All Forum Posts by: Rick Bassett

Quote from @Luka Milicevic:

I actually learned this very early on in my investing career thanks to bigger pockets. I asked the question sometime in 2015 when I bought my first rental on what people do in the winter months and the response from someone was they adjust their lease period so the lease ends in spring/summer/fall. 

I thought that was absolute genius, and I've done that ever since. 

We probably read that advice around the same time and did the same. It worked well until recently, as we now have too many move-outs clustered around May 31, especially the academic rentals...it makes for a very long weekend.

A short version: our lease states only human waste, septic-safe toilet paper, and water should be flushed down a toilet (nothing else)...if there is a clog and we find anything else then the bill is theirs. We also explain this when we turn over the keys....but yet the struggle continues

This is an old thread, but we always reward our good tenants with a lease renewal at a reasonable increase. Santa brings coal for the rest.

We put nest thermostats in all of the furnished rentals where we pay the utilities; for the most part, they work pretty well, and have saved us quite a bit of money. Occasionally we have the same kind of problem with the power dropping. It usually has to do with the common wire from the HVAC unit to the thermostat. Sometimes the thermostat just goes bad, so we keep an extra one or two in stock in case we have to swap them out. 

We would not put one of these in any of our long-term rentals as others have mentioned it would be over improvement, and there is no benefit for us to do so. I also like one of the comments in this thread about removing garbage disposals; we always do that when they die or in between tenants. The same is true with refrigerators with water dispensers and icemakers; those puppies always get removed or swapped out as they are a never-ending source of service calls.

All, we do pretty thorough screening now once someone applies are we will catch them if they aren't telling the truth. The bigger issue now is to cut down the number of tire-kickers by potentially telling them upfront that we will require proof of rent. 

Nathan G - 2 of those are our properties, 6 homes on the market are about 20 less than the typical average

As of late, there seems to be a bumper crop of prospective tenants claiming that their reason for seeking a new rental unit is that their landlord is selling the property. Yet, the number of houses coming on the market in our area doesn't seem to match the volume of these claims. Also, a good number of these prospective tenants (not all though) are currently living in hotels.

Given the number of times that we have heard this over the past 30 - 60 days, we started wondering if the real reason has more to do with the recent ending of the eviction moratorium catching up with non-paying tenants. It is difficult to know for sure as landlords weren't able to file the typical eviction paperwork with the courts over the past 16-18 months that would normally be our source of public records.

We are now considering asking for proof of the last 2 - 3 months' rent payment (their rent receipts) when these red flags come up. Is anyone else doing this? 

As tempting as it's been to take money off the table, we've sold just 3 properties over the past 30 years. The first one we sold taught us the cold hard truth (and painful lesson) about federal & state capital gains taxes and depreciation recapture. We learned from that expensive lesson and did 1031's on the next 2 that we sold, a much better (but complicated and somewhat riskier) way to go. 

Even though these 3 properties had appreciated in value, we only sold them because we hated them for various reasons. We have had the opportunity to sell dozens more of our rentals at significantly higher prices but we like them and the numbers work so we continue to hold them. Instead of selling them we periodically refinance them and take our money out that way.

@Nathan G. Good advice but good luck trying to get a prospective property manager to spend that much time with you.

We are a small property management company here in Connecticut and owners often tell us that they like dealing with us simply because we actually pick up the phone and their return calls when they are looking for a PM, a pretty low bar.

Originally posted by @Joe Villeneuve:

Originally posted by @Rick Bassett:

1 - Don't know the 'why' and don't care. 

2- I don't appreciate having my work stolen from me...do you?

Your answer to number two tells me your answer for number one is wrong.

@Joe Villeneuve Your response tells me that this is a bigger deal for you than it is for me. It also reminds me why I took a break from participating/contributing to these forums. 

@Joe Splitrock not amazing text at all, pretty routine actually. Just some text about location of the property, community access, local housing/zoning rules and our lease terms. A new ad popped up on Z and was surprised to see our text word-for-word in it.