All Forum Posts by: Yulia J.

Mindy @Mindy Jensen! I would love love love working with you! Part-time, full-time, you name it. Love real estate + love programming. I am a full-time software developer/IT person, I work remotely for a well established company, and I am an investor on the side. I am in the Microsoft stack right now. Being a smart gal, I can learn Ruby, Rails, and Ruby on Rails no problem. I am in IL though, I can travel some, but would prefer to keep working remotely! 

1. $$$, that's the 1st thing they look at in the ad. Is it possible to reconsider the monthly income req't? 2.5 X rent maybe? Security deposit too high. Credit check fee -  I reimburse it if I rent to them and make sure to mention it in the ad.

2. From my experience, many potential renters ignore "no pets, no smokers" parts of the ad. If they want the property, they will still call and come and ask if a couple of kittens would be still OK. 

Make it ready to move in and more desirable.  Fridge (a must), dishwasher, washer/dryer, window treatments. Clean up a bit (plastic and wires on a window, a pile in the back yard, the old toilet looks dirty underneath) . Take clear pictures of the house without water drops on the camera. 

Thank you!

I forgot to mention we live in one of the units of our property.

We inherited 2 tenants last year. Their lawyer provided us a letter stating that so and so are new owners and please pay rent to them now. We got all we could from the seller which was not much, some old applications, not even leases. Renters were m2m in thin air:) So first we did was introduced ourselves, dropped lawyer's letters in their mailboxes. In one month we asked the tenants to complete new applications and told them we were increasing the rents (their rents were waaay low) and what we planned to do to the property in terms of improvements.all in writing of course and following the laws as for the timelines. Then we signed leases with them.I googled information about landlording beforehand.I also bought a landlord kit at Staples.We didn't do any criminal or other checks for these tenants because they were very long term with no issues and had paid on time.

@Cenddie Alaban , accept my admiration for homeschooling your kids! I get it about the noise, well, maybe the tenants go to work during the day;) 

I have 2 kids, and we live in 1 unit of our 3-flat. As somebody already mentioned, duplexes and other multi's come in different shapes and forms. Our 3-flat has one 2-story front unit (where we live) which is separated by stairwells from the rest of the units - the other 2 ones are stacked on top of each other. So we don't share walls or ceilings or floors with our tenants. My kids are very noisy, but the noise was the least of my concerns when I was looking for a property. Kids don't spend all day at home, they are at school. on the weekends we go somewhere so overall the noise is not a concern at all. How many times we house-hack and which school area we will end up - that's important as well as, of course, cash flow, exit strategies, desirability of the area, safety, access to the train, etc 

Alla, I know that GC Realty manages properties in Chicago. We work with them. They have an office in Chicago and in Bartlett. http://www.gcrealtyinc.com/ Mark Ainley was one of the guests on BP podcasts. 

Add show removal and grass cutting if any. How about garbage removal? Are there any common areas - stairs, etc? If yes, who pays for the electricity and heat in there? 

We pay about $1,300 a year for the water for our 3-flat (Chicago suburb), $60/month for garbage removal.

@Meghan McCallum , I totally get it! It's smart to know what's going on.