All Forum Posts by: Sharon Rosendahl

@Collin Cameron Honesty is the best policy and no looking over your shoulder waiting for a fraud charge. Good luck in finding a job. Depending what you do and where you are at it should be a quick thing. If I had seen your post a few days ago I would have recommended going to a staffing agency. Sometimes they can place you right away and sometimes mortgage companies will accept new jobs in the same field. Also, if your wife's income is pretty strong then yours would have been the bonus so being on contract could have been ok.

@Drake Pristash be aware that if you invest by buying manufactured homes in a park you will have to pay the space rent even when you aren't receiving rent. This could place quite a burden on you.

House hacking. Check for first time home buyer opportunities in your area. In Oregon, there was (probably still is) a program that you could set a saving goal and over the course of a couple of years receive matching money from the organization to help you with your FHA down. In Washington, there is a first time home buyers program that makes a loan to cover the FHA down so you can actually get into something for closing costs. FHA allows up to four units to be considered your house. I would assume that they would consider rent as income (my loans do but they aren't low down loans so I'm not sure if that is different).

@Account Closed I had a similar situation not long ago. Our neighbor has owned his house for about 12 years. We have only owned for about 5. He has randomly mentioned at times that he felt the property line was about 80 feet closer to our house (our lots are over an acre). We had actually taken the filed survey and checked and according to that we have a pretty good idea of where the line is. We told him we believed it was in the tree line and pointed out approximately where. He insisted he also had a survey that indicated that the 25 year old garden shed painted to match the house when we bought was actually on his property.

After a few years of this he finally came out and said we needed to stop mowing his property. Since we are stuck with him we didn't tell him to go f** himself but instead offered to split the survey cost. We told him he should get a quote and we would get a quote and then we would decide which company to use. Our guy came out to check things out and said that yes, the line was in that tree line. Turns out the neighbor was using a hand drawn septic map to determine his property line. The surveyor said he would give him a call to explain his findings (we didn't even have to pay the guy, yes we will use him when we need a survey). That neighbor doesn't speak to us anymore, which is fine. He's not a very nice guy and treats everyone in the neighborhood poorly.

Around here, north of Seattle, the cost to have one property line shot and staked is about $1k.

@Russ B. My lease actually says you won't prevent your neighbors from enjoying their homes. I supposed being over aggressive in berating someone could fall into that.

@Scott Trench

I have a similar situation except they are both my tenants on neighboring properties. Both are disabled with issues that affect their temper and processing of things. There has been some kind of fall out between them that resulted in them both calling us and complaining about the other. We told them that we couldn't just evict the other tenant based on he said/he said. We told them each that if it was that bad that they needed to call the police and send us a copy of the police report. We told them to not speak to each other and escalate the situation but to get legal counsel. We also said if the harassment was that bad they should get a restraining order with all protests exhausted (a lot of places will issue a restraining order as soon as the paper is filed but allow the other person to protest it in court. The order becomes permanent if the judge approves it. This way we aren't evicting someone who is found not to be a menace by a court. There is a time period for them to file the protest and if they don't it is uncontested and we would respect that and start to evict.) 

The wife of one of the guys called us and wanted to know what was going on since her disabled husband was ranting and raving about it. We explained the above and she said she would speak to their attorney. Hmmm. haven't heard from either side again on this topic. 

The key thing is to be sympathetic to both sides without actually blaming the other. 

I have to say that I love a clawfoot tub. Actually, the tenant's pvc is pretty ingenious although Lowes sells a more attractive shower curtain system for clawfoots.

I personally like to shower and can live without a tub but have found that when people have younger kids, a tub is much better. So I always will have one tub in a house. The exception is I have a tiny cottage that a tub would make the bathroom awkward so it just has a shower.

Not sure about your spacing but if you have room to build that wall and shelf it or something that would get your tub away from the window. I don't like to have a window in my shower wall. 

A properly installed and maintained tiled shower doesn't leak. You need to keep an eye on the grout so if it starts to degrade you regrout before you have water damage. In a rental, I tend to use enclosures around the tub because they are easier to maintain and cost less.

I have never used the MyLodgeTax program but I have used Avalara sales tax. They made life super easy. I went to some of their free trainings in Seattle (they are located downtown and I'm in the general area) and got lots of great info. Overall, support was really good but they seemed to have trouble keeping sales people at that time (several years ago).

As for what taxes you need to pay, I would check the state and city tax or revenue websites for guidance on lodging tax. You likely will find some info there. Calling can help. In our state, dept of revenue has a help line that is really great at answering questions. Also, talk to your CPA about it. They should be able to give you a quick answer as to what you need to do.

If you find it, likely it will have a high cost. 

I am more flexible if the person tells me before I run the report. One of my best tenants had a bankruptcy. They told me when they applied. This was during the recession so I know it happened to a lot of good people. They always paid the last day or two of the month.

When I make credit exceptions I make sure I do thorough checking and get previous landlords, not just current but one or two before that. I also will try to get a couple of employers.

Medical debt is more acceptable to me. I have had tenants where things crash and burn due to medical issues and they will have medical collections along with other things in the same time frame. Honesty is a huge deal to me. If they tell me up front they get an extra point or two in their favor.

Most people who are not getting the rental because of things like that will just say stuff to try to get you to change your mind. Be thorough and consistent in your backgrounds. I have had houses vacant longer than I want but in the end, it can save you money if you place a no hassle tenant instead of a problem one.

@Marc Izquierdo yes they can. I had a tenant do that so I talked to Cozy about it. They say it is on their list of things to possibly change in a future update because multiple people have asked. It would be a good idea if everyone would ask so they move it up on the priority list.  I know in some states a separate charge for utilities, late fees or anything else can't be included in court for non-payment. That makes it a good reason to have rent include an average amount of utilities. If you need to upcharge then make sure that is in your lease and upcharge over your average amount.