All Forum Posts by: Cliff H.

In a world where many inexperienced STR owners are leveraging scripted, robo-check-in/out, we might need to add "human beings" to the list as well for guests to call for help. Granted, more of a problem on AirBnB due to their complicity in encouraging ever-increasing automation, but there is truly nothing worse than a late check-in lock-out without a safety line or concierge to assist.

@John Park had this happen once and thought I would be dialing up Venkman and Spengler. Fortunately tenant called the pastor who stopped by and put him a bit more at ease. Funny that around the same time he had been falling behind in rent so ended up moving anyway but be careful of blowing it completely off, as you see in comments in some cultures these silly ghosts are seemed very real and as crazy as it may seem no one wants to be on the wrong side of discrimimation law. Work with your attorney and ensure you’re following the law as best you can.

Two things: the majority of web traffic is now mobile. Search is an essential part of web forums. I'll leave it that. 

For what it's worth, opened a ticket/request from within the BP app asking about lack of search on the new app and it was immediately closed out without reply, so likely safe to say BP's aware of the request, even if they don't know how to communicate it well. 

Looking forward, how about a simple forum where the community can up vote feature requests so we don't have this kind of senseless "BP sucks!" vs "you don't know web" vs "I rock a tracfone, what's an app" debate again?

Hi Pete. Researching this topic myself and had decent luck with MagicPlan. It uses AR tech on your iPad to estimate distances by the gyroscope and camera in your device and is pretty much licensed as the engine for most of the other AR floorplan apps on the store. Not perfect, but a decent way to get a rough sketch, then tweak it with real measurements if you want to be more accurate. 

My main problem with this category is that most tend to overthink the problem. The "virtual tours" that most Realtors post are little more than bad Ken Burns slideshows, while the more complex ones try to be gMaps Street View but don't even work on mobile. 

As a buyer/renter myself, I just want the basics, not fake-looking virtual furniture pictures that looks like they fell out of The Sims. Show me the room layout, names, and basic dimensions, hire a good photographer that understands "flow," and you're good.  

A few tools to look into: 

• MagicPlan: https://www.magic-plan.com
• Floorplans 4 Real Estate: http://floorplansforrealestate.com

More general (but top quality) sketching apps for iPad:

• OmniGraffle: https://www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle
• Notability: http://gingerlabs.com

Joe, the problem is as much agent as timing. The average house hacker on Boston metro is now competing with foreign dollars, cash offers, and and way over asking offers. Throwing out offers left and right may be less effective than a few well monitored markets and targeted offers. Most of what you need to find houses has been democratized outside of agents and the MLS, so what you need that agent for is pre-market listings and the relationships others called out. Try before you buy. Work with agents the same way you’d interview a job applicant and ensure you’re not locked into a 6 month exclusive before you know how they work and whether that works for you. Good luck. Boston’s a monster right now and multis that actually make sense from anything more than appreciation are a rare breed indeed.

@Omar Furrer you have to have an opt-in process for most forms of SMS tools like this. Lots of changes in the laws around this. Assuming you're already getting that opt-in with your tenants? 

https://www.intouchsol.com/blog/marketers-should-be-aware-of-new-rules-surrounding-sms-messaging

Hello from a bit farther north @Tim Wilkinson. If you think your market will bear it, I really like the income verification I get via https://tenantify.com. Beyond Tenantify doing all the legwork of verifying what they state as income, I'm not handling SSI, and tenants often feel it's a bit more secure doing it themselves online (which they should given how loose most agents and realtors play with sensitive financial data).  

@John Tiberia this is great opportunity to ensure you have formal tenant qualifications standards written down and available for anyone on request. Chances are unlikely you will have two tenant groups with the exact same credit, income, work history, employment history, and landlord references as another, which are all worth far more in a long term rental relationship than wear and tear caused by different numbers of occupants. 

One other consideration, renting to families does not imply you have to accept more occupants than your local ordinances will permit. As part of your written rental criteria, you can certainly include a maximum occupants per bedroom, based legitimately on fire ordinances, sewer capacity, etc. As with anything FH-related, just make sure that's part of your universally-applied formal rental criteria and run by a local real estate attorney on specifics. 

I've always defaulted to top load based on initial cost and concern over failing seals that can create a disaster in any rental unit. Seems the sweet spot may be high-efficiency top loaders. YMMV. Here's a few links that may help Justin:

• https://blog.bostonappliance.net/front-load-vs-top...
• https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/washing-machin...
• https://www.consumerreports.org/top-load-he-washer...

@Curt Smith I like you’re thinking but use Quicken’s free Mint tool with a custom category hierarchy for the same purpose of tracking by house and auto-categorizing of expense types by Schedule E category. One thing I would advise against is emailing images of checks. Unless you’re using SSL on your outgoing email and a complex/random password on your account your data’s easily compromised.