All Forum Posts by: Alinda Saffell

I sense a perfect storm coming for mom and pop landlords in the area.  I'm not really surprised that there is political movement around affordable  housing in this area.  It has been tough for lots of people in this area for some time.

Last year there was a "temporary" cap set on rent increases.  Some of us apparent should have been raising rents a lot more, a lot more OFTEN, because the cap is almost insulting - limited to 3 percent per year.

I just read that the legislature in the County expects to make the cap permanent, I believe still at the 3 percent level.  

All I can imagine is a lot of blight hitting many rental units when the costs to maintain rise beyond the capacity to finance that maintenance.  

Just wondering if anyone has talked with some of the County Council staff or if agents in the area are considering it (it's already hard to find a PM company in this area).

Quote from @Calvin Thomas:

  I've only heard about NARPM here on BP; which isn't saying a lot.

Ah, but there are some of us on BP who are real estate investors/owners, and who are interested in finding good property management options.  I'm one, and I just hugely expanded my prospects to consider, so I guess some of us "self-refer."

I have inherited Money Order tenants, and had a PM who lived in walking distance of one property, who retired a couple years ago.  I haven't done the remittance slip thing, no.  One tenant is used to delivering the rent payment personally.  The other now just mails the MOs, though we tried meeting for the transaction at a mutually convenient store. 

My banks don't yet do Zelle or whatnot, and my tenants probably would not either - when they're unbanked my bet is they aren't going to do electronic payments either.

I inherited a couple SF houses as rental properties with tenants, and I want to be more pro-active in managing them in 2024.  I neglected to start this practice after the retirement of my PM, and I regret it (minor plumbing problem has turned into bathroom remodel $$$ - poorer and wiser now I hope).

If you self manage, what suggestions do you have that work well to help keep track of the condition of major systems or minor malfunctions?  Any tips about how to effectively keep the lines of communication clear and open with tenants?  One of my tenants works ALL THE TIME so I might wind up talking to his elderly father more often than not.

Thanks in advance!!

I would agree that a great PM is a great investment. For years I had a quite good one, with RE chops and local access to some of my properties. She decided to retire (at over 90 years of age!) a few years ago. I wish I could find her like again! Although it's true most SFR are pretty placid, the times when they are not are definitely anxiety-inducing, I agree.

I have a handyman who is looking to do some investing, himself, and he's done repairs and maintenance here on my residence, and I trust him a lot.  That's a real asset.  So I do think that when you have a maintenance man (or team) that you have high confidence in, that soothes the anxiety.  It's not quite enough to make up for self managing but, it's a good short-term move

BOTH of these can be hard to find and retain, though.  I hope you can find both, or at least one, to help you out.  I have family members who are in similar situations to yours and I really feel for you!

I'm reforming my ways for 2024 (having self-managed now for a year or so) and regular inspections are a high priority for me now, especially with one property.  This comes after just getting through a major bathroom remodel that maybe could have been just some minor plumbing alterations, if one of the tenants in the unit had maintained the facilities and alerted the previous property manager of any problems!  This particular tenant seems to be slovenly while the others are clean and neat.  There's some friction among the tenants here, but it didn't dawn on me to keep an eye out on the entire house.  Duh!

Hey there,  I've got long term tenants also, though I feel fortunate we have neither carpeting nor smokers for tenants!  I wouldn't like such a passive-aggressive tenant, smoker or non.  I suspect that if she is prickly now, she won't eventually get sweeter.  I'm with the non-renew camp.  I've got similar long-term reno and maintenance I feel is coming up and will be non-renewing some of my tenants, too.  A lot of things go south over 15 years!

Quote from @Dan Thomas:

@Alinda Saffell

I highly reccomend staying away from stessa. It was great a couple years ago. They created a paid version and took away a bunch of their features unless you paid for it. I would have paid for it but my accounts all got unlinked, I lost years of transactions and you literally can't get a person on the phone to help...it is all AI chat bots. Tried for 6 weeks to fix it, gave up and paid for qbo....well worth it in my opinion. The fact that humans don't exist to help you when there is an issue with stessa is extremely inconvenient and infuriating.

Thank you Dan Thomas for the warning.  I guess I will make sure to get my data OUT ASAP!  What a shame they bait and switched their users.

Listening -

I lost a great PM about 2 years ago.  For the first year things went along pretty smoothly, although, to be frank, both my rentals are in areas not particularly considered "hot markets" by any means.  That is to say, I only have modest profits because both are paid off.  THIS year, one of the properties is having real problems, and they create such complications that TBH I really don't know how to proceed.  (Nobody on BP talks about unbanked people, disabled/elderly renters, and such, which these are).  I'm trying to identify a capable PM firm now but I'm expecting to have bigger PM costs than I'd have had, if I had immediately engaged a company instead of trying to self-manage.

Just a cautionary tale for your consideration.

I just, this week, started using Stessa - which I learned about from another BP discussion.  I recommend at least taking a quick look at it, I don't know whether it will handle 7 properties (I don't have that many active) but I bet it does.