All Forum Posts by: David Hines

Welcome to BP!

Calling all the different listing agents is a pretty big workload for you. Better to get an agent of your own and put them to work for you. Most of the time, their commission will be paid by the seller and not you.

Depends on the market you're in. One month security deposit is pretty typical in my area.

NO! Be fair but firm with your tenants. Making an exception for one will only lead to exceptions for all and your loss of control over your business.

Welcome to BP! Enjoy the wealth of information this site offers.

I think most landlords view it as minimizing their own expenses rather than rewarding bad behavior. I'm much more interested in protecting my own bottom line than I am in teaching a tenant a lesson or influencing their future behavior.

To Emily Lopez point about washer and dryer just being one more thing to maintain. The lease I use has an area to list appliances you are unwilling to repair or replace. I typically put all the appliances I provide in this area. That may be worth looking into.

You may want to think about putting in the listing that they are available upon request (for a fee of course). I've found a surprising number of tenants already have their own. Nothing worse than paying to put them in and then having to store them because a tenant has their own.

Hello @Vincent Grant! When you are interviewing for a property manager, make sure you find someone who is an investor as well. I've found a lot of managers who just don't understand the mindset and focus areas of their clients. I am an investor as well as a property manager and real estate broker in the Katy, Tx area. PM me if there is anything I can help you with. My contact information is on my profile as well.

Timothy and Stewart are right. If you don't have experience in real estate, then what are you offering to your client. Owners hire property managers precisely because they are more experienced and have learned over many years the best way to deal with tenants and have systems in place to handle rent, maintenance requests, tenant screening, etc. A newbie jumping right into a manager role is just setting themselves up for failure.