All Forum Posts by: Angela Palchowski

I provide blinds in my rentals and never curtains. I also have verbiage in my lease that prevents tenants from nailing sheets to the walls as well (not sure if that is an issue in your area but in my area a lot of renters put "make shift" curtains up which are just old bedsheets and it is not a good look for the building). 

That is awesome! I am from the other side of Pittsburgh and it's good to hear that people are getting deals around the city! Congrats! 

I found a home in my neighborhood that I like a lot and want to buy for an owner occupied deal. It is $95k and could use about $50k in repairs. I could flip this house and put it on the market for around $240k afterwards with a nice profit, however, I am only interested in living in it at this point and would plan to sell it in 3-5 years. I do not qualify for a traditional mortgage due to about 1/2 of my income not being on my taxes. I am looking for a lender who would either a) loan the purchase price and I could fix it up with my own money or b) could loan on purchase price and repairs. I have about $15-20k in cash that I'm willing to use on this deal. I've done a lot of research and am well aware that this is a tall order. Another option could possibly be to use a regular HML for a fix and flip but only if I could ultimately buy (refinance) it for myself after 6 months (which would give me time to make more $$ to get in a better position). Note- I am not interested in having a co-signer. Any thoughts on this? I am a strong believer that if there is a will there is a way...and I will figure this out one way or another.

@Kevin Sobilo buyers are the ones paying for the inspection report. Sellers and sellers agent are not permitted to be there without permission from the buyer. Also, the buyer doesn’t need to send the sellers the report after. I fully agree that agents should be able to point out those things such as termite damage, etc. If an agent as minimal experience it is their responsibility to learn those things before showing house. I’m just not putting myself in the middle of a court appearance because I was a witness to the home inspection when the buyer either sues the seller or the inspection company down the road. I can 100% do my job and represent my client without attending the home inspection. After the inspection I go over the entire report with them and answer any questions they have in regards to selling or buying real estate. 

I NEVER attend inspections. I will go and greet everyone and make sure everything gets going and to make the buyers feel comfortable but I hardly ever walk around with the inspector. It is a major liability for an agent because the buyer will come back and say "do you remember what the inspector said about XYZ, it's not in the report" etc. I help them through the transaction every step of the way but will not take on any form of liability when it comes to home inspections. 

@Nathan Gesner 

My maintance tech changed the locks (we had 2 vacant apartments next door to each other and the apt next door moved out of state and turned in their keys and he got the units confused and changed the wrong locks; I just found out)

Also, yes we advertise ourselves also and have a lot of trouble finding tenants during the winter. We are in an area of town with a few universities and most of our tenants are grad students or young professionals who always move in/out during summer. This is why our leases are structured during the summer months. If we were 15 minutes away in another part of town this wouldn't be in issue. 

We have 3 empty apartments in this building and she is the first one on the list for us to fill if we get an interested prospect. The problem is that all of our prospects are looking for summer move in dates-- this helps us fill our 2018-2019 leases but doesn't help fill her apartment for right now. 

I am a property manager in Pittsburgh, PA and I have a tenant who vacated an apartment in December but didn't tell me they moved until February (our lease states that the only way they can break a lease is if they find a tenant to replace them and pay a $350 lease break fee). They never gave me a forwarding address or anything but they still pay rent every month. My maintenance guy knew the apartment was empty and went ahead and changed the locks to get the new key on the master system but left the door unlocked incase anyone came back. The tenant came by yesterday to show the apartment to prospect tenants and found that her key doesn't work and was irate when she called the emergency line to get in, the maintenance tech told her to turn the handle and that is is unlocked, and now she is also angy that her door isn't locked. She said the prospect tenant is now wary of taking over the lease because of the current tenant having the locks changed without being notified and she wants to be compensated. I don't think this is considered abandonment because she is still paying rent and utilities, but I had no forwarding address or anything. What can I do?  She wants to be able to get out of the lease because she said us changing the locks on her cost the prospect not to sign and is going to cost her a few more months of rent. Side note, in this area we only do leases in the summer time for start and end dates because it is VERY hard to find tenants outside of June-August.