All Forum Posts by: Kevin M.

There’s a reason the return is so high: risk. You are one phone call to L&I away from getting an order to vacate notice on the door. I’ve personally seen it happen.  

There are special rules for triplexes in Philly relating to egress, sprinkler systems, lighting, fire alarms, fire breaks, and more. You could be looking at a huge bill to become compliant and a fight that could take years. 

Or you could quietly make a great return for years like 95% of illegal multi-families throughout the city…

Philadelphia is actually unique in this regard in that tenants with a lease term <1 year have "Good Cause" protection for renewal. In other words, if you have a month-to-month lease you need to have properly documented "Good Cause" to end the lease from the owner's side. Like most Philly regulations, this creates administrative hurdles intended to slow down or prevent owners from evicting tenants. So it adds extra steps to the process. And in Philly if you mess up any of these ~15 steps you won't be able to evict

Your standards are likely too high. If a person has high credit, stable income, and a significant down payment ready then they are buyers not renters. 

Technically you can’t have a credit score minimum requirement in Philadelphia. If the prospect has solid income, rental payment history, clean eviction record, and 3x rent down payment saved, You’re looking at a 95% success rate regardless of credit score. 

@Dante Balassone I'm sorry I misread your post. I thought you were in Philadelphia. Should be much easier in the 'burbs!

There’s no such thing as an open-shut eviction case in Philly! I would guess you are 4-6 months out from an actual eviction (lockout) if you start today. And that’s assuming all your paperwork is in order. Your best bet will be to get the tenants out voluntarily through legal pressure or buy out. 

Ballpark maybe $100k? I’m not a rehab pro but you really can’t do anything substantial for less than $80k in Philly anymore and it sounds like you are going flip-grade as opposed to rental. Whatever estimate you land on add 20%. Prices are just skyrocketing. 

@Rich O'Neill is the expert in this arena 

I think self-management is great if you are local and have the time to invest in learning the specifics of Philly property management. It will be helpful for you to have experience with the eClipse system, Pulling the required lease disclosures, showing and screening tenants, and working with local contractors for maintenance. It will give you the lay of the land so you can eventually be a better, more informed, absentee owner when you ultimately outsource management. 

However- if you are not local or can’t dedicate the time and energy, I think Philadelphia can be a dangerous market to try to self-manage. There are too many tenant-friendly regulations and the risk with placing a bad tenant is too high. The era of mom-and-pop landlords is coming to an end in Philadelphia because of the regulatory obstacle course the city has built.

@Matt Speer I found most of my original core clients through dm on Bigger Pockets but now most leads come through our strong Google reputation and word of mouth 

@Matt Speer I ended up not purchasing leads through them. It just didn’t make sense when I dig into their metrics a little more. Sorry I don’t have any more details 

Yes there are really only two possibilities given your explanation;

1. Mistake with PECO billing as @Steve Babiak intimated. Check your bill for specifics on meter read dates, etc.

2. Someone purposefully drawing power from your house meter outlets. Could be tenant running space heaters or could be neighbors running an extension cord off an exterior outlet. Maybe charging a few Teslas every day...