All Forum Posts by: Edward Hamill

I am a huge supporter of Market Leader (used to manage accounts for 40,000+ agents across the United States) and have seen many agents have great success with their leads program, but it is expensive.  Lead success vary based on markets.   

Talk to your broker and see what other advice they suggest before the investment.  Consider creating your own landing page to collect leads like ML does at homevalues com (ie, buy the domain "NoFLHomeValues.com" and collect info from sellers to do a cma).

Finally and most important thing is to READ THE CONTRACT! You are committing to a timeframe and they will hold you to it!

Just a note... if you are a TENANT and paying RENT via a LEASE... do NOT pay for improvements to HIS property!  You are not building equity, he is!  

Only you can decide the relationship part of this, but look at it from a renter's point of view (because that is what you would legally be)... if you were renting from me, would you agree to help pay for my upgrades/rehab to the house?  If you answered yes, I can get a lease over to you by the end of the day!  :-)

If this goes to court, even small claims or housing, I would have the inspector remove the following:

I would guess that there was a large number of people in the room watching the Super Bowl Sunday and someone hopped or jumped off the bar from either sitting or standing on it and with that jolt and the excessive weight the sill cracked.

Judges HATE that and defense attorneys jump all over it!  No one asked for him to make conclusions based on facts that cannot be proven and it makes the report look coached.  You paid for facts and that is all s/he should put in a report.  A reasonable judge will connect the dots themselves.

Lots in the pawn shops down on 14th last week... around $50.

I see you are in Dallas.  Search NTREIS directly (sort of) via http://bghlink.me/4v6d

To add to @Thomas S., here in Florida we also have Hud-ular.  This is a home build to modular standards (to meet neighborhood requirements) but on a manufactured home frame that stays in place.  For example, if you want to place a home in the air with parking below, it allows you to save money by not needing  full foundation walls vs piers.  

In Jacksonville, the guys over at Normandy Homes can give you examples of all 3.  I am not in the business (out for 6 years) and do not know anyone there, but I know they offered a large variety when I worked for one of the larger manufacturers in Florida.  I know a guy named John Kirkpatrick used to run it.

Quite often, you will find a mobile home dealer or hauler that will take the home for and deal with the squatter (that is what the occupant is at this point).  Even condemned, they will scrap what they can or (worse) they sell to farmers for a few bucks to use as migrant worker housing.  Either way, you need to make it clear that they need to remove the home from the property prior to doing ANY work or scrapping of the home.

Not sure which county you are in, but, if that doesn't work, you can still use the sheriff to remove the squatter and drag the home to the land fill (not many take them, but City of Tuscan Los Reales landfill will if you are located in Pima County.

@Jo Zhou, I have not read all of the pages yet, but had to comment... DO NOT keep referring to this person as "Tenant ".  He is not (and should never be) your tenant.  He is an Applicant. 

Sounds minor, but calling him a tenant, especially in writing, gives him more ammo (even if shooting blanks) in court... "look judge, she even refers to me as the tenant, so based on that I did x,y and z".  

Finally, let him sue!  That is why you pay insurance.  They will slap back and end the suit in a heartbeat!

Best of luck!

Used the bathroom?  What if you were hungry, could you use the stove?  Permission to enter did not authorize you to use the facilities... But, they are still wrong.  I would leave out the litter box and just mention seeing the cat to avoid any suggestion that you were snooping (going past the location of the rent money was snooping).

I generally look to the insurance companies... They can tell me no to a trampoline, no to certain dog breeds, etc... I have yet to run across no to firearms.  If their high-paid lawyers aren't willing to take that on, then neither am I.