All Forum Posts by: Soh Tanaka

Almost 8 months later after the purchase of this house, the roof has been replaced, but everything else is the same or in worse condition (floor ripped off, ceiling taken out, etc.) than when I bought it, due to not passing the city inspection and having a super hard time finding the right licensed contractors do the job.

I know this is not what you are asking, but there are so many project management softwares out there for free (for basic functions). Trello, asana, Wrike, monday, airtable, smartsheet... Will those work for you?

@Steven Hamilton II has a newsletter. Tom Wheelwright has one, too.

Unless you have time, desire and knowledge, hiring a property manager sounds like the right option.

I never used it, but I heard some good thing about Planet Synergy. 

I wouldn't say on continual basis, but tenants not paying rent is the big one. 

Septic is kind of scary for those who never had it, but a lot of people have it, and it's not that expensive to clean it up, and it's not that often, from what I learned. Just to make sure that nothing heavy drives over the tank. I would also make sure that septic is common in the area.

Thanks for the information Nancy. I have a question about this one part.

"99% of the people I talk to who want to be Property Manager or who are Property Managers want to comingle everyone's money into one big bank account." 

This sounds like you can not put the money from the owner A with owner B into a same bank account. That means if you manage 100 properties for 100 owners, you have to have 100 bank accounts. I hope I'm missing something here. 

@Nathan Gesner Yes, this is happening in IL. After living for 5 years with only a few problems, the tenants stopped paying in December. All the process was done pretty much on time, except since this was the first eviction for me, I did the 5-day notice too late but was done by the end of the month. The court date was set on 2/1. After that, they had till 2/22 to move out. They didn't. Now the sheriff needs to kick them out, but because they are "backed up", I'm still waiting for them to come. It takes time. I wish there's a service where we can pay extra to the sheriff, and they will expedite the process.

While it is true that paying the bad tenants will cause more problems in the future for other landlords, we have to think about ourselves and our owners first. If we do everything right, and we still get to a point where we have to evict the tenants, I wonder if it's better for the owners to potentially receive no payments for 5 months and still pay the eviction fee or better to pay $x and move on.  

@Nathan Gesner You are right that it's painful to reward a bad behavior. Another thing is, as you mentioned, letting them go clean means the next landlord may suffer, and that bothers me. 

That been said, I have tenants living free for 5 months, and to be honest, if I can rewind the clock, cash-for-keys would be something I would think about.    

@Ihe O. I'm on the same boat. I try to tell myself this is just a part of the business, but it's painful when it's happening.