All Forum Posts by: Alyssa Wright

Hello John! 

I happen to work with quite a few experienced realtors who are looking to take on and help more investors grow their portfolio! I can even get you in touch with some renovation teams and PM if you're interested in that!

I'll send you an message with some more information :) 

Our assistant property manager, Julie would be a great person to connect with as we are also based in Pennsylvania, so hello from Pittsburgh! I'll send you her contact information! 

You have some great options here for sure! Another option to consider may be to offer referral bonuses as well to try to fill up vacancies even faster. Something that we've done in the past as well is offer credits for anyone who left a review as well!

Were you thinking of doing short-term and long-term or just long-term leases? 

As other people have mentioned, you have already done more than a lot of landlords would do to support the tenant, not in a bad way! 100% have your tenant go through their renter's insurance as well as I would make sure the insurance company is notified that the repairs are already underway, they have received a rent discount, and you covered a placement for a hotel. 

Online rent payment is the best way to go in my opinion! Especially with it being a reliable way for both the landlord and the tenant to keep track of their ledger.

In terms of exterior, I agree when it comes to multis but typically we put it on the tenants for single-family residences to be responsible for up-keep. A cool thing to offer though is if a tenant in a multi-offers to cut the grass instead of a vendor and just allowing them a credit per grass cut. 

I've never considered laundry timeslots before but it is a really great idea and definitely something that I think a lot of PM's & landlords could benefit from utilizing. 

Overall, these suggestions are great, easy to implement, and cost effective! 

Quote from @Michela Adrian:

Wow thanks for all of the advice! I really appreciate it. 

To answer your question Alyssa: no there were no problems with ventilation prior, she was just worried that there was mold in the fan. 

I was able to get back to condo today to look at the dishwasher. The tenant has run a few cleaning cycles and it is much cleaner however they also have taken it apart and found that there is mold in the drain area (see photo, sorry it is kind of gross). The dishwasher works fine. Should I replace it due to this kind of mold? Or get a professional cleaner? Let me know what you think. Thank you!

 Is it possible to just have the moldy portion of the drain replaced without replacing the entire dishwasher? If not, I would still recommend going ahead with a professional cleaning company that has experience with mold remediation (make sure they send before and after pictures as well), if you really wanted you could give a small credit to the tenant to make them happy as well but 100% not required. 

Hello!

One of the strategies that my property management team currently does to try to generate more PM leads is that we send out mailers to any expired and sold multi-units on the MLS. This does take a good amount of time as well as constantly having to buy mores stationary.

I wanted to see if anyone else is still using this method or has used it in the past and what their experience with it was. I feel like it's safe to assume that when most people see the letter in the mail it just goes straight in the trash anyway. 

I still post all of our companies rentals on Craigslist and I love it! Sure the site is a little out-dated in appearance but it is so user-friendly and although it isn't my highest producing lead source, I do tend to get very strong leads from there and no spam so far. 

Personally I truly hate using Apartments for posting any listings. We have a free plan so we can only post a few properties at a time and none with more than 5 units. Apartments for me, is not user friendly at all, it almost crashes every time I touch the unit photos, and it will approve my listing then deny and unpost it a week later. Their filter is way to strong as well as you cant say if a property is not accepting section 8 and can't use the word glass. 

I agree with Nathan here! You may also want to look into what Section 8's rates are if they will only pay a certain amount of rent based on bedroom count. Typically, most Section 8 properties in PA are mid-grade rentals and they do go very quickly. Every so often you will find a higher end Section 8 property but it's not as common. 

Overall, I would definitely make sure the property is in good condition, clean, and isn't super outdated. But I wouldn't go breaking the bank on anything there especially if you wouldn't see a drastic increase of what Section 8 may be willing to assist the tenant with. 

My only concern with shower doors is that I've found that most tenants don't properly clean it as they are a bit harder to get into the tracks and everything so there may be a bit more mildew/soap scum build-up than what you would see with a curtain.