All Forum Posts by: Bienes Raices

Someone came to see the place and they want to use their child's SSDI payments as part of the income to qualify for the rental. I have taken an applicant on SSDI before but have never heard of someone trying to do this. Do I have to accept this? I have not run an app yet--she just came to see the place today. Thanks.

Thanks, I think I am going to stick with money orders. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Sorry I am responding so late to my own thread.

I'd like to add that you can still have unstable people, felons, etc. come to view the place even if it's not in a bad neighborhood, so don't let your guard down.

I have been taking money orders for the first month's rent and the SD, but now I have heard that someone can give you a money order and then go to the issuer immediately and (fraudulently) claim it was lost to void it. I don't know if this is true or not. This person was saying that you should only accept cash. I have also heard someone else say that you should only take a cashier's check.

Should I change to cash only? And if you do, are you supposed to use one of those pens to make sure it's not counterfeit?

I haven't had any issues with them so far, except for them trying to sell me products (they called me on Sat morning trying to get me to do their home protection plan for $44/month -- um, no thanks!). I mail a check instead of doing an autopay because at least it seems like I have more of a paper trail if something goes wrong.

Thanks again Dan. I hope it continues to go smoothly for you.

My tenant has corrected the latest problem so we'll see what happens. Part of this was my fault, I was too "hands off" with this particular property. I'm doing drive bys several times a week now to see if something is amiss there.

Alex I think the problem is that, although the tenant may not know the specifics of your situation (mortgage being upside down), she knows on some level that she has you over a barrel (or that you think she does), so the behavior is likely to continue.

For the bank accounts:

For the houses I own in my own name I deposit all the rent checks into the same account, and have a separate account for those security deposits. For the one property I own in an LLC I have totally separate accounts for main and sec. deposit. I don't see the point of opening separate accounts for each prop unless you own each one in a different entity.

@Dan C.

Thanks--are they out now? Did it go smoothly? Damage?

@Gary Clark I'm glad...and I don't think it will take you 50 showings--my case was a bit extreme (at least I hope so) because it was right after Xmas so all I was attracting were recent evictees and other duds--I've been told by another LL in my area that almost no one qualified moves at that time of year, plus there was some issues with the property which I corrected.

If the property is decent, as you state, I think the issue may be the price. Experiment by dropping it in $25 increments over the coming weeks.