All Forum Posts by: Curtis Harrison

I have a 4 bedroom fully furnished home in Midvale Utah. I'm only allowed to use 30 plus day rentals. I've looked at furnishedfinder.com but I'm hearing that they do better with a smaller number of rooms. Another option is evolve. Has anyone used the evolve service? It sounds like a wonderful thing, but I'm wondering if it's a hassle or if it actually works. It looks like a third party service that links you with several other services like Airbnb and VERBO and all those. But it's like a one-stop shop and they set you up with all the ads. They just charge 10%. Is it worth it or are they a hassle? Has anyone done business with them and had success or trouble?  

I have a fully furnished four bedroom 2800 sqft rental in the Midvale, UT. area.  I'm looking at using furnished finder to fill the place up starting mid-April 2024. Does anybody have any recommendations or suggestions of other services I should try or good/ bad experiences using furnished finder? I'm all ears 🙂  also, what's a good rule of thumb for coming up with a good rate to charge. I believe if I did a long-term rental I could get about $2900 a month. I'm thinking I could get around $4000 a month doing the medium term rentals, especially since it is fully furnished. Am I undercutting myself or is that about the right amount to charge?

I'm just getting started renting my home. Planning on trying out furnished finder and may try others if furnished finder doesn't pan out. I have a fully furnished 4 bedroom home about 2,800 sqft in Midvale, Utah. I will start renting in mid-April 2024. I have tried the year-long rentals and have had a couple of problems with tenants not paying and having to evict. I'm going to try the 30+ day mid-term rentals and see how that works out. I'd love to hear your opinions on good ways to find tenants that are reliable in the 30 plus day rental time period.  Zillow says I can get $2900 on a standard 1 year unfurnished lease.  Hoping for around $4000 doing fully furnished monthly mid term rentals.

So, this is an old thread, but I realized that I never told anybody what ended up happening.  The tenant named me and the PM in a small claims court lawsuit.  We both showed up to the trial.  The judge questioned the tenant and then myself.  I told him that I had hired the PM to take care of this sort of thing because they were supposed to know the laws around being a landlord and that they seem to have dropped the ball in this case.  The judge agreed and dismissed me from the case and ordered the PM to refund the entire security deposit less $350 for carpet cleaning back to the tenant.  

As we were leaving, the PM told me that I needed to pay back the tenant and that they (the PM) were going to sue me if I didn't.  I told them that the judge had just ruled against the PM and that they would have a tough time convincing that same judge to change his mind.

They refunded the tenant and I now use a different PM company.

Good morning,

I had a tenant vacate recently and upon inspection of the property, I noticed they had pretty much destroyed the lawn. It was in really good shape when they moved in.  Thick and lush with just the occasional dandelion.  Over the 3 years they've been there, they didn't water it enough (watering the lawn adds to their utility bill).  The lawn was very much parched and is dead in many areas.  Also, they let their dog destroy it with lots of digging and pretty much what looks like a 3 foot wide 'racetrack' around a tree that's in the yard.  Probably 40% of the lawn is destroyed and will not grow back.  I might be able to revive it with hydroseeding, but will probably have to do a lot of pre-work on the dirt to get it loosened up and the weeds and dead vegetation removed.  Also, we have a mole problem that has been going on for a while that I was not told about.  probably a dozen large mole hills all over the yard.

In the rental contract, it states that the tenant is supposed to maintain the lawn and grounds and keep them looking good.  (lots of leagalese to that effect anyway).  So, the question is, how much can I charge the tenant for the destruction of the lawn?  Can I just get an estimate from a landscaping company as to how much it would cost to restore the lawn to its original pristine appearance and charge that full amount?  

Advice or insights on this would be greatly appreciated.  We are in the state of Utah if that matters legalwise...

Thanks

You do make a very good point, as do many on this thread.  When things are running smoothly, it doesn't seem worth it to have a Property Manager.  However, when bad things happen, it's good to have a Property Manager who can navigate the murky waters and take care of the trouble.  Insurance is a good thing to have.  Thanks all for your good and thoughtful insights and advice.  I think I'll stick with the Property Managers for a while longer.  It is kind of nice to have somebody else absorb some of the stress of being a landlord.

