All Forum Posts by: Karen F.

I never take cosigners.  Too hard to go after them, too hard to collect if you win a judgement.  Do you want to buy yourself a lawsuit?  I'm sure you can find better tenants who have a more reliable track record of rent payment.  Also, do realize that if you rent to these people, you are renting to people who are essentially running a daycare (with their grandchildren there every day).

If you really want to rent to these people, I would have the son, his wife, and the grandparents all be on the lease, and take the biggest deposit you are allowed in your state, and ask for prepayment of rent, too, if that's allowed.  You want enough to more than cover you for the high risk that you'd eventually have to evict the grandparents, if/when son stops paying their rent.  Do you really want to be in that position?

My limit is 2 occupants per bedroom, because any more than that is overcrowding.  I have the names and ages of all occupants on the lease - I tell the tenant that I need to know who is living in the unit, in case some thing happens (like, God forbid, a fire).  Of course, the people who are 18 and over all sign the lease (since I'm gonna have to evict them, if they don't pay, so they might as well be legally on the hook for the rent), but of course, the children do not sign.  The only people who are allowed to live in the unit are those who are on the lease.

I would give her by text 24 hrs notice of inspection for whatever excuse you can come up with, and get in there and inspect, pronto.  Take pix with your cell phone of every room, all the beds in there.  Then leave.  Later that day, or the next one, assuming that you see more than 4 beds in that house, give her a notice to quit for lease violation for having brought in occupants who are not on the lease - name them as Jane Does 1,2,3,4, and John Does too if you think that there are males in there who don't belong.  Name at least one John Doe, to cover the possibility that any adult male is living there.   It's not your problem to ascertain whether or not the people using the beds are adults or children - more than 4 beds, there are clearly more than 4 occupants, in violation of the lease.   AFTER the notice to quit for lease violation (or notice to cure or however it's done in PA) has been served, have communication with her, only via text or email, never again orally, that you rented that house to 4 occupants, and that she is in violation.  Then offer her deposit back in full to move out immediately, give it to her as soon as she's out and has signed a letter saying that she gives up all claim to the unit, and you've changed the locks, and count your blessings that you moved on this so quickly and got out of it so easily.  You will have dodged a bullet.

A nice house in a B+ neighborhood to a woman who is raising some of her stepdaughter's EIGHT children who were all taken by the State, who doesn't want her son to know where she lives, whose source of income is aid from the State?  Is there something about this neighborhood that would warrant taking such a marginal tenant for such a nice house?

In any event, you really need to get rid of this woman ASAP, before the many children there destroy the house.  An extra $200/month for the extra two grandchildren is irrelevant if she already has 4 related women and 8 related children living there - it sounds as if she does.

I refuse to show all the time.  I tell people over the phone that I don't charge an application fee, but that I do prescreen (evictions, criminal background, income, number of occupants, smoking, pets) over the phone before I will show it.  Sometimes people get annoyed, but when I explain that we don't charge an app fee, they usually calm down.  Very rarely (maybe every other year or so) I will get a call from a "tester" for fair housing.  You can always tell, because they are obviously much better spoken, much better educated than anyone who would want to live in my units, and they don't want to know a thing about the unit - they just want to know if I'll schedule a showing.  The second I realize what I'm dealing with, I bend over backward, "Of course I will show you the unit.  When would you like to see it?"  They always say that they'll call back, and of course they don't.

Yes it will cause wear and tear on the HVAC, and since they're paying their own utilities, they can keep the house as warm and cold as they want.  Nothing you can do about it.

get the seller to do it for you as a condition of closing.

Private LL, a little over 30 units, virtually 100% collection rate, although a few were late.  I reached out in mid March, as soon as it hit, advising tenants about how to apply for unemployment, SNAP, Medicaid, other help, and told them to contact us if they were in trouble.  Most were fine, a few were not.  We gave one tenant work (deferred landscaping), and another we did an emergency delivery of food and pet food (partner abandoned her at onset pandemic, suffered major depresssive episode and job loss), but the fact is, everyone is paying.  We're fully rented, and getting all rents in, although not all on time - a few are running a little late, but not much.  This is in C/D multifamily housing.

Well, personal injury attorney friend said just turn it over to the insurance.  Property manager friend said also turn it over to snowplow guy's insurance, since it supposedly happened during a snow event.  It just kills me to do this, because I think that the guy's claim is so bogus that if we ignored it, the guy's lawyer, knowing it's a weak case, would drop it.   But attorney friend says the guy's attorney could attach our property, and that the insurance's deal with us is that we have to notify them right away, so I guess we will.  

I'm not in NY, but I can tell you, the minute that the coronavirus moratorium on evictions hit, my rental criteria for my vacant units went WAAAAAY up.  No one was gonna get in without max deposit, and a perfect record.

If it's a rental property, you can deduct taxes and insurance and depreciation and any work you have to have done on the property.  If it's your residence, you can deduct the mortgage interest, and property taxes up to a cap of 10K on state and local taxes (if the Democrats get back in power, this cap may disappear again).

Our experience is that any tenant who came with a voucher plus the assistance of any agency, or who had been in a homeless shelter, was an absolute nightmare.  Domestic violence, bedbugs, mental illness, aggressive and violent behavior, criminal behavior including drug dealing, illegal pitbulls to guard the drugs, prostitution, prostitution of their children,  illegal occupants, wouldn't pay their portion of the rent, filth, destruction of the property.  They have emptied out entire buildings with their horrible criminal behavior.  Let's just put it this way - it instantly became obvious exactly why they had wound up in a homeless shelter, and exactly why they had needed the assistance of an agency (as opposed to just their Sec 8 voucher) to get housing - it was that their issues made them un-housable.

Some straight Sec 8 tenants have been okay.  Rarely, they're fantastic.  In my market, often Sec 8 will pay a little over the going rate, which is good, because the unit needs to be vacant to be inspected, so we often wind up with a month's vacancy between tenants with Sec 8.  If they're okay or good, and you provide decent housing, they'll stay and stay.  But good luck getting the housing authority to raise the rent they will approve.  Often we've had to threaten eviction before they'll approve a rent increase.

If you decide not to renew with Sec 8, Sec 8 will stop paying you, BUT THE TENANT MAY NOT LEAVE!  We've had this happen, too, that we had to evict the non-paying Sec 8 tenant with whom we didn't renew the lease, and Sec 8 wouldn't pay us, even though we couldn't get the tenant to leave.

Expect annual inspections with the need to make repairs that don't seem to make any sense.  Once an inspector required that we re-point the foundation, which was in perfectly fine condition.  And you will have to repair at your own expense all the tenant-caused damage in order to pass inspection.  One tenant's teenagers loved to kick out the spindles on the porch fence.  Year after year we would have to replace them, and year after year the kids would destroy it.

So, unless you know what you're doing in respect to Sec 8, I'd be wary.  At the very least, join the local LL association, and find locals who are used to dealing with the housing authorities in your area, to give you some advice.  The fact is, in our C/D area, we have about 1/3 Sec 8 tenants, and we make it work.