All Forum Posts by: Sarnen Steinbarth

As a side note, you will want to look into the FAA rules for commercial drone operations.  It is a constantly evolving regulatory landscape and I've seen a few in real estate get in a bit of trouble with the FAA.

I love investing around colleges and agree with the thoughts of @Michael Seeker above.

College students will likely appreciate the following, as well:

• Online rent payment ability
• Online applications
• Online lease signing 

Often times it is hard to get multiple roommates from different cities to be able to meet at the same time to sign a lease, rental application, etc., so e-signatures are great.

Welcome to real estate investing.  Sounds like your foundation of knowledge starting out is better than most.

Best of luck!

@Account Closed

Good points all around.

Here is my $0.02:

• Use services like Google Alerts to monitor your brand.
• Respond to online posts quickly
• Address the critique online, but try to continue the conversation offline (assuming it is a negative review)
• Encourage the good renters to give you a review, reviews can be a big help to not only your image, but to search engine visibility 

 Agree 100%.  Well said.

@Roy N.  Thanks for the info.  I'll need to look into those. . .

I've also been using the Camelot Schlage lock linked above and really like it.  I can get at least 1 year out of the battery (I am too scared to try to get more).

Never tried out the Nest thermostat, but have thought about it.  Anyone else have anything good or bad about them?

I have had around 400 tenants and 2 owe me money.

5-10 have been not the most fun to deal with.

So I guess I would say around 98% good.

.5% I really dislike and am actively trying to collect from.

I have had this happen a few times.  Nearly every state has an unclaimed property program, whereby you can make a claim to the state, forward the unclaimed amount of the security deposit to the State.  The State will then track it, make public notices, and then, eventually, gobble it up in the state general fund.

The nice thing about this is they will cash the check and track it so you can get it off your books.  

There are certain time guidelines, restrictions, etc.

With a quick search it looks like the info for GA is here:  https://dor.georgia.gov/unclaimed-property-program

In other news, there is a LOT of unclaimed money out there.  If you haven't searched your own name you may want to to see if someone else has turned in your money to the Govt.

I was once teaching a RE class, and going over the procedure with the class.  I put in my own name in a unclaimed money search, and sure enough there was some unclaimed money out there for me from Home Depot. Claiming it was relatively easy, prove to the State my identity and I got a check in the mail a few days later. . .