All Forum Posts by: Dan Borecki

@Justin Silverio which did you end up going with for your tenants? I have been encountering a similar issue where I'm in a low income area and it's been a challenge for me to find people that cover 3x rent with their income, let alone cover the 1st/Last/Security. I've also encountered a number of people claiming the other landlords in the area only ask for 2 months, not 3 up front. I have carried my place vacant for a few months now because I know it's the winter and not the ideal tenant pool out there now and I would rather have the vacancy than to deal with an eviction and having someone ruin my newly renovated place during that process.

I'm in agreement with the mindset of @Chris Masons

"If you are charging 1795 a month the renter should be able to come up with a month and a half security. IF they cannot that raises a BIG red flag for me and tells me tenants do not have any money and it will be a struggle to pay the rent."

Since I am having my prospective tenants cover the cost I would prefer to have the lowest cost option that gives you the most bang for your buck, but at the same time I want to be sure that what I am paying for is reliable. My apartments are in a lower income area, so I don't want it priced too high where it is going to scare them away from applying. I've already had to turn multiple people away after running their credit reports, so I can already see that it's not going to be financially feasible for me to be covering the fees myself.

@Jonathan Cubeta did you ever try out the site www.myrental.com and if so, how was it? If not, what have you gone with? I saw someone else in the forums mention a site called www.rocketlease.com but it is $35 vs the site you are mentioning costs $25 for seemingly the same services. So far I have just used www.mysmartmove.com which is recommended by BP, but it doesn't give an evictions report, only credit and criminal reports for $25 which means I would have to use another service to do the full background check.

@Shaun Reilly & @Mike Hurney I meant to link you guys in my above response.

Thanks @Raymond B. !

I was using the "@" symbol and then clicking on the names and every time I did it, it was making the name blue initially which seemed like it was linked, but once I was clicking off of it to do another name the link wasn't working anymore. I gave up after several attempts. It seems like your suggestion of "?" after the "@" might be helping though so thanks for the tip!

Hi All,

I'm a few months late to this discussion, but am currently in the tenant screening process now for 2 of the units in my muti-family and am struggling to come up with a conclusive opinion from anybody on how to go about this. I've been surfing the different threads and this one seemed to be the most relevant since you're also all from Massachusetts. Have any of you guys have had any luck with coming across any more sites that you would recommend for screening tenants in Massachusetts? @Frank Fiore Jr how do you like the www.rocketlease.com and have you found that people willing to pay the $35?

@Mike Hurney , @Shaun Reilly:

Where do you guys go to search for tenant's eviction, criminal/sex offendor history in MA? I have run a few people through the https://biggerpockets.mysmartmove.com/ service which has been nice since people can pay for it directly and also while I do like it for the credit history check, it doesn't cover the evictions records within the $25 fee and I'm not sure how comprehensive it is for the criminal background check.

Thanks in advance!

I am always bouncing around between a couple of different personal development books and a couple of RE or business related books, depending on my mood & learning needs at the time. Currently reading: "The Power of Focus: How to hit your business, personal and financial targets with confidence and certainty" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt "How I turned $1,000 into $5 million in Real Estate" by William Nickerson "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" by Tom Venuto "The Power of Self-Confidence: Become unstoppable, irresistible, and unafraid in every area of your life" by Brian Tracy I'm also in the middle of trying to rent 2 units in my 3-family, so I've been flipping through "Landlording" by Leigh Robinson and "Landlording on Autopilot" by Mike Butler for advice on screening tenants and lease agreements.

Good news is that after discussions with my mortgage broker & agent, my interest rate is locked until 10/11, but there would have to be a fee ($500 if closing 10/1, but $1K if pushed to 10/11), so this is definitely on the sellers to cover regardless. Apparently there are 2 allowed extensions through the lender and the first extension of those would be if we don't close by the end of September. So hopefully they can get her out by the 10/1.

This tenant definitely had an attitude when we were viewing the property, so I don't really trust closing with her not yet evicted.

Just overall frustrating since the later I wait to close, the tougher it will be to rent since there are more potential tenants looking for apartments in September/October than during the winter.

@Michaela G. good points again....it will need a lot of work in the relatively near future, so there is definitely some room for negotiations....the roof is older and the heating systems will probably go in the next 5 years. It also has asbestos siding which looks to be in decent shape and is apparently not that uncommon, but obviously another risk lingering out there in the future.

These owners have checked out on this property and let it go the past few years so I'm not sure how willing they will be to put in more work, but that would be the only way for me to negotiate really since they're already covering closing costs.

Thanks @Ann Bellamy those are good points as well. I was thinking along those same lines as you, where I would try to still close to keep the rate and then somehow negotiate to have the sellers cover the legal costs of the eviction process, as well as my lost rental income. I'm assuming that the current tenant stopped paying rent. They were paying 1,200/month while I was looking to up the rents to 1,300 or 1,350. I don't have too much work to do in the 2nd or 3rd units, more just cosmetic things such as painting, cleaning and for the smaller of the 2 bedrooms in the 2nd unit that the current tenants are in I was planning on ripping out the carpet and putting in some hardwood floors.

Fortunately I was planning on moving into unit #1 which was the most beat up by the previous tenant and as with all of them it's mostly cosmetic type of work so shouldn't be too noisy.