All Forum Posts by: Alex SImon

@Nick Glatzer  No luck vetting them at all.  I had the initial phone conversations with them and then I couldn't get anything reliable, so I just stopped trying with them.

@Kim Meredith Hampton I'll advise my friend to do that, but I have no idea what state he's even invested in.  

Thanks for all the replies.  I had told him I wasn't sure, but that I figured there'd be rules against it, and while I'll take no pleasure in telling him 'told ya so', it's nice to know that he won't be making any costly legal mistakes.

A friend of mine in a different investing group asked an interesting question and so I'm posting it here in hopes that someone who knows more than me will be able to answer with certainty.  He's very into investing in Cryptocurrency and wanted to know if, as a landlord, you were allowed to invest the monies provided by your tenants as security deposits.  For him, this would take the form of converting the currency into crypto (Bitcoins and such) and holding them in that form while they appreciate in value, then returning the tenants' deposits upon their departure and keeping the excess value for himself.  However, I assume that this could be applied to stocks, mutual funds, or anything else that yielded a profit but carried a small amount of risk, and I'm further assuming that he would have some way of guaranteeing the tenant would receive their deposits back even if he messed up in the market.

Now, I know that in real estate transactions you're not allowed to commingle funds from business and personal accounts, but I'm hazy on the subject of renters' deposits, specifically.  Anyone have any input?  Are landlords allowed to invest their tenants' deposits for financial gain?

Okay guys, thank you both for replying but I'm really just trying to vet this specific company, which is why I made the thread asking about the specific company and whether anyone had dealt with them yet.  Once again, I'm putting this out there to see if anyone has specifically worked with Turnkey Philly.

Anyone out there had any dealings with Turnkey Philly?

So far they've got a single, albeit very positive, review on Turnkey Reviews.  But I'm a little hesitant to go with anything based on a single review because, hey, who knows, right?  It could just be a shill; we've all seen that plenty of times (no disrespect aimed at the company, obviously).  So, has anyone had any dealings with or worked with them in any way?

Looking forward to hearing what people have to say.

How do you fire a property manager, properly?

I don't have a contract with them on which I can fall back, they were the in-house property manager of the turnkey company I bought through.  I'd buy from them again, but I won't hold with them.  They haven't even gotten me copies of the leases for all my tenants, which I've asked for time and time again.  There may or may not be an eviction ongoing from last month; I don't know because they won't freaking talk to me.

I've got a new property manager I want to put in place, but no idea how to shove the old ones out the door when they won't answer phone calls or emails and I'm on the other side of the planet.  Do I simply call the tenants directly (it was like pulling teeth to even get contact info) and tell them not to pay those guys anymore?

I'm lost.  Please help.

@Mindy Jensen  Thanks for the input.  I guess I probably wouldn't count as occupying the residence in the strictest sense, which is a shame.  I had hoped to use it as a nice little investment while I'm working out here in Saudi.  I'm using conventional loans to finance my other investment properties, I just figured this could run parallel to that strategy and let me get a couple more doors down this year.

One that really bugs me is when people always ask me what my end date is for my position.  Like, I don't know, when do you plan to quit *your* job?

Hm.  Thanks for the advice Bill, but the problem is that I'm not in the military.  I'm a contractor working through a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a big defense contractor, so while I'm serving in a roundabout way, I don't have any of the many, many protections and exceptions that are afforded to active duty personnel.

Okay, odd question. I work overseas full time, and I don't currently have my own personal residence back in the US. I was considering perhaps looking at an FHA loan to purchase an investment property in my home state (FL), maybe before I even get back for good. I'd like to house hack a 2-4 unit property and fulfill my legal obligation to occupy one of the units, but that's where I get into uncertain territory. Aside from getting my mail there and staying there when I come home on vacation, I wouldn't exactly be doing much occupying of the unit, I'd be there less than a month out of the year and spending the rest of my time in a barracks overseas, making that Rambo money. Would this be in some way a breach of the FHA loan terms?

@Penny Clark the only warning signs were occasional notices about late water bills, and a couple of small violations for high weeds that got fixed right away.  I had no relationship with the tenants at all, which is my fault.  I left myself wide open for this.