All Forum Posts by: Dana Dunford

@Betsy Nolan - Thanks for the speedy response! If it's in the lease that she is required to pay online via email, then you may want to consider legal advice to serve a notice that she is in violation of the lease by paying other ways. Good luck and if I can help in any way, just ask! 

@Betsy Nolan - How frustrating that your tenant is not paying online. I'm sorry to hear this. While it's rare, we have seen this happen with a few tenants (especially those who are habitually late and have a different excuse each time). We've seen owners handle it in two different ways:

1. Lease Amendment - Where the Rent clause is adjusted to outline the acceptable payment method to be online via Hemlane. Please note that some states require one offline form of rent collection, and we typically see money order as that one payment method as it makes online more convenient.

2. Lease Incentive - Add an incentive of $15 to $25 per month off rent if you pay online until the lease comes up for expiration. Then, you can revise the payment method.

Hope that helps and that things get more seamless for you and your teanants.

@Dan Deckelbaum - There are some states (e.g. Hawaii) that require someone local and on the island for management. But, that is not the case with Texas and we've seen self management work very well for both the tenant and landlord. For the tenant, the landlord (decision maker) makes sure repairs are done in a timely fashion. For the landlord, it's more money in their pocket. Not all properties can be managed remotely, but our customers have done it very successfully with Class C+ and above where tenants are online to pay rent, etc.

One side note - if you're out-of-state and managing, you definitely want some local support through a licensed leasing agent.

@Jeremy Reay - See if you can share the late fees, rather than the PM getting those. 

@Katy L. - Happy to help answer

1) Where did you list the rental (Craiglist and Zillow?) How long in advance?

Post everywhere -- you want the most leads. But make sure to objectively qualify them (credit, income, etc.) before offering a showing.

2) Examples of listing verbiage - what to really emphasize that catches the right tenants

Make sure to follow fair housing. Depends on what is an "attraction" for your neighborhood or property (close to transport, close to restaurants, new remodel, etc.)

3) How long to set the appointments (15 min increments?)

15 minutes is fine, but know that tenants are always late

4) Include lawn service? pets?

If a single family home, best to make tenants do the upkeep. For pets, you can charge pet rent or an addition to the deposit. 

5) Resource guide for laws of tenants/landlords (What landlord legally responsible for)

Happy to provide if needed. 

6) Handling repairs remotely (Small items from replacing light bulbs to emergency situations - water/electricity/etc)

You'll need to be 24/7 in case of emergency.

7) Finding a tenant that could be more self sufficient (need to embed any language in the contract?)

You want to talk to past landlords. Self sufficient isn't as important as competence. 

Hope that helps!

Will try to make this @Sean Walton!

Hi @Ari Newman - 

You are correct that it is typically one month's rent, but you may be able to negotiate down to 50 percent or 75 percent of one month's rent if you have multiple rentals. 

Hope that helps!

@Ron Hall -- Are you invoicing your landlords or invoicing your tenants for rent? Quickbooks tends to be the standard used by many investors. Freshbooks as an alternative. We sync with these and see that people are pretty satisfied with those products. I hope that helps!

@Tony Ngo - 

1. Lease -- all terms should remain, with the exception of the new management (change over in management). You can send out a notification to the tenants on this. 

2. LLC vs. management company -- You would most likely need a broker's license to create a property management company. But you can check your State's laws and consult a lawyer. Therefore, it may be best to keep it under the current LLC.

3. Most costly expense is a bad tenant - Don't let emotions get in the way. 

4. Feel free to reach out to me if you need anything else. 

@Bobby H. - you should definitely have an online prescence. A third party survey showed that 84% of renters find their apartments on the rental listing websites. 

If you understand SEO and look at traffic (where tenants are searching), you will see that the Zillow Group is gaining the most search volume from tenants looking for rentals. The place you list your property should include posting it to Zillow, as we do that and recommend that others do as well. 

Note that I don’t work for Zillow, but I’m a huge fan as we work with them and notice that after advertising to over 40 rental listing websites (Realtor.com, Zumper, Zillow, etc), our data still shows the majority of leads come from Zillow.