Our First Rental - Currently on an Oral Lease

[Corey Reyment]

Hi BP Community! We are really excited to be getting our first rental at the end of the month! That being said, we need some advice on how to handle some things. The current tenants are long term tenants in the bottom (its an upper/lower duplex) and they do all the snow removal and lawn care for the property. The upper unit is currently rented for $650 and the lower is $500 per month. The guy we are buying it from says he is only charging them $500 because they are good tenants and do the lawn care and snow.  

Our questions we have for the BP community - whats the best way to approach the tenants once we purchase the property? Also, we want to refi the property to BRRRR it and are purchasing it all cash but hoping to refi and get our money back out as soon as we can. We met with a bank who said the appraiser will look at the amount we are getting for rent to calculate some of the appraised value. We don't want to be the mean landlords who come in and jack the rent but we also want to get it to market standards and to get our value up for the appraisal. How would you handle them signing a lease and how would you go about getting them up to market rent? Also, do most duplex owners have the tenants do the lawn and snow?