All Forum Posts by: Ron H.

Cleaning may or may not work. It depends if and how saturated the carpet padding is below the carpet.  It also depends if carpet is saturated with dog or cat urine.  Cats are usually worse than dogs.  Also depends on if this is an A or  D class unit.  People usually expect a much nicer environment in nicer neighborhoods.

@Keegan Darby. Month by Month lease

1 year for 1st year to help cover turnover cost, then converting to MBM for the duration.  One of the things that give landlords a bad name is tenants being forced to either pay a lease termination fee or  pay a large  premium to go MBM.  Unless house is in an area that is impossible to rent most months or you need to align with college semester terms, requiring continuing year leases is just a money grab, IMHO.  Tenants leaving to change jobs, buy houses or ... in non year terms is not an increased cost to a landlord.

@Isaac Westlake overall this board leans against a college education of any kind.  If the question was asked if it is better to waste time completing elementary school or buy a house the answer i would expect to hear is buy a house.  With that being said it depends what your goals are.  In the corporate world or if your goal is to build and head a large RE corporation then a masters would be good for both the education and the contacts.  If plan is to just buy a few houses then maybe not.  I am all for minimizing education debt though.  If you pursue further education find a job of some kind in RE while in school and work to minimize your debt.  This will definitely help you build capital for first purchases

When an individual student, not a group of friends, rent a room you really can't make them jointly liable for the lease.   They have no knowledge of the other people and did not select them for a business relationship.  I do make them all jointly liable for damages though but never had to enforce this.

Friends moving in was a problem and I had to post eviction warnings several times.  My strict enforcement of this was probably the main reason for them or myself not renewing leases.  It is not fair to other residents if they then have to start sharing a fridge or bathroom with more people then they signed up for.

I didn't get into picking who cleaned what.  I let it be known that they had to keep it clean, they were adults and they needed to work this out themselves.  All were warned of any deficiencies in this area.

I have accepted a years payment several times, but only after they had already stayed there a year.  From an eviction standpoint I see it no different than with people that insist on continuously renewing 1 year leases, which I now go m2m after a year.  I had one year paid tenant move out after only a few months due to a reserve callup.  No issues just return unused portion.  He said he was using GI Bill money and wanted to make sure he had his rent paid.

When I had student rentals I did most of above.

individual leases if rooms rented separately, not as a group.  If a group came to me I did one lease with all collectively responsible for payment.  Cosigner when I could get it but not a deal stopper, just extra protection.  I included an electric allowance that covered most months.  Usually students had to pay a few dollars in June and July. 

Common areas cleaned every 2 weeks to start.  If they lived neatly I usually slacked off on cleaning "checkups"

I checked social media accounts thoroughly.  Most applicants were ruled out this way.  Did not do credit checks and never had to kick anyone out for late/non  payments.

I'm out of student rentals now.  My houses were  1 1/2 hour away and "by the room" was just too much extra work.  I am now renting these by the house and don't advertise on campus.  Much less drama.

To me the best credit cards are the ones with the largest sign-on bonuses.  I use housing expenses to meet the spending requirements for the sign-on bonuses, then cancel after a year when annual fee comes due.   I never run a balance so interest rates don't matter. Chase ink and Chase Sapphire regularly have bonuses worth $600 cash or $725 for travel after meeting from $3K to $5K spending within 3-4 months.  The hotel and airline cards (BOA, Citibank, etc.) also have bonuses worth from 60K to 120K points.  These are used to fully fund my family's airline and hotel expenses on vacations.  I apply for  business cards the most since they tend to have the least effect on your credit score.  Unfortunately banks have started limiting the number of new cards applied for over a certain time limit so doing this isn't worth as much as a few years ago.  For spending when not pursuing a bonus the citi double cashback card is a good daily use card.

For a single large purchase for rehab, there are occasionally sign on bonuses on cards that allow you no interest for as long as 18 months.  I don't typically do this so I don't know of any current promotions, but these are out there and are great for stretching out payments when needed.

@Maggie Lundstrom . I invest in both Orlando and Brevard. I would love to invest more in SFH in the Melbourne area and try to keep my eyes open for off market properties there, but in terms of renting I receive many times higher response for my rental ads in Orlando vs Melbourne. The market demand for rental housing in Orlando is just much better than the Space coast. The economy is much more diverse in Orlando also, barring further Covid issues.

As a renter I would have preferred a month to month lease but was never able to find one.  As a LL I do 1 year that converts to month by month on same terms after a year.  One year up front [with good screening] to try to discourage short timers and the MBM to be fairer with renters when they do need to move mid year.  Life happens.

With student housing all my leases ended 1st week of August to align with school year. New leases that started in the middle of term (due to broken lease) also ended 1st week of August.