All Forum Posts by: Timothy VanWingerden

@Vernon Trice III For rent payments I use Cozy.co which works great. They also have the option of mailing or dropping off a check where I work. 

I've used a couple of different form builders and all work pretty much the same: 123FormBuilder, SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, etc.

The maintenance request is just a simple form that provides contact information, description of problem, and drop down for category. That gets emailed to me, which I in turn forward onto a contractor. If it is not an urgent request, I will queue it for my handyman to complete at the end of the month so that if there is another request it can be taken care of in one service call. The nice part about this is now I have a paper trail with not much work involved on my part. 

Of course, as I scale this process would change a bit but it works for my size.

Since I only have 8 units, I'm not using any PM software. I use quickbooks for all the bookkeeping. It isn't the most intuitive but it keeps all the finances organized. And the reporting is pretty good.

 As for the property management tasks, I use online forms to keep things systematized. Maintenance requests are all online submissions, etc. 

Works on the small scale, as my portfolio grows I will look into software, but for the size that I am right now, I cannot justify the cost.

People are saying to just stop all communication with her, but I think since you’ve already given her a reason why she was denied, you should provide the follow up.

Act on her side by providing the PM contact and being willing to work with her.

“I’m very sorry about the prior reference. If you could contact the PM company provide the documentation of your payments and the move out condition report, along with a letter from the company, we will be able to continue processing your application.”

Now she can’t say she was “denied” and you are just waiting for her to provide the info so you can keep processing.

I would provide her with the contact information for the PM company. Have them send her the form. Tell her as soon as she has this issue resolved that you will be more than happy to continue processing her application, but in the meantime you will continue to show the property to other tenants.

I underestimated the time and money it would take. This applies to my first fixer-upper, as well as investment property. I thought I could take everything and convert it to a cost, but didn't account for the mental fatigue.

What I mean by mental fatigue is that with each step in the process, I was dealing with challenges that I have never before faced, and that was more stressful than I thought. 

Biggest struggle I would say the mental energy it takes to get the ball rolling and keep it rolling. Even though my first 2 deals have not been grand slams, it is great to look back at the past year to see how much I have learned along the way. 

I wouldn’t collect rent in person even though you live next door. You can have them put a check in your mailbox or just do an online payment. I use cozy.co and it’s great.

I should mention that around 30% of the prospects actually fill out the form. About 50% of those are qualified, the others I just send an email template telling them in generic terms that they were not qualified. Of the qualified group, around 50% are actually interested in viewing the property. 

I have any prospect first fill out a showing request form to be "qualified" for a showing before I schedule anything. This has helped a lot since it takes time to fill out a form and helps weed out those who aren't really interested. Once they fill out the form, I then use the data from the form to call them and schedule a showing. I also tell them I need to hear from them approximately 1 hour before the appointment that they are showing up and also inform them that multiple prospects will be scheduled at the same time. 

You can view the form here, but please don't fill it out :D

http://www.123formbuilder.com/form-4834531/my-form

+1 for cozy. Does PayPal charge any fees? I thought they did which is why I opted for cozy.

Figure out how much you can take out and what the monthly payment is going to be and then wait until you find the deal. You don't want to spend monthly payments on borrowed money that isn't giving you any return.