All Forum Posts by: Dean Attali

Interesting approach to add USB and nests. Do you find that you can ask for slightly higher than market rent because of that? Or do you do it more as a nice gesture without seeing a financial benefit?

@Matt Altrich curious, because I'm also in Johnson County - are you able to find properties with 1% rule that don't require a lot of rehab? Or do you hit the 1% after doing a lot of repairs?

@Colleen F. that's a good summary of all the action items suggested. I'm going to do exactly that today. Thank you everyone

Thank you everyone for the loads of great suggestions! This has been very helpful, and I definitely have some good advice I'll be implementing starting with the next PM and tenant.

A lot of people have asked about why he contacts me and not the PM - he keeps telling me that the PM doesn't respond to him fast enough. The PM says he always replies within 2 days. I don't know who to believe, but lesson definitely learned: don't give out my number, make sure tenant has expectations set, make sure PM has made it clear to tenant that house is rented as is, it's ok and important to draw lines and say "no" and not worry about always appeasing the tenant. Lots of good lessons!

@Stephen Glover - thanks for the input. I haven't thought about this before, that the PM should clarify with the tenant the unit expectations. I'll add this to my list of questions I ask new PMs so that something like this won't happen again. Offering help with moving costs is a nice idea, not sure I'll go as far as doing that, but thanks for the suggestion.

@Michaela G. you're right, PM is getting paid. But I mean he's not my biggest worry at the moment, I can deal with finding a more suitable PM after the bigger issues are cleared :) Funny enough I have about 5 different phone numbers from which the tenant calls me, but I don't have his email. But yes emailing him does sound like the best option. Thanks!

@Account Closed This was my first property, and I thought it would be a nice friendly touch to call the tenant and introduce myself just to make him feel more welcomed. I've definitely learned my lesson from this and will not repeat that mistake in the future. Good lesson to learn!

The PM is another issue, they're not the best but they're not actively annoying me, the tenant is my primary problem :)

The letter, as proof for later, is a good idea. Did you talk to them beforehand, or just send the letter without prior "warning"? Did the tenant not react negatively to such a letter? And did you have to prove that the letter was received?

Thanks @Theresa Harris that makes sense - telling him I can do the non-safety related upgrades only after he's been paying rent for a while and at a higher rent. 

Hi BP

I'm a new landlord after purchasing my first SFH in September, and my property manager placed a tenant in the house starting November 1. In the 7-8 weeks that the tenant has been there, there hasn't been a single week go by without the tenant requesting more fixes/additions to the house. Usually he makes the requests to the property manager, but on top of that he also texts/calls me at least once a week to complain about something.

The house itself is in great condition, and he saw it a few times before he moved in, so I find it a bit ridiculous that he's asking for so many things. He demanded a storm door, a railing installed on the outside stairs (after installing a railing he complained that it's not made of iron and asked me to redo it, but that's where I drew a line), he called a plumber in several times about silly issues that only happened because he consistently overflowed the bathtub, today he became convinced that all the windows in the house need to be replaced. Between these and all the small things he keeps asking, I've lost $1000's already just in a few weeks. And he has a tendency to be aggressive, and he even threatened to not pay rent on his second month because he thought his demands are being ignored.

I keep hoping that every time he makes a request and I comply, he'll eventually be happy and stop costing me so much. But after today's windows request, I'm starting to think that he might just be a perpetual complainer and will cost me money every single week as long as he lives in the unit. I'm wondering if someone has any suggestions on what I can do?

I don't think I should or even can evict him - that seems too extreme as he's not squatting and he's not destroying the house. Ideally I'd like to ask him something along the lines of "if you're so unhappy with the condition of the house, would you like to break out of the contract and leave at the end of this month or next month, no hard feelings?" but I'm afraid that if I say that he'll get aggressive and attacking and will become an even bigger nightmare because he'll think that now I'm against him.

Anyone have any suggestions or similar experiences?

Locally is not an option as I'm in Toronto :) The company is very famous and reputable so I don't think they're being shady. Perhaps turnkey just can't offer the return I'm looking for. 

Thanks for the responses, it validates what I thought.