All Forum Posts by: Chris G.

Just wanted to see what peoples thoughts are on a situation we're experiencing. We have 4/4 and 4/2 units around 5-10 minutes from a popular college. We've been renting them out by the bedroom to college students around $600 per room and $550 for the shared bathroom ones. Both of these come furnished and include utilities up to $200 per month. We've been struggling to have full occupancy the past year or even get many showings even with our rates being right at market value and units being advertised online. I personally think it has to do with so many similar new constructions being built around the area offering discounts or better amenities and we're only offering 12 month terms compared to shorter term leases some students look for.

It seems like out of the 3 units or 12 bedrooms total there is always 2-3 bedrooms vacant year round with move in and move outs. We we're looking at just stopping the shared living and renting the unit out as a whole. A full unit currently brings in around $2400 and after utilities and association fees that's around $1950 before any other expenses or repairs. Based off similar rentals if we we're to rent the 4/4 or 4/2 as a whole it would be around $1300-1500 with the tenant paying utilities and we would pay association fees.

The downsides in my opinion are less overall rent and the layout of these units seems designed for students with its square box layout with a bedroom/ bathroom in each corner and the living room/ kitchen in the middle I'm not sure many families would rent. The upside is only having 1 lease rather then 4 and the tenant paying utilities. I'd like to hear any other thoughts or opinions on this.

Just wanted to see if anyone had a good clue as to why this rule/ law was made. We manage properties in neighboring counties but only have a physical office in one of them. When we hand deliver 3 day notices in the county we have an office in it's literally 3 days. However if we hand deliver a 3 day notice in the other county we have to add 5 extra days since we don't have a physical office there.

I hate mailing 3 days since you have to add so much additional time, but at this point it's almost the same even when hand delivering in the other county and I don't see how this rule makes sense.

Wanted to post and see if anyone had a recommendation for a good fair handyman around the Alachua County Fl area. Hard to find ones that can get to jobs quickly or have a fair price, they also need to be willing to work with management company. From searching online it seems like most are way to busy, a professional expensive company, or not willing to work with management company. 

Manage unit at condominium on the 3rd floor, the owner/ resident below on the second floor says every time the tenant takes a shower in the guest bathroom it leaks on their ceiling and causes water damage. Spoke with a plumber and the only way to fix this issue is by cutting a whole in the ceiling of the 2nd floor unit and fixing the plumbing.

Recently the association for this complex changed and I cannot get hold of the owner or association regarding this issue to see the new declaration. Does this seem like something we would be responsible for and should go ahead and send a plumber to the 2nd story unit to cut a hole in their ceiling to repair the plumbing? Then I guess we would have to send out someone to patch the ceiling after too, or does this sound like something the association would be responsible for.

I see most associations saying owners needs to maintain plumbing but I don't see how we can "maintain" it if the only access is by cutting a hole in the unit below ceiling. 

$150 a month seems quite high but that's just my opinion.

If you hand them over to the tenants they would have to be willing to pay the subscriptions, if they don't want to I would remove them. 

We rent out shared apartment for college students (rented by the bedroom) one of the tenants I guess is about to have a baby. Now our terms is one occupant per bedroom, for example if boyfriend and girlfriend wanted to rent a room they would have to rent two bedrooms on separate leases for us to allow that. In this case would a "newborn" violate the one occupant per room? I also have gotten concerns from the other tenants that they didn't sign up to be living with a tenant that has baby potentially crying all night since most of the tenants rent it for school purposes. My main concern is the newborn becomes an issues with other tenants and they decide not to renew or leave over that. 

@Chris Seveney thanks for the reply and questions to think about. Here are the answers I do have.

1. Since we work out of the same office and are a small team it wouldn't change much, currently there is one person who solely focuses on the county 2 side for management.

2. If we we're to sell county 2 we would be bringing in less money until we caught back up and grew county 1 more. However the growth on county 2 is way less compared to county 1. So over time we believe we would be more profitable focusing on just one area.

3. The area that we are at is quite large and lots of new construction and people are moving here I don't believe that would affect much.

4. For county 1 I would say we are in the top 3 but there is only around 10 management companies for this area. For county 2 we aren't even in the top 10-15. That is mainly because there is around 50 management companies in that area and many are large franchises and well known reality companies that have more employees.

5. We've thought about this option, it might bring more customers since there would be a physical location but it would require hiring more employees to run that office. So at this time we don't see it making financial sense.

We have technically two management companies for two separate county's in the area. They're both ran out of the same office. County 1 portfolio is about 3x the size and owners call us to get management since there isn't much competition in the area making new properties usually easy to get. A majority of the properties are SFH in this portfolio too. For county 2 portfolio getting owner leads is a lot more time consuming since there's way more competition there, usually we're the ones making follow up calls and being a sales person to try and get more properties, making it difficult to grow the portfolio. A majority of the rentals are shared housing for students and condos which ends up being alot more work than SFH. County 2 also is now requiring rental permits and certain "energy efficient requirements" for rentals.

Our idea would be to sell the county 2 portfolio off to another management company or individual and solely focus on county 1 portfolio to grow even more. Both are profitable at the moment. Or even ideas to keep both but make it worth the time.  Any thoughts or ideas would be helpful. 

@Richard F. thanks for the feedback very informative.