All Forum Posts by: Cody F.

Hey Nathan, Thanks for the info! 

I am a smaller investor, but I am looking for a way to report money that is owed from tenants not paying rent and damaging our property.  I believe you need to have a court judgment on them in order to report it to their credit, but I'm not sure it's impossible to report the debt even if you just have legitimate accounting.   Does anyone know for sure? 

I'm hoping there's a simple way possibly through an online service to report these debts to the credit bureaus? 

I think it's important, because it's one of the only ways we have to hold a tenant accountable for unpaid rent, and that way when another landlord (Hopefully) runs their report it will pop up and hopefully save that landlord from suffering the same outcome.   

If we all do this consistently then hopefully tenants realize they can't just get away with not paying rent and damaging properties, and help protect each other as landlords.  

Sometimes I when I run an applicant's credit a debt to a big apartment complex will pop up.  Of course bigger corporate landlords have a way to report their debts, but us smaller landlords need to figure out how to do that too. 

Please let me know if you know how to do this! and thanks in advance! 

We have a 41 unit apartment complex, and our insurance was about 12k per year for an ACV policy, but last year we were hit by a bad wind and hail storm which caused us to have to file a claim for the roofs and some AC units.  Totol payout came to 38k after depreciation and deductible. We also had an apartment flood, caused by a tenant. It flooded the whole builiding with 4 apartments in it. So I had to make a claim on that.  Then a drunk driver ran into that same building and didn't have insurance. The insurance company paid out 8100 for the water damage and 5200 for the building that was drove into. 

Total payout was 51,300.  So that company sent me a non renewal letter stating that I would no longer be eligible for coverage with them. 

Now after scouring high and low for coverage, I am getting offers for coverage at 24k per year and 30k per year. Most places won't even offer coverage. How is this right? I had to make claims that I couldn't avoid, and now my coverage is unbearably high! We weren't cashflowing that much to begin with, now Insurance is going to take all of that. I'm not going to be a landlord for free. 

What am I supposed to do? We're in a low income market, our rents are less than 500 average per month. I'm being squeezed here and I'm not sure what to do. I would've been better off setting aside cashflow myself to cover damage to the buildings that trusting an insurance company to cover me! 

Any advice for insurance providers that could cover me or where to look would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance! 

We've had several evictions over the years and have gotten judgements against the tenants. You can collect on money that is owed by garnishing wages if need be, but you first need to find out where that person works.  This is where skip tracing comes into play. 

I have found several websites that could be useful, but I'm wondering if anyone on here has a tested method or service that they trust and use.  I know there are websites and companies that you can use for debt collecting but I have a feeling they are a waste of time. They charge money to send bills and notices in the mail, and it costs to keep sending those notices that usually just get thrown in the trash.  

We have more than 10k in debt at this point that we incurred from evictions, so it would be nice to just run some names through a database every other month or so to hopefully find the employer to collect on some of that loss we incurred. 

I've found a few candidates for skip tracing and finding employers:

-Microbilt.com 

-Accurint.com

The sites above seem to be the most professional and legitimate way to go about it. 

Other sites that might be useful but seem like they won't give you full detailed info include

-TLO.com  (Transunion)

-Spokeo.com 

-Beenverified.com

-Infotracer.com

-Truepeoplesearch.com

I used infotracer and it wasn't very helpful, but still got some decent information that may be useful, Truepeoplesearch.com was pretty useful and was free, it linked to beenverified if you wanted more detailed information that you would have to pay for. 

I'm interested to hear if anyone else is working on this same problem and has had any luck solving it, I would love to hear if you found a website or service that really worked for you.  I feel like around these parts here in Alabama there are a lot of old landlords that aren't tech savvy, so when they have bad tenants they don't get reported to any credit bureau or database, these bad tenants then get to keep on going from rental to rental destroying property and not paying rent because they aren't getting any consequences.  

@Logan Graham

You ever find a good system? I currently have Reolink and they do really great for the price, my only qualm is that I can't see license plates very well but I'm going to try their next step up of cameras and see how they do. Also looking into Amcrest, they keep popping up.

