All Forum Posts by: Dana R.

@Joseph Copella

But, the OP ordered Rent Prep's most expensive option which promised a comprehensive report that includes rental background check and nationwide evictions.

So, what exactly does the rental background check mean then? And, why didn't those 3 evictions show up in the nationwide evictions search?

If the Smartmove package is coming directly from Transunion, then why wouldn't a landlord cut out the middleman by just buying it directly from Transunion?

Yeah, I tried rewriting Zillow listings in the past but they didn't get bumped back up back then. But, if I recall correctly, the big apartment complexes were able to bump up their listings back then even though everyone else couldn't.

I haven't posted my new one listing yet because it would get posted days before the best times to post on Zillow and would then already be on the 2nd page by then.

But, if I know how to update the Zillow listings to bump them up, then I can post my Zillow listings as soon as possible and bump them up later on. Right now, since I don't know how to do that, I'll just have to wait to post on Zillow. 

What do you need to do to your Zillow posting so it gets bumped back up to the top?

With Zillow, my experience has been that you get the most views and inquiries when the listing is new and at the top. But, after the listing drops to the 2nd page, then the responses dramatically falls off a cliff.

In the past, I tried playing around with the listing to try to bump it back up to the top but I was unsuccessful.

But, I see that the big apartment complexes are bumping up the same listings. I've been keeping track of their listings, and know its the same one listings that are getting bumped. And, there's a banner that tells you the listing  was 'updated today'.

Who needs to look at the fireplace?

Is a HVAC technician the one to look for?

Or, do you need to go for NFI certification, National fireplace institute?

If I understand it correctly, I should fix the fireplace first and then shut it or close it down?

And, tell me more about these electric fireplaces. 

When you turn it on, how does it look? Realistic or totally fake? 

Do they break down, something that needs repaired a lot?

I have a gas fireplace in my rental property that is broken and the tenant wants it fixed, but would you fix it?

For me there's two issuses:

1) The cost of fixing the fireplace.

When I got the complaint about the fireplace, I sent my handyman to take care of it. But, its not a simple problem that the handyman could fix.

I'm afraid of pulling the thread, and promising to fix the fireplace and it then escalates into becoming a major cost to fix.

Does anybody know how much it'd cost to fix a gas fireplace?

2) Fixing the fireplace won't resolve the tenant's underlying complaint that its getting cold without a functioning fireplace.

A fixed fireplace won't generate that much heat to warm the rental because the fireplace was designed for only low volume natural gas. I consider the fireplace more as a decoration than a heating unit.

To heat the rental, there's already forced air. That should be enough because the rental is in Southern California near the beach; we're not talking about a rental in Michigan or Ohio. 

If you use one of those online rent collecting companies, how do you know it won't go under or have all those problems like what we saw with erentpayment?

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/499696-beware-of-fraud-by-erentpaymentcom

What's my tenant's endgame where it seems the tenant keeps on delaying and delaying on the option to renew the lease? 

The tenant has a one year lease that's going to expire at the end of this month. I gave the tenant the option five or six weeks ago of another one year lease with an increase in the rent, where it'd still be a good price for the tenant at the higher rent.  At that point, I had informed the tenant of that option via email as well as postal mail.

But, there was no response so I again emailed the tenant a reminder of the earlier option a few weeks later and told the tenant I needed an answer by the end of November. This time, the tenant responds eleven days later- a day before the end of November- that they'd like to renew the lease . 

But, there's some requests and complications so that we need to email back and forth several times until I'm finally like we need to meet in person to hash out any issuses. If we can work it and renew the lease, that's fine. But, if we can't work it out, then that's fine too and I'll start posting the rental before the Christmas holidays damps down any interest. 

But, the tenant couldn't meet last weekend and said we could meet this weekend. But, now, the tenant is saying we can't meet this weekend either. 

Has anybody experienced something like this? What's the tenant trying to accomplish here with all these delays and late responses?

If I were looking to rent  a house, I wouldn't be looking for it on a site called apartments.com.

When my tenant's 1 year lease expires, I gave that tenant the option to re-new it with another 1 year lease at a higher rent.

But, the tenant wants to use part of their security deposit to pay for that rent increase. 

When the tenant applied, there was some issues with their credit history but their income seemed good. So, I agreed to rent to this tenant if the tenant paid a higher security deposit than I originally asked for.

After I gave the tenant their notice, the tenant says that their income has dropped since last year and wants to explore the option of using part of the higher security deposit to pay for the rent increase.

It might be easier if I use some numbers- I was asking $2750 per month and a security deposit of $2100. With the tenat's credit history, tenant needed to put down $4200 for the security deposit and pay $2750 a month. I wanted to increase rent to $2850 for new lease, but the tenant is asking to use part of the security deposit to pay for that rent increase. So, the security deposit would go from $4200 down to $2100, the amount I originally wanted, and use the rest of that security deposit, $2100, to pay for the rent increase. 

What do you think? What are the potential pitfalls to do this?