All Forum Posts by: Russ B.

I wonder if it would be feasible to lease by the year, with 26 biweekly payments? Maybe it would depend on what state you're in? 

Between direct deposit and auto ACH, they'd never have to really think about it.. and if the money didn't show up on schedule, you'd know right away that something was really wrong. 

Thanks for the followup - it's always good to be able to hear how the story ended. 

I'm curious if you ended up finding any any impropriety in the finances? Guessing it was just badly mismanaged? 

Either way, it sounds like you've made a difference for you and your neighbors! 

Give em notice and move forward with eviction. 

Let them know that having an(other) eviction filed plus a judgement for the damages they have caused will make it far harder to ever get in anywhere else, so being gone within however many days notice you have to give would be to their benefit. 

This is always worth considering with an inherited tenant. There's probably no reliable way to know (let alone prove) that the person before them didn't also smoke in there. It might have always been a smoking unit.

Off topic.. But if it's 10 SF homes you're talking about, an eviction or two a year sounds like a lot. That would be a 10-20% rate. Are you sure your PM is screening effectively?

@Shashi P.

Many of us know multiple ways besides real estate to make money. My biggest investment in terms of wealth is... a daycare center 🙂

This is one reason why I've always bought on shorter notes - never more than 15 years. 

Longer notes push the amortization schedule out along an asymptotic curve (thinking in engineering terms). In the extreme case (interest only), you're making infinitely many payments on a balance that never changes. With a 30 year note, you're not very far away from that case - barely any of the early payments is touching the principal. You're way out into the flat part of the curve. A million year note would have almost exactly the same payments. 

From a cash flow perspective, a shorter note often doesn't have that big an effect on the month to month scale.. but after (say) 5 years, the amount you're leveraged has dropped dramatically with the 15, vs barely moved with a 30. This equates to lower risk, more exit options and more buying power down the road.

This is something I'm not sure all investors are even completely clear on.. so most homeowners are probably clueless. 

I think we should be on to a new generation by now.. At this point, some millennials are getting ready to turn 40. 

Some of the damage is easily provable. For example, there's really no claiming that you lived in someone else's filth for years 🙂

But, in the future I would always walk around the house and take tons of pictures + videos on move in day - being sure to get things like carpets and under sink areas (proving there weren't any leaks) in detail. 

If you want to be even more paranoid, you can get that day's paper in some of the shots, and then upload them to a cloud service. That way, you can prove when they were taken. 

I would almost bet money, this letter was purchased online, and signed by someone who never met the person. A bit of research into whoever signed it could help verify this quickly. Chances are, they're really far away, maybe on the other side of the country, not a real doctor, or otherwise not qualified to write these in the state.

Depending on how blatantly phony it turns out to be, local / state law enforcement could be able to help. It's illegal to claim a fake ESA in Florida.