All Forum Posts by: Bonnie Williams

@Mason May I agree with the others, a house hack seems a great idea. Assuming you don’t have much experience “running a house,” living in the building will also let you learn about maintenance, handling repairs, and the costs associated with those things.

@Richard Merkuris Yes, you’ll need to check each utility regarding meters for the separate units. While you have them on the phone, ask how service would them transfer back and forth as tenants come and go.

For instance, our electric company has a set up for a ‘landlord account. When a tenant calls to terminate their service, the company calls us to verify and service charges switch back to us on the designated day with no hook up fees; same for when the new tenant takes over the bill.

Trash service, however, would charge a set up fee every time service went from tenant to us to new tenant. Because the service is a flat $15 a month, we’ve chosen to pay that bill and keep the service in our name. This also allows us to have uninterrupted service during vacancies when it is usually needed; even the cleanest/best tenants end up leaving some crap behind.

Anyone clear on Francise and Excise tax for an LLC that is a Partnership. On one hand, it seems passive rental income is exempt and on the other hand, maybe the partnership ruins all that???

Hello! I'm also an east Nashviller. Be very careful with the Airbnb thing. I had a permited client (I have a cleaining company) that moved out of state. The new buyer was not able to obtain a permit. The first time the Fire Marshal inspection was fine. This time, the inspector had a list of problems for the new owners, denied the permit, and said he would be investingating the previous owners as they never should have gotten a permit.

It is a 100 year old east Nash house and I assume they are now requiring modern everything but nowhere does the State clearly define requirements.

@Adrian Vega Ugh! First, stop collecting rent. There are services. If you don’t want to go that route, it’s their responsibility to get it to you in time.

But, for your specific incident, I would respond with a ‘Please don’t take offense. Since I come to pick up the money, I remind everyone so we can make other arrangements if someone will be unavailable. Going forward, I will not send the text but, rent is due on time. As a reminder, rent is due on the first. (If true) The 5 day grace period does let you go without a late fee but, the rent is late if paid after the first.’

[Of course, he probably thinks ‘what’s the difference’ if there is no late fee. If that comes up, I would very nicely explain that paying late will affect any referral he tries to get from you down the road and, you can always play the card... ‘I have bills too,man.’]

@Marcos Paulo Cerra

Cozy is also good because it can keep a communication trail for maintenance requests too. When they call or email with a problem, we ask the tenant to send the request through Cozy so our team can respond appropriately... we never tell them we (the two of us) are the team.

@Charlotte Chew

We require tenants to complete an application through Cozy.co. We then verify their info... as in, we actually call EVERY. SINGLE. Referral, employer, landlord. We look these people up on social media site to make sure they are real . We do our job.

The rent is then collected (via auto draft), then distributed to us by Cozy. We don’t get payment until the 10th but we always get payment.

@Mindy Jensen Before the people are trying to get their work done, packing, and traveling (so a 3-5 in advance of arrival) I say:

'We are excited for your arrival and know you will have a great stay. Everything will be ready for you at (specific check in time) on your check in day. The space is yours until (specific check out time) the day of check out. If you know you have an early flight out that day we'd love to know so we can get to cleaning but, take the time you need up to (specific check out time).'

Also, we have instructions for them to text a word (in our case the name of street) when they leave... 'Please text Main Street to ***-***-**** upon check out.' This works about 90% of the time and allows us in ASAP, great when you've got 3 quick turns in a day.

Hello,

Our leases state that a guest is someone who stays less than 14 days. Anyone else over 18 years of age would need to apply and pass the background check.

When speaking with tenants we would always refer to the lease and let them know it is important for liability reasons or, to show we are non discriminatory, that we treat all people who rent from us the same so we can't allow more people to just move in.

But, we also like to provide great service so, we might direct them to some Airbnb or VRBO options that could house the people and dog.

Best of luck!