All Forum Posts by: JR T.

If you are expecting your real estate investments to work like a bank account (i.e. passive) be prepared for a big letdown. Landlording is very hard work you that have to buy an expensive asset to have the privilege of doing. 

In practice tenants rarely sue. If they actually get in the courthouse door nothing prevents you from calling them up and trying to settle their claim outside of court. Most tenants will do this as opposed to risking court with no attorney. 

 I suspect that part of your motion detector is a lens that controls the way in which beams are transmitted and reflected back. No lens it's busted. Just withhold the cost of a new one. You didn't discover that damage in a vacuum the tenant knows exactly what happened to your equipment.

@Thomas S. In Maryland we regularly bill our labor for any tenant responsibility issues at $55/hour. That rate is higher than we pay for the work to be done. It's our policy and we haven't run into issues. Going into court well prepared is important - we show up with a clear recitation of the facts, lots of pictures and professional invoices.

BiggerPockets is 100% the content produced by a bunch of random people brainstorming about real estate. Probably more than half of the people who post in these forums have never owned a piece of real estate. If you want a more collegiate atmosphere I suggest joining the multi-unit/apartment association in Canada. They'll have forums where everyone is the real deal. 

If your rental property is in Maryland, you'll want access to the Corelogic eviction database which you can get through myrental.com 

Evictions in Maryland are not docketed which means you can't discover them by searching Casesearch or calling the courthouse with a name. Other screening services may not provide coverage in areas lacking electronic case records (everywhere in MD except Prince Georges County). 

Court clerks in two counties have confirmed to me that a Corelogic rep is in their office once per week to input all the new filings manually into their database. There is no other company seen with such regularity (per the clerks). Because I've heard the same story two places and the search is only $8 per applicant I screen every applicant through that database and boy has it saved me some headaches! 

@Cristie Bryan Just ignore the applicant you declined. When they contact you to follow up simply say, "I'm sorry but we approved another applicant for that property. Thank you for your interest." 

If they put up a fight about the fees tell them, "the fees are what it actually costs to screen you and we did perform the screening; however, the property was leased to another applicant."

If you delined them because of something that came back in reports you bought about them you need to send them your service provider's declination letter giving them an opportunity to get a copy of the report and correct any errors. Every screening service has model approve and decline letters.

Your job as a landlord is to approve the best-qualified applicant, period. Don't feel bad about doing a good job.

@Karla Talancon If you put clearly in your MLS listing "OWNER FINANCING AVAILABLE," you'll have more financing proposals than you care to deal with. Of course the owner has to have the capacity to make the loan.

If the buyer needs 15 years to repay $50k I'd avoid the deal or offer them a five year deal, fully amortizing. This buyer smacks to me of one who is drunk on making bad real estate and loan deals. I'd assume he's offering me 8% and a 3 year balloon because no bank would touch him with a bargepole.

Any default should trigger you getting the property back. Your title company will prepare a Deed of Trust which is your security for the mortgage. I would require them to carry insurance and to list you as an additional insured. Everything is buyer responsibility. 

In the deal I purchased with seller financing my title company printed out a repayment schedule and prepared the Deed of Trust. No issues so far, but I'm making the payments.

Another issue is you don't want the tenant falling significantly behind only to learn there is a lien on your property. We solve both issues by keeping the utilities in our name and then invoicing the tenant as bills are received. 

You'll want to have your lease state, "Tenant and Landlord agree and stipulate that any such amounts are considered between the parties to be additional fixed amounts of monthly rent." That's worked for me twice since the adverse ruling came down on these sort of charges.

One good source is the eviction records in the courthouse. Evictions aren't docketed in Maryland but nothing is stopping you from going to the Civil Clerk and asking to inspect all of the filings. You can either make copies or take in a laptop to enter the information right into your database. Every address in there represents a landlord not having fun with his real estate investment. 

1) Actual bid, high bid premium, any future taxes that come due, attorney fees, Circuit Court fees, process server fees, 40 year title search, certified mail fees, newspaper legal advertising fees to publicize, recordation tax, transfer tax (omit county portion as they're exempt). Attorney fees for the foreclosure action will be $2500-3000 then another $500-750 to prepare and record the deed for you after judgment is awarded.

1a) Where I acquired a property through tax sale I had added expenses because the owner was deceased and her heirs had never opened an estate. So another $1,500 to an attorney to represent her estate to collect the high bid premium and distribute it to its rightful owners. I am supposed to get that back when the estate receives the high bid premium, but I'm not holding my breath.

Perhaps @Ned Carey can speak to whether the title obtained this way would be insurable in a subsequent sale. The property I bought was for my rental portfolio and thus I haven't really investigated the hoops you have to jump through to get a title insurer to insure your sale if you're planning on flipping it.