All Forum Posts by: Brad L.

 I don't think she was hostile at all, she was just pointing out that based on your posts you seem to already have your mind made up regardless of feedback. 

For the record, I agree with you in that I don't use a realtor and when selling I use a mls flat fee listing service. However, there are millions of people who have no clue how any part in the home buying/selling process works and those people desperately need a realtor. Is it worth 2.5% or 5%? In all of those cases I'd argue that it is. Less that half of the US are attorney states for real estate transactions, so those people would have absolutely no representation without a realtor.

Give him an inch, he'll take a mile. Allow him to move in against your policy and without a background check and he will be tip-toeing and stepping over all of your other boundaries and rules the entire lease term.

You should honor the $500 for May, 7 days notice for a $250 rent increase is harsh. While Wisconsin doesn't have any laws in regards to rent increases and there's no written lease with a term for you to honor, the law of being a reasonable human being does still apply. 

As @Nicholas Ludwiczak mentioned you should also take photos and list it now for a June 1 move-in date.

Maybe in your market, but definitely not everywhere 

If I lived 8 minutes away, with that small yard I'd leave work 20 minutes early on Friday and do it myself.

Very interesting looking property the way it's painted and landscaped.

Is there any language about this lawn mower in your lease with her? 

Obviously not likely that it's worth it to buy a shed for the property for storage of the lawn mower, but personally I definitely would not ask her to lock it to a fence and cover it with a tarp. I guess it depends on what class your property is, if it's D or maybe even C then it probably wouldn't look super out of place.

I used to manage a title company within a law firm and did everything from searching to closings.

In WI, you don't need a license to be a searcher, but there are many other functions of working in a title company which would require a license. 

I used to go to the courthouse and would have to pull the physical books to do searching, now all of these records are online almost everywhere so it's becoming simpler but still tedious work. Can't comment on turnover, but again it's tedious work with tight deadlines and requires extreme attention to detail. Each document needs to be read in its entirety as they used to do some weird things back in the 80s and earlier, including easements and other encumbrances on documents in ways that would not fly today.

Almost all of our units have tenants doing lawncare, and I haven't ever had any issues even at our one upper/lower duplex. 

Our side-by-side duplexes are more straight-forward, each tenant cuts their own side front and back. For the upper/lower, I explain when the lease is being signed (and it's included in the lease) that I don't care how the grass gets cut but it is the tenants' responsibility. So if the upper unit wants to give the lower unit a case of beer to cut the grass every week, so be it. FYI my lease also states that tenants are responsible for any fines which result from non-compliance with municipal codes. i.e. they don't cut grass for 3 weeks and I receive a fine from the city.

I'm sure many will disagree with this approach but I don't see the point in paying out of my own pocket for something as basic as cutting grass. In your situation I'd either follow through with what you told her or hire it out to an actual company that has insurance, not the neighbor kid.

Do you believe a new investor who just cleared out his savings to purchase a rental could cover expenses during an eviction moratorium where tenants aren't paying? COVID has shown us that the government could not care any less about landlords and will use us as the scapegoat in any crisis in any way they can.

Yes rates are low, but prices are also so high. Will prices ever come back down or is this the new norm? The saying goes, "the best time to buy real estate was 30 years ago, and the 2nd best time is now." We don't know if there will be a housing crash within the next couple years or not. People have been calling for another crash for years, even here on BP, and they haven't been right yet.

In a perfect world where nothing can go wrong, I would say keep making your student loan payments and start investing now. But it's not perfect and nothing is guaranteed. Just from your reply above I bet getting this weight off your shoulders would be huge for you mentally. If you buy a rental and the eviction moratorium continues getting extended, are you able to cover your student loan payments and the mortgage, property taxes, insurance & repairs? The $675 going to your student loan payment would go a long way for those expenses.

I'm intentionally contradicting myself in this post because there is no right or wrong answer. To me, most important is doing whatever is going to help you to sleep easiest at night. If I were in your position, I'd pay off student loans first and buy rentals second but I don't like debt. I use debt as a tool to buy, but I fully intend to have every one of my rentals paid off before retirement and most people here on BP would say that's a mistake. So what do I know.