All Forum Posts by: Peter Tverdov

Before I got my GC license, we would offer a project management service to our clients (I own a property management company). I'd charge 10% of the total cost of the job (labor and material) to make sure everything went smoothly. You need insurance for that by the way. No one ever disputed that price with me. Now that I'M a licensed GC I charge 15% instead of 10. Probably could go higher.

If these are college students I can understand but if these people are working for a living and can't qualify based on income that should be a no. What does it say about a young adult who makes below the poverty line and yet Mom and Dad will pay to have them out of the house? IMO keep looking.

Christine, if you're going to rent to students, it's best to put them all on one Lease and avoid renting by the room (we manage 400 students at Rutgers Univ for some background). Putting together random people are headaches for us and frankly we try to avoid doing it all together now.

Boarding houses, or renting properties like boarding houses becomes very management intensive. 

Talk to a season real estate investor in the area and see if you can use theirs. You don't need an attorney to draft one up. We constantly tweak ours being a property management company but when I first started out, that's what we did and it was fine.

Lease and security deposit?

1st month of rent needs to be paid before you give keys.

We then email a move in inspection list for them to fill out and return within 48 hours.

For student tenants, we'll give them an info sheet on what to do for maintenance repairs, lock outs, paying rent, etc.

Don't overthink it too much.

I like appfolio. Very user friendly. Their customer service can suck at times but it's a great service. I only use Cozy for my biggest client who refuses to let us get the payments first and 2-3 of my own rental properties but after Cozy has given me so much flack the last month, I asked some of my tenants to start dropping off checks again. Rather do it that way than give Cozy more business. 

Where would they actually get that data from? We manage 100+ houses in NJ with low income tenants and student tenants (i.e. volatile groups who claim hardship to pay) and we've collected 99% of rents. 

I'm a licensed GC now in addition to being a property manager and a realtor. I interview clients as much as you're interviewing me. You want cheap, you'll pay double in the end. You want to micromanage or constantly complain about cost, take a hike. I communicate well, am super transparent and try to detail the SOW as best I can. Anyone good will not be cheap. You get what you pay for.

File the eviction. If tenants are deliberately taking advantage of landlords in this situation I would recommend showing no mercy on the eviction and/or civil suit if you want to go that far.

 This is terrible advice. Do the opposite of this. I manage 400 students as an FYI.