All Forum Posts by: Nicole A.

Thank you so much for including me in your list of BP heavy hitters, @JD Martin! My niche and main contribution has been the general topic of landlording, managing PMs, and house hacking. Although I did recently start taking advantage of the BRRR method to get my next deals and that has been quite the learning experience in both the financial steps of is as well as the managing a whole-house renovation. Fun stuff!

I've been pretty active helping mod the Facebook Money and Rookie groups, but I do need to make better effort of jumping on the actual site more as well to keep my posts current. Although it's really cool when I get PMs on here asking me for more information on an older post of mine! 

@Barbara E. My HELOC was on my primary home. From what I understand it's easier to get a HELOC on your primary house (provided you have plenty of equity), and for investment properties with equity, people get a "LOC". I believe when they asked what I would use the HELOC for (it wasn't a big interrogation, more like a passing question) I just told them it was for house projects/renovations. Explaining my plans to do a BRRR was probably not going to help me at all and possibly just raise red flags for them. Just saying it's for house renovations isn't fully out of line. :-) Never offer more information than asked...the average banker will not be impressed with your grand goals. They'll just see risk.

@Michael Wegner Your questions are pretty much answered at length in both this thread as well as the countless similar threads already here on BP. I highly suggest using the search function and settle down for a good read. It comes down to you getting the info and make the decision for yourself as the answer to this is a preference.

Try searching the county real property website. You should be able to find this by Googling something like, "<Your County and State> real property lookup"

Hey @Keith Walton. Sorry for the delayed response. I'm not quickly seeing where you got that text from, but if you're renting out part of your primary residence then it would not be a dwelling that is solely owner-occupied. 

Given what's been said so far, to add, he needs to move asap if he wants to break the lease. Give him a week. If he stays, treat him as a normal tenant and file for eviction as soon as he is late on rent. When he moves out, you can just cancel the eviction process. 

I personally want my property to be almost complete, if not complete, before I adverstise. Plus, how would I get great attention-grabbing photos if it's a construction zone?

@Jeremy A. There was plenty of very good advice given here. Only a few posts were sarcastic. You choose to only see the sarcasm and get insulted and lose all the valuable wisdom offerered to you. 

If this was traumatic, you might want to be honest with yourself about if this is right for you. No one died, so saying it is traumatic for you seems a bit dramatic. Perhaps considering a Property Manager would help a lot. After self-managing for 6 years, I got a PM and am so happy I did!

I don't think this necesarily means he did a poor job of screening the tenant. The tenant had a good credit score and passed the background screening. Someone can have a great history, but one day make a terrible decision that goes against their past behavior. That is just part of the risk of rentals...random human behavior.

And I'm not sure that asking applicants if they plan to have parties would eliminate "70% of the drinking crowd" like suggested. This tenant was all alone it sounds like. And I'm guessing most people would just tell you what you want to hear: "No, I don't throw parties" and then throw a party. This happens with pets a lot too. You don't allow pets? Cool, they'll sneak in a cat or dog anyway. People are going to do what they're going to do.

@Jeremy A. Just because you had a bad experience related to alcohol doesn't mean it is now the most common reason for trouble. You likely will not have that situation happen again. But you *will* likely have some sort of challenge with tenants again. There is no way to just magically screen out all possible problems. You will face problems.

Also, the situation you described doesn't mean he was an alcoholic. It sounds like he is just young and stupid and drank way too much. Countless people get too drunk sometimes but it doesn't mean they're an alcoholic. Sometimes, getting too drunk causes damage or even death. That's a sad fact of life. Again, it doesn't mean they were an addict. Likely just made a poor decision.

And as it's been said, you can't really screen for alcoholism to rent a place. You are asking for legal trouble. 

Move past the situation you had because right now, it's just holding you back from making money.