All Forum Posts by: Alex T.

hi Carressa, if you want is a comps-based analysis then the information Caroline provided is your best bet. If, however, you want to analyze the region trends itself (based on the fact that you've said you're analyzing multiple deals), then a realtor may not be your best. We've actually been building a tool for similar use case you may find useful: investomation.com/map, it's kind of like NeighborhoodScout on steroids. If you need guidance on how to use it, feel free to DM me.

I have a tenant who's overdue on rent. To date they only owe April rent, but this has been an ongoing problem since the fall, when I purchased this property. Their previous overdue rent was covered by RAFT (they've actually managed to receive double the assistance of what they were entitled for from the city by applying twice and the city not noticing it). They keep promising me for over 6 months that they'll find a job, and they haven't even tried. At the same time, they're driving a $70K+ Porsche Cayenne (I'm stating this so you better understand where their priorities lie). I've also discovered that they're illegally renting one of my parking spots to some stranger.

I've initially served them with a regular 14-day notice on the 10th (figuring they won't come up with the money anyway as new fees keep stacking), and now I've found out that Massachusetts changed their laws once again. Effective April 1, a proper eviction must start with a notice to quit that has new city-approved wording claiming it's not an eviction and must come with several pages of additional paperwork from the city telling the tenant about their rights and the RAFT program (that they've already abused the hell out of). Because of this I need to serve them with a new notice, that follows new asinine regulation: https://malegislature.gov/Laws...

Just because logic rarely seems to prevail in MA landlord/tenant laws, and this state really seems to hate landlords, I want to make sure I'm not going to get screwed over because of an edge case they didn't think to mention in the laws. If I serve the tenant with up-to-date 14-day notice via constable tomorrow, it can legally only include April rent. Once May rolls around in 6 days, common sense dictates that May rent would need to be paid as well for tenant to cure the eviction, unless they pay in full BEFORE May 1. But since this is MA we're talking about, common sense goes out the window. I want to make sure that a tenant paying just the April (but not May) portion of the eviction in May does not cure/reset the notice just because the notice made no mention of the May rent?

Basically, does the tenant need to cure full amount of rent owed to date (in which case 14-day notice makes sense) or just the amount mentioned in the notice (in which case the notice is a joke and I'd be better off with 30-day notice)?

They said they would be if they could attach a letter from the other department to the file, but there is some bureaucracy going on between different departments. This seems to be a larger bank, that has multiple departments scattered across the US with quite a bit of red tape. While the loan intake department is understanding, they've asked that I at least provide a letter explaining the situation from the servicing department. The servicing department claims they have no authority to do so, and keeps creating work orders for yet another department that seems to be unresponsive.

How does Experian Boost work? I checked out their website, but don't understand how they can magically modify credit. Also, it seems like they mainly go by the FICO score, My FICO score is already at 732 but from what I understand, lenders use the lower score which came up as 699 on the last credit pull (last month).

I'm in the process of buying a triplex, where I'd be living in one of the units. Purchase price of $1.2 mil, I have W-2 + rental income sufficient for the loan, and I'm hoping to do 20% down, but may be able to do 25% (I would prefer not to). This would typically be a conventional jumbo loan, but while applying for one I noticed a problem I was not aware of earlier. Basically, last year I refinanced one of my existing properties, and a few months later I switched payments to autopay. I found out 2 months later that their autopay system was not actually charging my account (something they neglected to mention was that their autopay does not kick in until 2 months after, and in hindsight I should have double-checked it rather than trusting their autopay). I immediately made the account current, but they still dinged me with a 60-day delinquency and my credit score dropped from over 800 to 683.

I'm trying to get it fixed (was not aware that this got reported until I got the house under agreement, since earlier phone conversation this year said otherwise). I'm having a tough time getting their servicing department to look into this and reading more similar cases online I'm realizing that lenders are reluctant to issue corrections and I may be stuck with this problem. In the meantime, my credit score has only recovered to 699 so far (this happened only 4 months ago) and I need to close on this purchase I have under agreement. It seems like once your score falls below 700, most lenders don't want to touch you with a 10-foot pole, even if you had a spotless credit beforehand and all your other assets are in order. I also did not realize that a single item can hurt the credit this bad. 

I'm guessing I'm not the first or last person in this situation. Is there a lender that offers conventional (or similar) loans to people in my situation? I'm ok with higher interest rate as long as it's within reason, or a different type of loan I can refinance out of once my credit is repaired (either via dispute or by waiting for my credit to build itself back up). Seller has a loan too, I've asked them if they'd consider seller financing, they're still thinking about it.

