All Forum Posts by: Peter M.

Start the eviction process now. Texas is more landlord friendly so you may think 2-3 months is a long time but that is nothing compared to some states. If everything goes exactly your way, minimum time to get a tenant out in Texas is 21 days. They can try to delay for different reasons but the usually do not have a lawyer. Send the 3 day notice for non-payment or rent, one the 4th day file the paperwork at the JP courthouse and don't accept any more payments from them after that. Then just wait for your court date, have everything well documented and have a timeline and explain the situation calmly to the judge. Lease violations and non-payment of rent are contractual breaches and outside circumstances of the tenant should not affect the judgement. Read Texas property code so you understand how it works. They can try to file a paupers affidavit to delay but have to come up with the money to give the court so that rarely happens. 

I don't really understand this post. Are you the owner or living in the unit? Are you trying to break your lease or are you the landlord with a tenant trying to break the lease? Maybe it is a formatting issue with the post but did you post the letter the tenant sent to you?

A tenant shouldnt be able to break the lease for seeing a roach and it sounds like you have been trying to get the problem fixed so you have not been neglectful. But being NY I do not know the specifics of landlord tenant law there. What kind of roaches are these? Regular or German roaches? German roaches are tiny and are very difficult to remove. The exterminator needs to come and spray monthly for at least 6 months with a special spray. 

You are assuming simple interest. Most loans are compound interest. Amortization is the length of time for the loan to payoff if no extra payments are made. Use the PMT function in excel to get the monthly payment for this loan.

Down payment: 5500

Loan Amount: 31500

Interest rate: 10.25%/12 months

Excel will tell you your payment will be around $420/month and will pay off in 120 months if no extra payments are made and there are not prepayment penalties. 

John's list was pretty encompassing. I would add turnover (costs and how to mitigate), a step by step eviction process for your county so a landlord is confident enough to do it him/herself without a lawyer, accounting basics and how to maximize deductions, and I would recommend building in large time slot for Q&A

Depending on state laws and lender regulations you could roll both loans together and get a LOC on a percentage of the equity. Not sure if it would be enough to get properties where you are but you could use it as the down payment on a HML for a flip or BRRRR. Just depends on the lender.

I have an account at a big bank with branches everywhere and I give tenants deposit slips to then transfer the money to my actual operating account. My actual operating account is with a different bank so if a tenant gets wise and tries to deposit small amounts to stave off eviction (never had it happen but you hear all the horror stories on here) I can just close/change the account number and none of my bill pays/mortgage payments get affected.  Tenants that still want to use checks I just mobile deposit. One tenant uses Cozy which is fine, I'm just not a huge fan of waiting until the 10th to get the money but it works well enough. All free.

@Chanda Wa

D. If any utilities provided by Landlord listed in Paragraph 11A increase by more than 25% of a 6 month moving average, Landlord may assess additional fees at a pro rata share per unit to cover these additional costs. 

Don't rent to family or friends would be a good start. Don't over improve the property. 

An LLC is just another form of insurance. If the title will be in you and your wife's name, the LLC will do nothing to protect your personal assets if you lose a judgement worth more than the property and any liability insurance you have. This would rarely happen if you have the proper insurance. The case you are illustrating is basically having a property management LLC. It would have no assets so if the LLC got sued and lost there is nothing to collect. If you use a bank account in your name, even if you solely use it for rentals a good lawyer could argue it is piercing the veil. The bank account must be a business account in the company name.

I just moved my assets into LLCs and it was a huge pain in the @ss and honestly I don't know if it was worth it. But I used an asset protection lawyer to get it all set up, not legal zoom. From the comments you made, I would absolutely not recommend getting an LLC because it would not protect you in any way. Waste of time and money.

You could do a HELOC or cash out refi. There would be closing costs but most banks and lenders will let you roll it into the loan. You would need to provide a scope of work and budget and those will be taken into consideration for the appraisal. You shouldn't need to collateralize your other properties unless the renovation would cost more than the LTV the bank will give you. Is your goal to sell it or make it nicer and raise rents? It won't really matter to the bank but it will matter on how much money you want to ask for.