All Forum Posts by: Curt Bixel

Is this just a straight 25% of gross rent paid by the guests or are their any deductions before the 25% is calculated?

excise tax? 

I am curious what the going rate is for management of an STR in Columbus.

I imagine it is in the range of 20 - 30% of gross rents with the owner paying for some of the utilities and perhaps the WiFi.  

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Recently, I had a break in at a short term rental I have in Columbus, Ohio.  The unit had only been vacant for two days when someone kicked in the back door.  I was lucky notice the break in quickly, as I just happened to stop by and check on the property within a day or two of them breaking in.  They had moved in a fair amount of personal belongings, mostly clothing, and had removed two televisions.  

The police asked if there was any security camera recordings, but when I contacted the management company, they said that there were not recordings because the memory cards had been removed from the cameras.  

Does anyone have any advice for this situation?  It seems like a design flaw to have a camera that can be so easily defeated.  Perhaps there are more expensive cameras that provide for more robust video capture?

I am having the locks replaced with ones that have an audible alarm if someone tries to force them, and I am improving the lighting on the property.  I have considered and ADT type alarm the contacts the police, but I have been told that the police are actually pretty slow to respond to those as most of the calls they get for these are false alarms.  

Dan,

I am not quite sure I understand what you are saying.  Are you saying that if the owner of the property, me, came to you and said you can probably cover the rent and then keep a reasonable profit for yourself, then you would just do what yourself?

I am curious if anyone has any input on how to structure a management contract for a STR. I think two of the options are to either have the management keep a certain share of the profits or to have the management sign a long term lease for the property, pay the monthly rent, and then keep any profits they earn above that monthly rent.

Setting the rent, in this case, would be a bit of a challenge, as a fair rent would find some sort of balance between the risk of a loss if the STR experiences low occupancy and the reward of making more profit should the occupancy be high.

I wonder if anyone who has wrestled with this decision might have some guidance.  

Does anyone have suggestions for ways to send out w-9 forms?  I suppose I could print a bunch out and put them in the US mail, but I was hoping for some sort of online system that made that process easier.  

I am attempting to refinance two rental properties.  My loan officer has indicated that my debt to income ratio is really close, and it is going to come down to being able to verify each and every rental payment.  

I have refinanced quite a few properties over the past few years, and this has never been an issue before, but several things have changed.  Here are the two main things that have changed:

1. 1) Out of 13 rental units, I have recently converted three of them into short term rentals.  Although they are making much more each month, my loan officer has indicated that the underwriters will not count this as income. (This, unfortunately, is about $4500 of income each month that the underwriters will not count.  

1. 2)  I am a teacher, and I took a part time leave this year to dig into real estate a bit.  This has gone well, but until next August, my salary is reduced.  

I don't have much worry about getting myself in trouble taking on too much debt, as I have plenty of savings to fall back on, I can go back full time in the fall, and if anything should interrupt the short term rental income, I can always convert them back to standard rentals.  My credit score is above 800.  

I wonder if anyone else has been in this situation, and has some ideas on how to improve things a bit before making the application.  Ideas I have had are:

1. 
   Put less on my credit card each month?  (I do pay it off completely every month without fail, but I could run up a smaller balance each month.
2. Raise the rents on the tenants I have that are due for a rent increase, and do this before applying.
3. Convert one of the short term rental units back to a standard rental.

I really don't have any other debt of any kind aside from the mortgages on my personal home and my rental properties, so there are really no other loans I can pay off.  

Any advice or hints would help.  (All legal and above board please.  :)  )

If I get a loan on a property, and the value of the loan is filed with the city, will the city use that information to raise my property valuation and thus my taxes?

Jason,

Thank you for that.  That is interesting and gives me a way to think about this.  Can you tell me what this would mean in the case of an insured handyman?  And is the designation of contractor something you can get simply by registering with the city, or is there some sort of vetting process or other requirements?  

John,

It sounds like what you are saying is that if I need to have a bathroom vanity light replaced, then I need to have a contractor do the work.  I would first properly vet the contractor by getting proof of insurance and speaking with their insurance agent to ask if their policy covers it.  Then, after properly vetting the contractor, I make sure they pull a permit for the replacement of the light.  Then, the contractor would install the light.  The final step would be to schedule an appointment with the building inspector to come out, inspect, and then sign off on the work.