All Forum Posts by: Brandon Morgan

Quote from @Dominic Mazzarella:

Quote from @Brandon Morgan:

hi all this is just a hypothetical. I currently am a new landlord. I bought a duplex house near Scranton this past year and it is rented out .  I am a few months in and it has been going okay so far despite a few hiccups. However I just realized there was a mistake in one of the tenants' lease! for one tenant it says that the landlord is responsible for utilities, and for the other tenant it says that the tenant is responsible for utilities. It is supposed to be tenant is responsible for utilities. I am going to have to have my realtor make an addendum to the lease. the tenant has been paying for utilities up until this point. has anyone ever been through this? also if the landlord becomes responsible for utilities would i be able to adjust the rent?? open to any advice, recommendations or past experiences. 

I’ve never had this specific issue but mistakes like this are pretty common. Creating an addendum is the right move, especially if the tenant has been paying utilities as intended. If they push back, you might consider adjusting the rent to reflect the change. Just ensure any updates comply with Pennsylvania laws and are handled transparently. Clear communication is key here. 

yeah the tenant pushing back is my concern. it just so happened that this happened with the tenant that seems to not like paying. and the heating is electric and this winter has been extremely cold which caused the electric bill to jump up to $800! so I am going to have to speak to the realtor and the tenant to see what we can do. hopefully she doesn't fight and it goes well otherwise i may have to adjust the rent.

Quote from @Chris Seveney:

Quote from @Brandon Morgan:

hi all this is just a hypothetical. I currently am a new landlord. I bought a duplex house near Scranton this past year and it is rented out .  I am a few months in and it has been going okay so far despite a few hiccups. However I just realized there was a mistake in one of the tenants' lease! for one tenant it says that the landlord is responsible for utilities, and for the other tenant it says that the tenant is responsible for utilities. It is supposed to be tenant is responsible for utilities. I am going to have to have my realtor make an addendum to the lease. the tenant has been paying for utilities up until this point. has anyone ever been through this? also if the landlord becomes responsible for utilities would i be able to adjust the rent?? open to any advice, recommendations or past experiences. 

 yes create the addendum but realize the tenant who has been paying could ask to be reimbursed for these costs as well as not accept the addendum. If it was discussed and just a typo and its a good tenant it should be fine but some tenants would definitely take advantage of this.

 yeah the tenant pushing back is my concern. it just so happened that this happened with the tenant that seems to not like paying. and the heating is electric and this winter has been extremely cold which caused the electric bill to jump up to $800! so I am going to have to speak to the realtor and the tenant to see what we can do. hopefully she doesn't fight and it goes well otherwise i may have to adjust the rent. 

hi all this is just a hypothetical. I currently am a new landlord. I bought a duplex house near Scranton this past year and it is rented out .  I am a few months in and it has been going okay so far despite a few hiccups. However I just realized there was a mistake in one of the tenants' lease! for one tenant it says that the landlord is responsible for utilities, and for the other tenant it says that the tenant is responsible for utilities. It is supposed to be tenant is responsible for utilities. I am going to have to have my realtor make an addendum to the lease. the tenant has been paying for utilities up until this point. has anyone ever been through this? also if the landlord becomes responsible for utilities would i be able to adjust the rent?? open to any advice, recommendations or past experiences. 

Quote from @Caleb Brown:

If they are not paying rent then go through the eviction process as normal. How big is the space they are renting? 

 3 bed 2 bath. its a pretty big space. I just wasn't sure if it is my responsibility to do something if the electric bill is high and are not satisfied. do I have to be concerned about that? i told them to apply to programs that are available to help with electric bill. 

hi all i am a new landlord and got my first rental property. tenants moved in in September and October. the first month was fine but when December hit it got extremely cold and the heating is electric. due to poor insulation in the home that we did not know about the heat has to be turned very high up to keep the home warm, however since everything is electric it is causing the electric bill to be $800. the utilities are the tenants responsibility. however because of this one of the tenants has been extremely non compliant with paying rent. I am doing my best to accommodate and fix the insulation as well as see if there are programs in place to lower the cost. however i want to be firm with tenant as they are not compliant with paying rent because of the cost of the utilities. I am not really sure what to do in this scenario. has anyone had any similar experience? 

Quote from @Daniel Vineis:

ya absolutely. most people just recommend multi family because it allows you to offset your income while living there without having roommates. also they tend to cash flow better so if the plan is to do this year over year making sure the rents cover your DTI when you move out is very important. I would say figure out a 5 year investment plan. How many houses you want to purchase and will they all be house hacks etc. Then figure out a standard of living your comfortable with and that will tell you weather or not single family or multifamily is the correct route for you. Strictly speaking from a financial point of view multi family's almost always make more sense unless your walking into some equity in a single family.

 creating a 5 year goal/plan makes perfect sense actually. thanks. 

Quote from @John Morgan:

@Brandon Morgan

I self manage my 29 SFR and run into this all the time. I've been slowly moving all my renters over to apartments.com to keep track of all these payments easier.

Been there done that with tenants like yours. I would give them a 3 day pay or quit notice. Tell them you’ll cancel your court date if they pay you the rest by the court date. Otherwise these people will own you.

 yeah I think I will move to apartments.com it seems useful and organized. 

Quote from @Kevin Sobilo:

@Brandon Morgan, nice to see someone from the same market here!

I do not accept cash app or zelle as those seem better suited for personal transactions than for something like rent payments.

I use apartments.com. It provides basically a tenant portal where you can upload copies of the lease, manage electronic payments, even do other things as well like maintenance requests.

Most tenants pay using secure ACH transfers from their account to mine. It takes a few days for the money to hit my account, but that is a small thing compared to the convenience. ACH transfers are free, but if a tenant wants to pay with a credit card they will get charged a fee. In addition tenants can choose to have their payments reported to a credit bureau to build their credit.

You can also set it up to automatically apply late fees which is nice.

Since its a portal for the tenant, both you and the tenant see a complete accounting of all payments made.

In addition you can use it to collect initial security deposits or to bill the tenant for addition items such as billed back utilities, damages, etc. So, if a tenant broke a window and it cost $300 to replace, you can simply add that bill in apartments.com and that way its all tracked where everyone can see it and track it. 

 that sounds helpful! I think I will try that!

Hi all i am a new real estate investor and just bought my first rental property a few months ago and now have it all rented out. I have been living in my home I grew up in and next year I am looking to move out . I am thinking since I want to continue my real estate journey if I should buy a duplex and just live in it and rent the other half out as opposed to buying a single family. can a single family home that you live in be considered an investment at all? I live in new jersey. just asking for personal experience or insight. still got some time until I look to move out next year. 

Hi all i just recently bought my first rental property and finally have it all rented out! i was wondering what other people use for payment methods. I been using cash app and zelle that art connected to my business checking account. only issue is one of the tenants has been paying weekly but had a death in a family and now has not paid in several weeks. I charged a late fee and told them to just pay the lump sum for the month from now on. I really hope this does not continue to be an issue. hopefully it doesn't escalate where I have to evict.