@Dominic Kosteris you clearly have been brainwashed by identity politics and haven't read any of the actual posts in this thread where landlords explain concrete problems with Section 8 tenants they encountered in detail (that have nothing to do with race). Blaming 'racism' for everything is a political fad that started around 2013 and has only gotten worse.

@Amanda Bruneau ouch. Unfortunately there are more tenants than landlords voting and governments do what's popular, not what's ethical. It wouldn't be the first time in history a minority is stripped of their rights because that's what the masses want. As a landlord, you can only vote with your feet, that's why I stopped buying rentals in MA (I'm still holding on to my current ones here).

The neighborhoods I own properties in are Chelsea and Dorchester. Both have a high ratio of Section 8 tenants since both were undesirable prior to 2010 (I bought due to gentrification and being few areas that can still cash flow here). For screening I do eviction check, previous landlord references and employer. Admittedly, my worst Section 8 tenants I inherited with the properties when I bought them. More recently I started using real estate agents that collect 1 month fee from the tenant for placing them (it filters out many undesirable tenants because they won't have the funds), but you have to double-check these tenants themselves too. Agents don't always do a thorough background check but they will check tenant's credit score, which is a good indicator of whether the tenant respects the rules or sees them more as suggestions.

Yes, so far I've had 10 Section 8 tenants and one "almost tenant", and here is the breakdown:

- 3 evictions (lots of damage for each, 1 ran up my water bill up to $20,000, other left a pitbull and 3 cats behind for whom I had to call animal control and move her stuff to government-approved storage, which cost me around $5,000 not counting repair costs). To be fair, one of these evictions was my Chicago property, where evictions are a little better than Massachusetts.

- 1 cash for keys (basically a cheaper alternative to eviction), this was a professional tenant for whom this was a plan from the beginning

- 1 drug addict who left voluntarily for fear of having her voucher taken away (lots of property damage and 2 broken windows from when one of her friends overdosed on something)

- 1 lady who illegally sublet my apartment to a drug dealer (there was an FBI raid in that apartment about 3 months after she moved)

- 1 "handyman" tenant who never had money to pay his share of rent but always volunteered to do repairs, most of his repairs ended up being temporary mickey-mouse repairs that ended up costing me more in the end, in the end he and his wife left with almost $4000 in unpaid back rent

- 1 lady who always had sketchy visitors over including a "friend" who supposedly had a slip and fall accident on my porch and is still suing my insurance company over it

- Almost tenant threw a tantrum because I asked for a co-signer since security deposit was not coming from her own funds, she complained to MCAD (Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination) because I supposedly discriminated against her by asking for a co-signer when I wouldn't have asked for one if the security deposit came out of her own funds. MCAD has quotas to fill to justify being paid out of your tax dollars, if you look at their cases (they advertise their "wins" on their website) they exclusively go after mom and pop landlords who don't have the budget to fight them in court (they typically encourage you to "settle" (extortion) and claim that "justice has been served"), never after large property management companies that would deplete MCAD budget in court, a slimy tactic to justify their existence.

- 2 good tenants who paid rent on time and I haven't had issues with (1 still rents from me).

Out of my regular tenants (9 so far), I've only had 1 problematic tenant. I do the same background checks for both groups (by the way there are "second-chance" organizations that will "clean" the records of Section 8 tenants, making it look like they have a good history). I don't know how/if they deal with court records, but they do bribe previous landlords into giving good references. These organizations are effectively committing fraud but because of supposed "good intentions" they get away with it). As you can see, only 2/11 of my Section 8 tenants can be classified as "quality" tenants in the same exact area where 8/9 market tenants are good.

Anyone claiming Section 8 tenants are no different from regular tenants either has an agenda or is ignorant and has never been a landlord.

In Massachusetts it's illegal to refuse Section 8, however, as someone who has been renting to both market and Seciton 8 tenants since 2016, I have very negative experience with Section 8. On average they're definitely NOT as qualified as market tenants. The author, and those who haven't dealt with Section 8, are naive for thinking that they are. Here is my experience with Section 8 in MA:

1. They see the lease terms as "suggestions" rather than "rules", often getting illegal pets, paying rent late (sometimes not paying it at all or playing stupid claiming that they thought Section 8 already paid for them). They will damage your walls/doors by slamming them when they get in fights with each other and claim it was "like that to begin with".

2. They expect to be pampered. They know the laws, they know how to play victim and will often play that card against you when convenient for them. I had a lady who would routinely get in fights with her boyfriend, and after he or she would damage doors by kicking them they'd expect me to fix it for free. When confronted, she would call inspections department to complain.

3. They don't value your property (see bullet above) and will damage it. Moreover, their damage will often exceed the security deposit (if you can collect it from them at all). There are also agencies that will pay security deposit for them (so they have no skin in the game).

