All Forum Posts by: Andrew Hughes

Great topic. How far in advance do you start looking for tenants for the next year? I have one college rental near Akron U. The leases are good until August 2018. I was thinking of asking the current tenants in February if they want to stay and if not start marketing the house then.

Faiz, as of now I am still self managing. 

I am currently closing on a house near the University of Akron that is used for student housing. It is leased through August of 2018. My goal was to self manage for a while. From looking around the area it looks like every other property is managed by a property management company that specializes in student rentals. My worry is that when it comes time to fill my property with new students that I will be at a huge disadvantage competing against these management companies. Is this a legit concern or should it not be an issue as long as I am aggressive in marketing the property?

Jill I will send you a pm.

I am a police officer in Akron Ohio. I enjoy it quite a bit.

Jill I am actually one of the officers that responded to this overdose yesterday. Very sorry you are going through this.  Sadly it is quite an epidemic in North East Ohio.

I own  one 4 unit property that I have had for five months and have been managing myself, mainly for the experience and because this property seems easier to manage than most would be. Everything has been going really well with this property.

I am currently closing on my second property. I plan to self manage this for a while as well but I know that as I scale I will need property management. Most companies seem to want 10 percent of the rent, which is fine. They also seem to want the entire first month's rent when they place a tenant. This is the sticking point for me. The goal is to have long term tenants and to me this would give the management company an incentive to turn the units as often as possible.  For people that use managers is this an issue?  I worry that this system makes it more profitable for a management company to do a bad job than a good one. 

JD Martin It's funny you say that... Once I smoothed it over she said she still will need to leave when the lease is up because she said she can't afford the rent.

Thank you for your responses.  There was not a no smoking policy. I talked to him and he said he gets randomly drug tested for work and would not smoke marijuana because of that. I thought it could have been coming from outside but my other tenant was adamant it wasn't. Either way it seems smoothed over now 

I have had my first property, which is a 4 unit, for 5 months. Everything has been perfect so far. My tenants are two guys that have been there for over 30 years, an elderly lady, and a mid 20s male. All four have been great, paid rent early, and cause no problems.

Today the lady sent me a text saying she smelled marijuana in the young man's apartment and wants to leave because of this. They have lived next to each other for ten months and she said this is the first time it has been an issue. She asked to be let out of her lease early, which I said no to. I told her I would discuss the issue with the other tenant.  

My questions are first how binding is the lease? She didn't make an issue out of it, but if she just left early what would my recourse be? Also I don't care at all about the other tenant smoking marijuana as long as it doesn't bother the other tenants. He is a quiet guy that keeps to himself so other than this issue he is a model tenant. How should I go about addressing this issue with him? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.