We moved to a gated community thinking it would be safe, and we would have tons of good neighbors but we overlooked that there is a small house next door that is brown and sort of blends in with the scenery so we didn't let that dictate our buying choice.  The people who used to live there were a small family with a traveling nurse as the head of the household.  They were decent neighbors BUT,

When they moved out, they were replaced with some people that look to be straight from the ghetto. I'm talking white-T's down to their knees, sagging jeans, and a pit-bull in the front yard.  They now have 3 busted up old cars in the driveway and the pit bull in the front yard that barks all the time.  The other day I saw them drinking beer in the front yard with like a group of 4 white-T's 

I don't like it because we paid a high price to live here, and it's a gated community so a higher caliber of people should be common here. Now I have to drive past this eye-sore every day and worry about my home getting broken into when I leave. It seems like they're always there, which makes sense because the owner said the tenant is on disability so they likely don't work.  He also said that the tenant plans to be there for a long time. JUST GREAT!!! 

I dug up some clues on the owner of the property, he's an older gentleman who used to live in the property years ago.  It was one of the first properties built in the community so it's grandfathered in which is how they get away with having a dirt driveway.  They really just park anywhere in the yard.  I have complained to the owner but he says the tenants aren't doing anything wrong, and if they are, that I should go to the Residential association to have them handle it. I asked if he had a pet policy on the lease, and he doesn't. He sounded like he might not even have a lease agreement because he sounded confused when I asked him. 

I'm trying to figure out what options I have.  What buttons I can press, or levers I can pull to work on the situation.     

@Chandler Davidson

1. Live like a monk: want not need not. That means save like heck and don't buy anything more than you need. Maybe downsize to a shack. Eliminate payments, car, toys. I bought an 1100 dollar Kia with 205k miles on it. It's still running and gets 35mpg.

2. Hustle: get out there, find some abandoned houses, use that saved money to fix them up and flip those suckers. That'll get you capital to use so you can stop living like a monk and get into some cash flowing properties that'll give you savings beyond your monk lifestyle.

3. Roll baby roll: keep rolling up that dough to keep reinvesting. Supplement with the hustling techniques, and keep building up the portfolio and income. You'll be there before you know it.

That's how we got up to 42 doors and almost 20k gross rents by 28 years old.

Bonus: learn about creative ways to finance deals, that'll give you one of those Mario kart boosts too.

One of our Tennant's daughters apparently just slipped on a puddle and fell according to the tenant.

This came after I sent out a notice that she owed a balance on her account. She refuted the bill and then said by the way my daughter just slipped on water in the kitchen from a leak.

Our showers are directly above the kitchen and are aging. our maintenance kept replacing washers to keep them going, but I've started to have the 4-ways replaced entirely. This apartment had the 4-way replaced but then had leaks. I've had 3 different people out to fix the 4-way, and now the leaks. It's getting better, and we thought it was solved for good last week but it started leaking a small drip when the shower is on.

Now apparently the tenant is holding this issue over my head for sending her a past due account notice.

I have the guy coming back out, and tomorrow is the soonest he can get here.

Am I in trouble here? Should I handle it differently? Or am I doing the right thing?

We have some leases coming up soon, and tenants have been less than ideal to say the least.

Do I need to cite reasons for not renewing with them?

Or can I just tell them I'm not going to be renewing their lease?

And how do I get them out? Do I need to give notice and then evict if necessary? Or should I just go file to evict right away?

Trying to find the best course of action here. Thanks in advance!

Had some leases expiring this month and was on the fence about offering them to renew, but I still offered renewals at an increased monthly rate.

This tenant is staying in a 1br apartment, at the old rate of $350 dollars per month which includes $100 dollars of water, sewer, and garbage pickup that we pay for. I offered him to renew at 400 dollars per month because market rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in the area is 450 on the low end without utilities.

-This tenant habitually pays late.

-I caught him peeing outside one of the buildings in the middle of the day one time.

-I've had to tell him several times he can't walk around the apartments drinking beer.

-Back in January he decided to come to the office to tell me that he was going to pay late this month because he has medical bills from getting shot. Then got upset when I told him he's going to get a letter and the late fee.

Now today when I offered the renewal letter he called me several times in a row and I was dumb enough to answer.

He was upset that his rent increased, and said nobody else is paying that much. (Most others have been raised to 375, and I'm currently advertising a renovated 1br apartment for 450 and taking applications).

He then proceeded to say "I've had enough of you disrespecting me, I'm going to show you what kind of man I am."

I then replied, "we don't deal with things that way, we'll get the law involved." "Did you really just threaten me? " "We take threats seriously and won't be renewing your lease. "

His tone of voice changed and he started to backpedal "that's not what I said. Well maybe I'll just go that route then."

I ended the conversation "Have a good night. " and hung up.

So now I'm confused, I don't want to go through an eviction but I'm not going to walk around our apartment complex worried about getting shot or being retaliated against. And I absolutely will not be intimidated.

Am I going about this the right way? What should I do next? Any advice is appreciated.