All Forum Posts by: Deborah Burian

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We call these homes where the homeowner bailed out on, but the bank hasn't finished the process as Zombie Foreclosures.

That's hilarious!

We are within one property of our goal for SFH, buy-and-holds. That makes this year the year to focus on cash flow and I am spending the time I normally spend on buying/renovating focusing on improving cash flow by increasing occupancy and implementing cost savings.

Since our historic occupancy is between 95 and 97% for mature properties, improving in that area is a steep challenge.

Normally, we show our rent house via Open House. We don't do appts, special showings, take requests, put out signs, we just put it on Craigslist, tie it to the website and handle inquiries via email which eliminates a huge aggravation factor. Usually we wait til the home is vacated, spend a week or so freshening it up and have a Sunday open house.

This year, to decrease down time, I am showing properties prior to the tenants moving out. So... now I have the ad on Craigslist and am tying to the website but will likely have to have a few smaller showings to find an appropriate tenant. I am also a little concerned about decreasing my total candidate pool by changing from a flat out open house.

The first showing is this afternoon, will see how it goes.

Do any other landlords have additional thoughts on this process? or other approaches that make sense when showing occupied properties?

Thanks.

As I can say from painful experience, it's not just the trash, it's what the trash is hiding. A hoarder house almost put us out of business. Beginning to end was 18 months but we did all the work ourselves after our full time day jobs. It did include finishing an incomplete attic conversion but what I will remember always is the stuff. everywhere. in all the rooms. the buildings. the yard. the garage. We were putting it in dumpsters and the hoarder would sneak by at night and take it out. On the bright side, we survived and the house does very well for us.

I'm all about taking the easy route but several houses into it, bought my own steamer for about $40, works better than the chemicals plus I'm not swimming in chemicals.

Still need to work on the throw away as I go part.

Jon Anderson, maybe you need a signature :-)

When we're paying for it, we get a copy. Un-redacted.

Waiting for several days (I think) so I must be missing something. I'm shallow AND competitive.

George P., depends on the market. I don't know of anyone in this area that provides w/d, most tenants already own their own. On the rare occasion I have one (because it was in the house when I bought it) the tenants usually want to use their own.

Under no circumstance would I allow that.

Mental health records/journals, some nice artwork from the '50s, antique sewing machine and my favorite... a box of puppies.