4. There is a lot of drama. If they don't get along with their neighbors (or neighbors confront them about noise or disorderly conduct), they will text you with a frivolous accusation about the tenant in question. Similarly, if you don't side with them, they will escalate with a frivolous accusation to the housing authority. The housing authority will typically side with the tenant because that's how their rules are written and those bureaucrats do't care about you. In their eyes you're guilty until proven innocent.

5. Housing authority often does not respect you or your property rights. They will force their own lease on you, completely ignoring yours. Their lease protects themselves, not you. This practice may be unique to MA (and in my opinion should be illegal).

6. They're treated as a protected class by courts. Evicting them is a nightmare and can take years. That's a years of stress, reduced rents (because you'll only be collecting rent from housing authority), tenant retaliation (damage, running your water 24/7, frivolous inspection calls, they get very creative when they have so much free time due to being unemployed, as is often the case). One tenant I evicted ran up $20,000 water bill. Would you want a tenant like that?

7. Similar to previous bullet, they get a free attorney in court (at least in Massachusetts). You do not. That means they're interested in dragging out that case for as long as possible, meanwhile you're trying to get them out before it costs you tens of thousands.

8. They are extremely good at playing the victim card. They will bring their entire family to court, as well as a mandatory crying baby that's not even theirs to get the judge to sympathize with them. Even if you win in court, the judge will often ask you to make multiple concessions, such as giving them extra time to find new housing ans/or paying the security deposit + first month rent for them for the new landlord (so that the cycle continues).

9. The courts are extremely inefficient, and they have no motivation to improve because it costs YOU money, not them. Courts will stall the case for months (and this is pre-COVID) encouraging you to "settle" with the tenant instead of going through with the eviction. This is basically government-facilitated extortion, where you'll pay several thousand dollars to get the tenant to leave so they're not holding your property hostage.

Not all Section 8 tenants are like this, but majority are, avoiding Section 8 is one of the easiest ways to minimize landlord headaches and expenses. And this won't change until the government stops being blind to these issues.

I've worked with a couple different lenders in the past and found that combination of multi-family and cash-out tends to be tricky. Some lenders don't do it at all, others require lower LTV for multi-family (even as primary residence). My most-recent lender was great initially when I started working with them several years ago, but seems to have gotten worse. With the most recent refinance, their underwriter took 4.5 months to approve the loan. There was one minor sticking point which contributed to the delay (but was not the main reason for it): I applied for COVID-relief forbearance with one of the properties to de-risk my ability to pay mortgage when a couple tenants weren't able to make payments. All of the forbearance has been repaid and the loan is once again current. However, the refinance itself ultimately fell through due a house fire that happened 1 day prior to approval.

To make long story short, while working with insurance to rebuild my primary residence, I moved back into my earlier-purchased triplex (I owned 2 triplexes in the city prior to the fire). There is about $200-300k equity in it I would like to pull out, and since this place is now my new primary residence for at least the next 2+ years, I want to cash-out refinance it at 80% LTV. Based on my situation, here are potential issues I would like to avoid:

1. slow underwriter that will take several months to process a refinance (like my most recent lender)

2. banks that don't do 80% LTV on multi-family, even as primary residence

3. underwriter who may refuse to approve post-forbearance, even if completely repaid (I heard that some banks attach negative connotation to forbearance, regardless if it's COVID-related or not, regardless if it's been repaid or not)

Other than the issues mentioned above, I don't foresee any other problems. I have a stable W-2 that's enough to qualify me for the refinance by itself, as well as rental income, and over a year of cash reserves. Can someone recommend a lender?

Thanks

I have 2 triplexes near Boston that I self-manage. I've put in a lot of money into renovations mainly because initially it was non-stop repair calls. I now have new bathrooms, new boilers, new water tanks and yet I still keep getting frequent plumbing issues. Now as the winter is approaching I got 2 calls in 1 week about boilers that are refusing to start. Both of these boilers are about 3-4 years old.

Being an engineer by trade, I first decided to look at them myself in case it's something trivial. Neither problem was straight forward. I called several plumbing/heating companies and many were booked until next week. One suggested signing up for their service plan ($20/month per apartment) which includes one annual boiler checkup prior to the winter to avoid issues like mine and small discount on regular plumbing services (50% off of service call charge of $95 and 10% off labor costs after).

Is this something you guys would recommend? If not, do you manually service/clean your boilers annually to avoid these issues in the fall and manually call the plumber on case-by-case basis? I don't see this brought up much on the forums, but if even new furnaces have issues occur annually, I don't see how this would scale for people with more rentals.