All Forum Posts by: Allan Smith

Everything in here so far is very true. Heed their advice. 

a stern letter is make believe. It does nothing. Send eviction letter.

it should not have gone this long. Them owing you 2.6k means it's been going on for multiple months. It shouldn't go more than 2 weeks.

the tenant is stringing you along. Time to take back control of the situation! ....and hire a prop mgr haha.

I mean this in a gentle way, but prop mgmt might not be for you. The emotional fortitude required only gets more difficult from here. Just wait until they have a great story on why they can't pay rent! It's VERY hard to file eviction. 

We (forum) don't have the contract, so that part is up to you, but no you shouldn't owe the realtor a penny. Their job is to sell your house and they did not do that.

Cleanable and durable furniture is the key. Facebook marketplace will be the best deals. A lot of hassle tho.

We've used Encode for 2 years. Works good, but hospitable.com had integration issues. The lock itself does its job tho.

Taxes and insurance are such a small portion of rental expenses. They'd have to go up 300% to outpace a rent increase 2% or whatever.

for example, in chattanooga I have rentals where insurance is usually around $600/yr. 50/mo. They rent for say $1200/mo. 

so a 10% increase in insurance is only $5. Rent can match this with only a .004% increase.

I would put this back on the hoa. If there's nowhere to park they should pay for the parking. Part of your HOA fees is to have access to the garage. The hoa's insurance would probably cover this.

I know in Tennessee there are quite a few hard money lenders who will do 95% of cost, one or two will even do 100% of cost. This is all under the condition that you are buying it at a decent enough discount. The repairs plus the purchase price need to be no more than 75% of the exit price, known as the after repair value.

My advice would be to set goals based on why you want to get into real estate, and then search the forums and internet for information that helps you get to those goals.

I am excited for this mega thread.