All Forum Posts by: Gerald K.

We have been successful showing occupied rentals but we own in better areas and the tenants have been cooperative trying to keep the place neat and clean. It works especially well if they are breaking the lease, since they have motivation to get off the hook from the rest of the lease - they want us to find a new tenant. However, there are some tenants that are just messy/dirty or parents that have dirty/messy kids that just throw clothes all over and leave food and dishes laying around. The first step is proper screening and talking with previous landlords. Visit the prospective tenant's property if you can to see how they are taking care of it. We have a provision in our lease that states the tenant is to keep the home in a neat, clean, and sanitary condition. Then we explain exactly what that means and what we expect. We have inspections and a process for them to correct failed items. If you care about your property, you need to care enough to do that. If you put it in the lease and have a process for inspection and correction, it should hopefully eliminate any surprises as you are just following your process - no drama. If you don't have a process for dealing with those issues, it's like - fail to plan, plan to fail.

@Eddie Starr

I see you made it over to the intro forum. Again, welcome to BP. I'm sure you'll find quite a few Washington BP members on the site.

Other things to consider, besides hurricanes and tornadoes, would be places with extreme weather conditons - cold winters and hot summers. I imagine maintenance costs would be higher - shorter roof, exterior paint life, etc.

@Eddie Starr

Welcome to BP. I'm over on the west side of the state - Kirkland. If you haven't done so, you might want to introduce yourself in the new member introductions section:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55-new-member-introductions

Check out the "Learn" tab up top. Tons of great info. Also check out the Podcasts.

See you around the site.

@Mark Ferguson

Great idea for such a hot topic!

I visited family over the end of year holidays. Went out to a Chinese restaurant one night. When I opened my fortune cookie, here's what I found:

Hoping this fortune comes true! Stocks have not always worked out as I had planned.

Very rarely have I seen appraisal come in over purchase price.

The sham in the title of this post reminds me of the shamwow guy.

I think if this situation happened to me, I would be asking him to check into storing his stuff at a storage facility - unless it poses absolutely no problem or interference to the incoming tenant.

The question you have to ask is - Why is his stuff your problem? It shouldn't be. He's an adult, he should deal with it. Apparently he can't store it at his new place, so he needs to find another place for it. Otherwise, as others have suggested, he hasn't moved out and he should rent an extra month.

One thing we do when we first hear someone is moving out is give them a move-out package explaining everything we expect them to do. We also check how things are going and if they are restoring the unit to move-in condition, minus normal wear and tear, within a reasonable amount of time, or if they are dragging their feet. A lot of tenant's under estimate the amount of work required. Hopefully, by doing so, we can have a smoother turnover with less unexpected work left for us to deal with.

@Mark Forest

As @Rob K. posted, the five minute mud works well. It comes in a small box. It dries really fast though so if you have a larger area to do, there are also 20, 40, and 90 minute types as well. All of these are powder form that require mixing with water. The 20, 40, and 90 minute versions come in larger 18 lb bags. Here's the 20 minute version from Home Depot:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/BEADEX-Brand-Silver-Set-20-18-lb-Setting-Type-Joint-Compound-385266/202329689?N=5yc1vZard1

@Heather R.

Welcome to BP. As you can see, lots of us from the area. I'm up in Kirkland. Check out the "Learn" tab up top. That should keep you busy for quite some time. The Podcasts are a great listen - people sharing what's working for them. See you around the forums.