renting to people you choose, who can afford it. In the mean time, keep helping everyone by planting trees. 

@Account Closed are these tenants Sec.8 and paying a portion of the rent, or are they just getting lucky with low rent? 

If they're Sec8, I'd raise it to the highest you're allowed to by HUD, it won't change their payment, even if they're gaming the system. If they're not Sec8, and they're paying less than 1/3 of their income in rent, then I'd raise it so they're now paying 1/3 of their income towards rent.

Try to take the emotion out of it (hard when kids are involved), it's a business and you're doing the right thing by giving them time to get up towards market rent. 

@Jay Hinrichs, it really depends. Bad neighborhoods are certainly more susceptible to property crime, but that doesn't exclude high dollar, low crime, areas from crimes such as these (meth heads will travel). My brother had all of the copper plumbing stolen from his house once, and it was surrounded by $700-800k homes in a nice neighborhood. Why steal ghetto stuff in the ghetto, when you can steal expensive stuff in rich neighborhoods? In this case all new 1" copper plumbing from a 3000 sqft home. 

@Dan Dressler I've been on the other side of this situation before (twice), where I was renting and looking to buy a place. The first time we were renting month-to-month and put in our notice 30-days before our move-in date (we stayed in the apartment for a month after closing so we could do some work on the new place before moving in) 

The latest time we were very up front with the PM that we were going to start looking for a house to purchase, and came up with an agreement that we would stay at least 6 months, then go month-to-month and keep the PM in the loop as to where we were with our search/purchase. We also stayed a month after closing to get our new house in order before the move. Though our PM knew it was coming so there were no surprises. This open line of communication was key to a good tenant/PM relationship. 

Since you now know that they are actively looking you might want to set up something that will benefit both of you. They clearly won't want to move right before buying a place, and you don't want to be left with a vacating tenant on short notice. I'm not sure how long they have left on their lease, but having open communication with them will help ease your pain a bit. Tell them to let you know when an offer has been accepted, and check in with you on the progress. Once they're 30-days out from closing they should put in their official notice, and agree to pay any fees associated with breaking the lease. Keeping you in the loop instead of in the dark will be helpful, so maybe a slight incentive for them to do this is needed (maybe offer a discount on the lease breaking fees?) 

My advice? Don't move in with someone you've only known for 6 months. This is regardless of whether you're renting a place, or buying a place. It's regardless of whether the partner will be paying 1/2 the rent/mortgage, a smaller portion of money, or nothing at all. 6 months is not enough time to really know someone, and why rush? 

If you need her to move in and help pay in order to afford your place, then by all means DON'T MOVE IN TOGETHER! The biggest obstacle in relationships (new or old) is arguments over money. If you're establishing a relationship and it's based on money then maybe rethink the relationship. 

I was saying there's a local Portland area BiggrrPockets meetup next week. Go and meet some investors

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/290551-portland-oregon-biggerpockets-spring-2016-meet-up

@Alex Dejesus There is a Portland area 

This is good discussion, I'm learning a lot reading these replies. I do find the UGB interesting, and while I can see it does increase the suburban pricing a bit, I'm really, really glad it's here. I live right on the border of the UGB in an unincorporated area of Washington county (address is Portland, schools are Hillsboro). The highways in this area can barely handle the traffic as is, if there were more residential to the north of us highway 26 would become a parking lot 24/7. Highway 217 is already a giant fluster cluck most of the time, with no real way to improve it without the state spending $1b. Since Oregon road workers seem to only work on a project sporadically (a single lane addition can be 1/2 of a career here) there just isn't the time or money to fix the road problems before houses could be built, adding to those problems. 

I grew up in the sprawl of Orange County, CA, trust me, we don't want that here. Eventually the land gets used up, traffic is terrible, and house prices still go up making it hard to afford. Building tons of cheap homes here will make (some) developers rich, but at a cost to the overall market and appeal that brings people to the area. If the Portland area becomes another urban sprawl why would people want to live here? 

Of course the one night that I have something for my son's school that cannot be missed is April 19th. Hopefully I'll be able to meet some of you at other local meetings, and maybe the next big Meet-up