All Forum Posts by: Stanci March

@Matt Lowery can definitely help you out. If you're looking for commercial property or just general information about the place you may want to reach out to the local Main Street Assoc. They are very active. 

Here is who I've met and spoken with there: 
Casey Woods

Emporia Main Street

12 E th 5th Avenue

Emporia, KS 66801

620-340-6430

www.emporiamainstreet.com

www.facebook/emporiamainstreet

www.twitter.com/etownmainstreet

Austin Fruechting, Thanks for the post. Would you mind double checking the bank's email? It's coming back undeliverable. Is there a specific person there you like dealing with there? Thanks, Stanci

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@Ryan McNeill, did you end up doing this deal? I'm looking at a few historical renovation projects and Kansas and am curious to find some real world examples. 

@Thomas Fortune, did you do this deal? I'm looking at something similar in another state. 

@Bryan O., not difficult at all. Super easy actually. I just didn't have all of the information on me my first trip to the bank. Slight complicating factor was wanting my wife to have ability to control business funds and transfer from personal accounts. Since she is not listed on the AoO with the State they wouldn't allow her those privileges. Found a nice work around by using her for the EIN so all is well. I have no idea what an "OA" is but I would be curious to know if you'd like to share. 

I've heard a few people mention Cozy.co so there must be some merit there, thanks for the tip. Pro and organized...also sound and advice. 

Looks like I am going with the Paypal option for most of the tenants since that is what they are used to. Once client mails checks which is fine, and another still wants to set up ACH, also fine. I may make some change after the next big turnover in the spring but keeping things as seamless as possible for existing tenants for now. 

Thanks to everybody who weighed in. I am in for quite a learning experience I can tell. Excited to develop my landlording skills, put systems in place, and go get some more mutis! Good luck everybody. 

Best, 

Stanci

@Dana Dunford, that's interesting RE: PayPal's refund policy, thanks for sharing. I'm not sure how a tenant could get away with that trick for longer than a month though, unless I'm missing something. I would be certain to cancel their PayPal option after the first time their tried this, so no more partial payment options after that. I also will have the added protection of renting primarily to military officers attending the military college. Something like this would not go over well with their reporting officers. Of course I may not always have properties with class-A tenants so good info to have. 

@Lois Ginter, thanks for the tip. How do your tenants like it? Any particular complaints from any of them?   

BP family, 

I'm looking for some help. I just closed on my first deal; an 8-unit mixed-use and I need to know the quickest way to set up online payment methods for my tenants. 

I don't have a business account set up with my bank yet but am planning to have that wrapped up this week (actually tried to set up on the morning of closing but did not realize how involved it was). The Seller messaged the tenants yesterday (1-day after closing) letting them know of the ownership change. She informed me this morning that setting up payment services can take 3-4 weeks and that tenants are already asking for that information. If true, I'm already behind on that for the first round of rent payments (Feb. 1). 

I am thinking of calling each tenant this evening or tomorrow to introduce myself and explain that the business entity specific to their building was just recently formed, so for the first month they would need to pay in some traditional fashion (by mail, or giving a check to my PM). Another idea I had was to set up a PayPal account and have that routed to my personal checking account for now, and then change it to have future payments routed to the business account once that's set up. I've never received PayPal payments before so not sure if it is possible to change where payments are routed so easily. Does anyone know? Any other thoughts or ideas?

Much gratitude in advance for any suggestions. 

Best, 

Stanci

Is there some legal reason that would preclude a Seller from providing copies of leases to a potential Buyer? I'm under-contract for an eight unit multifamily and the Seller was refusing to provide me copies of her current leases until at the closing table. This is my first deal so with all the talk about phantom leases and such I definitely wasn't about to move forward with the deal without a chance to review the leases prior to closing. I'm in for about $4k already not including earnest money so it would have burned to walk away but not as bad as making a bad deal.   

I did finally get all the leases today, three days before closing. Thankfully because I've been going through them for 90 minutes, matching up all of the information with the rent-roll spreadsheet she provided earlier. Everything checks out but I can't imagine trying to do all of that at the closing with everyone sitting around staring at me. 

Her premise for not wanting to provide them was that she could not do so legally because of her obligation to protect her tenant's privacy. My attorney basically called her on that and suggested she check with her lawyer to get herself straightened out. Just wondering how others feel about this, particularly those with legal expertise.   

Seller refuses to provide current leases, says it's illegal for her to release those because they hold private information about renters. Really??

I'm about to close on an 8-unit mixed-use building under an owner-finance structure (Contract for Deed) and the Seller has been pushing back hard on supplying copies of the leases. She did provide an official rent-roll which satisfied me enough to make an offer, put down earnest cash, and put out about another $3,000 in inspections and legal fees. Now I'm sitting here four days before closing and am told that she won't supply leases until we're sitting at the closing table. So, she is expecting me to sit down in front of everybody at the closing table and read through 7 separate lease documents before signing closing-documents. This seems absurd to me. 

She did finally relent but only after me sending her a portion of an email from my lawyer, basically calling her absurd and encouraging me to have her speak to her lawyer with the hopes that he could talk some sense into her.   

My question to the legal experts here is does she have a point? Below are email excerpts explaining her justification. 

"I have told you several times that you will receive copies of the signed leases at closing. These are private legal documents that cannot be released to you until you are the owner of the properties. At this time you are simply a civilian asking to see private info. If you wish to see a master copy of the lease that I use I will provide that to you."

She later followed up with this doozy to me and my attorney: "I am a very sensible person who runs a multimillion $$ business and resent the tone that this transaction is taking. This is rude and it is not conducive to good communication. I am working from personal experience with selling large office buildings, small office buildings, and a jillion single family rental homes and never before have I been asked to provide leases prior to closing. This is a first."