All Forum Posts by: Cynthia Oistad

Our current tenant has had difficulty making rent payments on time the last 5 months. We have allowed her to split rent payments into a 2x a month schedule with $800 due on the 1st and $800 due on the 15th.  Thus far she has scrambled to make the rent payments + late fees but rent is typically received 5-8days late. For November, she paid the first half of rent (plus late fee) about 7 days late.  She still has not paid the remaining $800 rent that was due on November 15th (that payment is 11 days late now) and has not given us indication she can make the rent payment soon.

Can you please let me know the process in Nevada to issue a notice to pay or quit given this partial payment schedule? On December 1, she will owe us another $800. Do we issue this notice on December 1st (since November second half of rent wasn't paid) or do we need to wait until December 3rd (if December 1 rent is also not paid and late?).

We wish to end the lease with this tenant early. We manage the property remotely from another state.  Can we issue a notice to pay or quit via email or do we need to hire someone to post it on her front door?

Thanks everyone! We added our listing to Facebook Marketplace! Hoping for the best. Appreciate your comments!!

Hi everyone! We have an Anchorage townhome available for rent March 2021. We currently have it listed on zillow, trulia, craigslist, apartments.com. Are there other sites you recommend? 

In 2019, when we rented this property before, we tried Facebook Marketplace and a few real estate facebook pages and received a lot of messages, but none of them were successful applicants who met our minimum criteria.  I am open to trying facebook outreach again but curious what pages you use to list your rentals?

Thanks so much everyone!  We did end up offering a small $25/month discount in exchange for a two-year lease yesterday afternoon (before many of these comments came in). If they only do a one year lease, it will be at the same rental rate. They said they will think on it and let us know.   We were honest with them that we couldn't move much on the rent rate. We already upgraded all the kitchen appliances last summer so that wasn't an option, but a great idea for our other rentals at time of lease renewal!!  

I also like the idea of offering not to increase their rent (but honor same rental rate) if they renew with a new lease.  We did that on our other rental property when we approached those tenants at time of renewal. Honestly, I was sidetracked by their discount request and not wanting to lose them as they are wonderful tenants, that I didn't even consider making a counteroffer of offering to keep rent same rate at the time yesterday.  darn!!  Goes to show the psychology that if you make someone an offer, it forces them to consider it!   

This is great discussion and I really appreciate everyone taking time to share their thoughts!  These are some crazy times to be a landlord.  We are very thankful our three different tenants maintained their employment during the COVID-19  shutdowns and were able to pay on time and in full last month.  

The renters are in healthcare industry and have secure jobs.

@Cassi Justiz, thanks for your reply! @Connor Dunham, we would like them to stay. We can typically turnaround the rental and lease it with zero downtime, but given COVID we could see a greater lag. We are considering a $20-$25 discount. The rent is $1800 but the expenses are such that we are only cashflowing $150 a month after monthly expenses and putting aside money each month for CAPEX, 5% vacancy and annual repairs.

Our Anchorage-based single family home tenants' lease is up in May 2020. They have indicated they are going to save up for a down payment on a new house and would like to rent two more years. Yay! They have asked if we would consider a rent reduction for the new 2-year lease. I'd like to get your thoughts on this. They have been excellent tenants, always paid on time and have taken great care of the home. Certainly doing minor repairs and putting the rental back on the market (during COVID-19) is not ideal and would cost us more than a small discount to rent. The rent was comparable to other homes in the area when it was rented last year. Some landlords are now offering reduced rents just to fill vacancies during COVID-19.

I would appreciate your thoughts on if we should politely respond the rent will be the same rate for the new lease. Or if we should allow them a small discount? $25 off per month? $50 off per month?

@Jaysen Medhurst, thank you!! so if I'm hearing you right, we would take out a HELOC for $245,000 (or as much as we could get based on appraisal of our paid off investment home) which would be $200,000 purchase price + $45,000 rehab costs? Then we would refinance the new property and pay off as much of the HELOC as we could so we could use that money again on next deal?

Hi!  I'm interested to hear feedback on two creative financing scenarios on the below fictional single family home property: 

• Investment property purchase price: $200,000
• Rehab Cost Estimate: $45,000
• ARV: $300,000
• 25% downpayment + closing costs+ rehab = $95,000

HELOC + Mortgage Option 1:  

1. Home equity line of credit for the $95,000 at interest rate of 5.5%.  Fixed rate.  $50 annual fee.  15 year term.
2. Open a traditional mortgage for the new investment property, borrowing $150,000 (75% of $200,000 purchase price) at 4.5% interest + closing costs.  30-year payback term. 

BRRRR Option 2:  

1. BUY: Open a new 30-year mortgage with bank on a paid-off rental home that we own (valued at $285K-$300K) for $200,000 to purchase the new investment property in "cash".  5.5% interest + closing costs for this mortgage.
2. REHAB: Take out a HELOC loan for the $45,000 rehab costs at 5.5% interest. At this point we would be about $253K invested into the deal after closing costs. Rehab the property.
3. REFINANCE: If all goes well and the fixed-up property appraises for $300K after renovations, then refinance the property for a new 75% LTV loan of $225,000 at 4.5% interest + $7K or so in refinance loan fees?
4. PAY BACK the $200K Mortgage and pay as much back as we could on the $45K HELOC loan (about $18,000). At the end of the day, we would own the new property and only have $27,000 in a HELOC loan left.

Want to know how to apply BRRRR strategy if we are using a mortgage rather than cash/private money lender/hard money for the $200K purchase price?  Are there bank penalties for paying off the 30-year mortgage that early (less than 1 year) after the rehab/refinance?

I'm interested to hear insights from this group as I try to learn more about creative investment strategies.

thanks!

Cynthia

My husband and I own two single family rental properties, one in Alaska, one in Las Vegas. We have a separate LLC set up for each of them and a separate business checking account to collect rents, security deposits and pay SOME expenses. We have been collecting all the rental income into each LLC's respective business accounts and set up "auto-pay" payments like utilities to come from those business checking accounts. We do not yet have a credit card set up for those LLCs. When we have had to purchase supplies/materials for those rental units, we have been using our primary personal credit card to purchase those items (whoo hoo for AIRLINE MILES!) but immediately tracking/recording the business expenses under each LLC in a ledger and filing away the receipts for our annual tax preparation.   

Question 1: Even though we are careful to track ALL rental expenses that are paid using our personal credit cards, is that enough separation from personal accounts or MUST we open a separate credit card for each LLC? I do not like using the checking account to pay for contractors, repairs, materials etc because we don't get any benefits, miles, cash back. But I want to be squeaky clean also if we have to prove that our LLC finances are separate from our personal affairs in instance of litigation. Is the tracking of all business expenses sufficient?

Question 2: We are in the midst of shopping for a third investment property now and hope to make an offer and close in the next 60 days.  I have heard it is not wise to open up new credit cards while in the midst of securing a loan as it can lower our credit score. Normally we would just wait until after closing on the third property to apply for a business credit card but we are about to undertake about $10,000 in renovation expenses on one of the properties in the next two weeks and I would like to use a credit card to pay for our materials and also our contractor (if possible).  Is it ok to keep using our personal card for these types of expenses?