I have been working with my current Property Manager for the past 4 years.  The previous one really botched things up and got me taken to Small Claims court by my x-tenant.  I had mentioned the desire to possibly raise the rent, since it had been the same for 3 years and the tenant was paying about $150 below market on their rent.  The property manager at the time assured me that they know how to deal with sensitive matters such as raising rent.  (oddly though they hadn't been monitoring value over the past 3 years and recommending raising rent gradually until I brought it up)  Anyway, they confronted the tenant when they paid their rent and told them that rent was being increased by $150 and if they didn't want to pay the new amount, they could vacate by the end of the month.  The way I found out about that meeting was, first, my previous next-door neighbor called me and told me there was a 'for rent' sign on the front lawn and that my house was vacant.  I called the property manager and they said that yes the tenant had decided to move and had been out for a couple weeks.  (this was 2 weeks into the month, so vacant==no rent being collected).  I got a summons from the court telling me about the small claims court date that I needed to attend.  I called the tenant directly to ask their side of the story and why I was being sued.  They told me that the Property Management company had pretty much told them the rent was going up in 2 weeks by $150 and if they didn't like it, they could leave.  I was being sued, because the PM had told the tenant that they were keeping their entire security deposit (2x rent) to cover repairs on the house that were present before the tenant had moved in..  I called the PM and they told me that there was no Move-In checklist, so all repairs were the tenants fault.  So, we went to court.  I checked my Landlord login on the PM's website and looked under 'Documents' and was able to find the move-in checklist for the tenant (the tenant had kept their original) and the PM said that the document didn't exist.  I basically went to court and sided with the Tenant and showed the judge the Move-In checklist and explained that the PM hadn't been doing their job and was bullying the tenant.  The Judge dismissed me from the case and ordered the PM to pay back the full security deposit minus about $100 for carpet cleaning.  That's why I fired the first PM.  The current PM is doing a pretty good job, but whenever a repair is needed, I have them get an estimate and I am usually able to find somebody to do the job for half price, or I do it myself for 1/10 the price...  Anyway, I am a bit worried about things such as Evictions and following all the landlord/tenant rules.  If I have a PM, then the blame falls upon them if they mess something up, and not on me (hopefully...).  So, they do provide a buffer.  The judge in the first case reasoned that since I had been paying PM fees in good faith assuming that the PM was competent and doing their job, then the blame fell on the PM when they didn't do their job.  Anyway, long story short, I'm probably going to stick with the PM that I have in case something bad happens, and to protect me from possible liability.  I don't want to get any huge fines if I accidentally do something slightly wrong...   Thanks for all the advice and please keep it coming !!!

I live 30 minutes away from the property and can easily pay the utilities and such.  I just think $130 is quite a bit to spend each month to simply collect the rent check.  However, if something does go wrong, that's where I'm worried, but if I can just pay somebody to take care of things if they go wrong (eviction, etc..) then I think it'd be worth it.  How much does it cost to hire somebody to take care of an eviction?  Is that in the hundreds, or thousands?  I've had 4 different tenants in the past 10 years and no evictions yet. (knock on wood).  I've paid $15,000 in property management fees over that time period.  I think I'd do better just to do it myself and pocket the extra $1500 per year...

Good morning,

I'm a landlord with 1 property.  It's a 4 bdrm and rents for $1950/month.  I have been paying $135/month to a property management company and as far as I can tell, all they do is collect the rent, keep their 7% and send me the rest.  They also collect the money for utilities and pay the utility bills.

Historically, whenever a repair is needed, I either do the repair myself, or I hire somebody to do it.  I've had the property managers estimate repair costs for me and they're usually at least double the price I can get it done for, or about 10x the price if I do the work myself, which I usually do, unless it's a water heater, fence, or something like that.

My main concern is if people stop paying rent and I need to evict them.  Does a property management company take care of those things better than I could with just small claims court, or are they going to charge me all kinds of fees and stuff if they have to do the extra work of evicting somebody.  They charge me about $350 to find a new tenant...

I looked online briefly at Zillow Rentals and am wondering if I could use them to find renters and just let the renters pay me via venmo, or through Zillow Rentals.

Anyway, what's been your experience?  With only a single rental and my tendency to do all the repairs and upkeep myself, is a property management company really worth the monthly fee?  Or should I just do it all myself?

Thanks in advance for your advice.