All Forum Posts by: George Paiva

The latest tenant never paid on time and when did he acted like he was doing us a favor. Well 3 months later we were working on his eviction after non payment of rent for a month. Still acted like it was no big deal. Even ignored the court notices or dates. Good for us as we were able to evict within a month. Still was like pulling teeth having him take all his stuff out of the apartment. Oh and the best is when he mentioned his security deposit. Hahahhaaa Yeah ok nonpayment of rent for a few months, court fees, damage, etc... Here's your bill when you pay up we will return your deposit.

Ann, what were the pluses and minuses from Quicken to Quickbooks? I currently use Quicken Rental Property Manager. It seems pretty easy to use but my accountant would rather want Quickbooks.

Pat, I am currently researching the NEAT system. Does it allow you to keep the scanned receipts separate per property? Just trying to understand the file structure a bit.

I keep hard copy files for each tenant, each property. I have a quick one pager contact sheet for each tenant.

Started going digital last year. Scan to PDF all important docs. All contact info is sync'd with my Blackberry.

I wanted to look into the NEAT system for paper receipts but haven't had the time yet.

I use Quicken's Rental Property Manager for Accounting. Its good enough and easy to use for the 4 properties I have. Last year I kept all properties in separate files. I may merge it to one portfolio in Rental Property Manager but I also don't want to fall into "co-mingling of funds"

Welcome to the group, I too was accidentally landlorded... But came to enjoy it!!!

WOW where to start. I've had 4 evictions in the last 2-3 years. Each one required a dumpster and repaint and replacement of floors. Each one $3-5k in losses. They basically wait till we finally get a judgement then they take off with the clothes on their back and leave everything else behind.

The worst one was when I took over after my old man passed on. A 2 family property with a 2br/1ba. There were 3 people living there. Boyfriend, Girlfriend, Girlfriend's 4 yr old daughter. That place was literally a pig pen. Garbage, car parts, broken windows and doors. I must of spent $5k out of pocket and I did all the work. I took out 3 truck loads including a utility trailer with those loads of Garbage and Broken Furniture. I just couldn't believe how much stuff was in there. As bad as I thought the clean up and repair was, I couldn't stop thinking about the little girl growing up in that. I had a son the same age. To this day I wish I did a site inspection and called child protective services on them.

The latest one I evicted last week ended up being a drug junkie. Was a corrections officer, had a great job till he messed it up with drugs. No great surprise when he vacated with his clothes and left all his furniture and stuff behind. At least this was a one bedroom so it all fit in one truckload.

I am advertising it this week and so far received a little over a dozen calls with maybe 2 that after prescreening on the phone seemed ok. We'll see after Credit, Background and Income verification says.

No not old. There is just so much you can get from the phonetics of a conversation. Hell I weed out 90% of applicants on the first phone call before even a showing.

I have a checklist I made up with a series of 14 to 18 questions. Hell I ask them more than what they ask of me but then again I put all detail out on the ad with a ton of pictures.

Let me know if you want my checklist, send me your email.

I use Quicken Property Management. Simple enough and my properties are not too complex for Quickbooks. I can still do an extract for the acccountant. I am sure he probably still needs to massage the numbers a bit but better than excel spreadsheets and a box of receipts.

Anyone use scan system like Neat? I have a scanner and scan some of the important receipts but even thats a pain to categorize. Thank god for online banking and credit cards. I just download all the info to Quicken Property Management and ensure it gets documented correctly.

Be Careful I think you are trying to fit a conventional retirement portfolio of 3-5% withdrawal into a real estate portfolio. You can try to equate the percentage of $35k from what your RE asset which most likely is more than 3.5%. RE is not exactly as passive as you already know, not like a mutual fund.

I think the 3-5% withdrawal is ok for a 401k but for the RE I would agree with William to ensure you have a living breathing exit plan/strategy. You don't want to be snaking toilets at 65 right? So what will you do? Still have a passion for RE then just hand it over to PM. Else sell it all and move it to 401k portfolio with your draw down goals.

I offer 3 ways to pay rent, I have tenants that like just mailing the check to some that online bill pay to direct deposit.

1) Mail a Check – Sent to a PO Box.

2) Bank Direct Deposit - Instant payment of rent performed at the bank or electronically through your online bank account.

*I have one tenant that I provide a pre-filled deposit slip. She goes right to my bank to pay.

3) Bank Bill Pay – Allow 5-7 days for payment of rent performed electronically through your online bank account.

Great info!!! Currently have a tenant leaving this weekend and already started posting craigslist and postlets for next tenant.

http://newhaven.craigslist.org/apa/3554561555.html
http://hartford.craigslist.org/apa/3554518334.html

http://www.postlets.com/rtpb/8575999

I am going to try using my GOPRO which has a wider lens to get a bigger feel for this one bedroom.