All Forum Posts by: Brendon W.

Hey Andrew,

Disclaimer here, I'm very new to the landlording side of this discussion but I'm a police officer in PA and I've responded to calls from landlords many times. Number one, I'd say obviously be very careful about forcibly entering someone's apartment (especially in Philly). While properly posting the notice leaves you within your rights to do this, I'm assuming you've never met this person before so you don't know exactly what is on the other side of that door. People are getting crazier and crazier with everything going on so just be cognizant of that and bring a third party if possible. Secondly, just make sure you have everything documented like @Jim K. said, post the notice, take photos, and have the landlord / tenant law documents handy in case things do go south and you have to call the police because I can tell you, most aren't familiar with these laws. I'd also consider calling the local police ahead of time if you are going to be drilling out any locks in case your tenant decides he's calling the police himself to report a burglary in progress in which case you don't want them to roll up on you taking a drill to someone's door. Lastly, if you lock the tenant out, make sure you answer your phone. I had a landlord do this once and the tenant called the police to report it. When I showed up I made several attempts to contact the landlord myself with no answer so I actually had to let the tenant drill out the new locks himself because all of his belongings were still inside and he hadn't been legally evicted. 

I actually have a follow up question somewhat on the same subject. If the Zillow listing says "3 bedrooms / 2 bathrooms" and County Assessment records say "2 bedrooms / 1 bathroom," what does that discrepancy mean? Square footage is the same on both but I'm seeing a lot of differences when it comes to the rooms. Does this pose any kind of potential permitting issue for a future buyer? It's like watching the news...I don't know what to believe.  

Negative, it's what I would consider a B class neighborhood. That was my thinking as well, I personally wouldn't want to purchase a home with a pool at this stage in life but certain buyers with children might pay a premium for the property. 

Okay that's helpful. I wasn't aware that MLS data could be imported to excel like that and I'm hesitant to ask for favors that might only be beneficial to me so it'll make me feel better about it to offer some compensation.

In this particular instance I found a listing that was FSBO and it was a 3 bed / 1 bath SFH so I wanted to determine what the approximate value of the house would be given that FSBO listings tend to be overpriced by the owner. I also wanted to figure out how much value an additional bathroom would bring as this would be a live-in flip scenario. I can just shoot the listing to my agent for comps but I also wanted to try and figure it out on my own to familiarize myself with the process.

Okay thank you so much for the tip! I don't have a RE license so I don't have direct access to the MLS, do you think using zillow / redfin and entering the sales data into Excel would be sufficient? I'm not sure how accurate that information is but I can also cross reference with County records. There's often discrepancies between the two regarding square footage because the listing agent sometimes includes finished basements that the County assessment office doesn't recognize.

Okay that makes sense I never thought of doing that. Thanks for the help!

Okay thanks for the info that helps a lot. Yeah I'm working with an agent, but I'm pretty new to all of these concepts so I'm just trying to get a grasp of how to do this stuff on my own to get a general idea when I see something come up. 

I've been targeting the South Hills area. Specifically Dormont, Bethel Park, Carnegie, Bridgeville in addition to some areas in Washington County like Canonsburg and Houston. 

 Thanks Aaron. 

What kinds of adjustments are you making for square footage? I try to keep the comps within 10% but if there's a difference of a hundred sq. feet or so I'm not sure what degree of adjustment to make although I'm sure it depends on the size. 

Yeah I found a wide range in adjustments for pools in the forums but naturally those coming from perpetually warm climates were factoring in a larger adjustment. Here we get a few good months out of them and the rest of the year its basically a hole filled with nasty tepid water or ice so a lot of buyers might just see them as money pits.