All Forum Posts by: Elise Bickel Tauber

To start, was this a good tenant that is now exhibiting out of character behavior or is this a habitual late/non payer? That is a huge difference on how to handle in my opinion. If this is a good tenant that just isn't responding and not paying then maybe something is wrong. Maybe do an occupancy check to make sure the tenant is still there (and alive. Sorry if thats gruesome). You could also check with an emergency contact if it's completely out of character. Last year I had a tenant who always paid on time and was super friendly not pay and not respond and turns out they had a stroke and were in the hospital. I would have felt horrible if I had filed eviction on her. 

If this is a habitual late payer or bad tenant, or if your search above doesn't turn up anything, then I default to this...

What does your lease say? In PA the landlord tenant law states that unless you have it in writing, like a lease that states otherwise, you need to give 10 day notice to quit prior to filing eviction. Our lease waives that 10 day notice to quit so I would immediately file eviction. The tenant will either show up and then you can at least get some communication as to what is happening or they wont show up and you can file possession.

Hope everything turns out ok!

Are you over in Philly area or Pittsburgh? I'm over in Pittsburgh and there are a lot of great deals here both for rentals and flips.

Are you doing a DSCR loan on this?

I agree with everyone that seems really high.

I usually see this around $300-$600.

We see this constantly in the profession. The more units you manage the more this will happen. We have a ton of great tenants but then you usually end up with 1 or 2 in a batch of a few hundred that just makes you wonder why you do this (or maybe just me). I will say that sometimes you can talk a tenant into a good relationship. Unless you have a blatant lease violation and you are able to evict, you need to build the best relationship you can with her. The tenant could do a lot of things, not the least of which is destroy your property. Something that goes a big way is to "yes...and" the tenants when they reach out about problems. I train my staff with that. Yes, I acknowledge your question/comment/concern AND here is what we are going to do about. Sometimes they just want to feel heard. 

And if this is a tenant who is still horrible and doesn't care, make sure you document everything, conversations, what happens and when, etc. I would honestly offer the tenant to break the lease. If they think you are a slum lord and you are miserable, I would let them/get them out. It isn't worth it!

Hope that helps at all!

I've managed my own properties and I have a property management company that manages over 500 units for other owners. I can tell you, no one will manage your properties like you do. I know this first hand. On the other side, the point of having a good pm is to not have to deal with the bs that comes up. I do think interviewing is good but also, ask them when interviewing how they would handle certain situations. What is their policy on turn overs? How would you handle a non-paying tenant? What do you do when a repair comes in? Even the best property manager may not mesh well with what you want/need. And the two of you should be a partnership. Join local investor groups (to where your properties are ) via social media if you cant do it in person. Look for recommendations and then interview thoroughly. 

The only reason, in my opinion, to purchase an investment with such low cash flow on paper is if you are purchasing for long term appreciation. If you are just hoping to purchase something with minimal out of pocket costs to re-sell in 10-20-30 years for your profit, then yes. It isn't bad. But if you are looking at cash flow, I think thats way too low.

I agree with the overall consensus. $500 in the big picture is a very very small loss. I had a client whose contractor had 1/3 deposits on 3 different jobs for over $50k and he made excuses and excuses and all the guy ended up doing before flaking was demo (and cause damage) to all 3 properties. They are going to sue because of the situation but with only $500 it just isn't worth it. 

Hey Jacob. Well first things first, if you do decide to get into student housing I highly recommend you write a book because there really isn't much out there and the stuff that is out there is blah. I can tell you from my limited experience in managing student housing, here is what I've seen be the pattern. 1st, we always had parents co-sign. Paying the rent was almost never an issue because the parents or the tuition (if it included board) was taking care of that. The two big problems I had was noise complaints (especially if in residential areas) which are a pain in the but and the properties being trashed. Thankfully (i think), we had a ton of experiences where it was only 1 roommate that trashed the place so the whole house would look good except a room or two. Many times we had the parents do the repairs, etc because they knew they would be on the hook for the repairs or cost of them if not done.

Look into a security deposit insurance like SayRhino as well. We would usually get pretty solid policies on the tenants and if we didn't have anyone taking care of the repair we could file a claim on the repairs that were needed.

Hope that helps!

Thats fantastic! Bigger Pockets is a wonderful community and you can learn a lot.