All Forum Posts by: Christine Swaidan

We allow a pet--dog or cat-- in our rentals simply because we were "forced" to at a time when we had many vacancies and few takers. We require an additional $500 security deposit. Even so we still have people that "sneak" in a pet because they don't want to pay the extra security. I really like the idea of charging an extra amount of monthly rent for a pet. 

The horror story: We built a tri-level house in a beach neighborhood many years ago. Very first tenant in this brand new house with brand new carpet. My husband entered house after a month--can't remember why--discovered the dog. Looks around a bit. Pulls up the carpet in a corner only to discover urine stain. Looks a bit further, pulls up more carpet. We did a count. There were 30 urine stains in 30 days over the three levels. 

Ian Walsh. Is there a formula to determine how much is okay to spend on updating or upgrading units? I'm struggling with this decision now. 

Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm binge listening to bigger pockets podcasts now. Great show!

As a friend likes to say, I was thrown into the deep end of the pool and I'm trying to learn to swim. Forced to take over family business because of illness in the family.  We have several houses, several condos and a 70 unit senior apartment building.  I'm trying to learn how to be a better landlord and keep up on the maintenance issues that comes with owning older buildings.