All Forum Posts by: Suzie B.

We watch Craigslist, our local facebook housing, Zillow, and occasionally call when we see rental signs if they are in neighborhoods that we have a rental in.

If you bought a duplex, why not go ahead and move into one side and rent the other? Let your tenant pay the bills while you stack away cash while you are young and willing to work those kinds of hours.

It would allow you to save the $950 a month you are paying in rent every month, plus, allow you to continue to save as you already are... making your bank account grow faster so you can buy another sooner if you so choose to. (After you have plenty saved up for possible repairs and vacancy, of course).

I think the water heater is the only thing I would worry about changing right now for the age of it.

You might want to do a good cleaning on the fridge and dryer to rid them of any dust or lint that can cause fires.

Otherwise, unless you are in a higher end rental unit or want to be at the higher end of rent for the area, I would leave them.

Wow... luckily our tenants haven't left money in a windshield wiper. Typically ours will call on their way over to the house. If we aren't there, but are going to be there soon, we tell them a safe place to put it.

We don't typically remind tenants about their rent check. I know what day my mortgages are due, yes I have a payment book for them, but I have to remember... same should work for them. No one used to remind me when I was a renter.

If we do find we have someone who tends to not pay in a timely manner, I can generate an automatic email every month to those tenants as a reminder.

For our rentals, I like to find used when we can. We have even had a family member offer us their glass top stove for free when she upgraded because she knew we did rentals and didn't want the hassle of Craigslist.

We try to find nicer used appliances when we can and have only had bad experiences with washer/dryer units. One simply wasn't working as it should when we bought it. The second we bought from the Habitat store (30 day warranty which gave us time to see if it worked ok) and it had a switch that needed repair... ended up being a great buy as that set was front load he.

I have been tempted to buy new, but we always fall into good buys on used right when we need them.

Most of ours mail their rent checks. A couple of them know where we live and let us know when they will drop their checks by.

I have considered doing some kind of online payment, but haven't decided yet. Would be nice to have it automatically go through our software when it is collected.

I don't like the idea of them dropping their payment off at our bank. I don't want them to have our account information, or have the ability to do a partial payment without my ok. I also think it would be difficult to track if you had too many rentals that were close in amounts.

I would agree... do your due diligence before jumping into this one.

I think you need to be careful in how you handle this. Do you need to have a formal document that states new lease term and $$.. Yes. Doing so with talks about lawyers and such comes across as you are on your last straw and that she has done something to terribly upset you. You don't want her to have a grudge against you.

I suggest you talk to her about some options. Honor her request for the 1 yr lease with a $50 a month rent increase, or offer her the request at the same lease amount she currently pays with a damage deposit due upon signing the new lease. .. Just a couple of ideas.

Making a tenant upset that will be living in your unit for another 11 months is not the best approach. That gives her a lot of time to abuse your property, not report problems, not take care of it if she so chooses. You want to keep her happy without letting her feel like she gets everything she asks for.

I tend to agree. I understand your urgency to get started. I hesitate when it means borrowing money so that you can borrow money.

We also like to look at a rental property through the eyes of a tenant. Is it clean enough? Is it safe?

We want to have smoke detectors where they should be. A carbon monoxide detector if there is a gas appliance in the home. A window in every bedroom. Are there any obvious trip or safety hazards inside or outside?

Also, is there anything that will likely need attention in the short term. Take care of it before it is rented so you don't have to schedule with a tenant to do the work.