All Forum Posts by: Michele Fischer

My state caps late fees at $75 per month. We charge $30 after grace period plus $5/day each day after. If they are in good communication and follow through, we cut fees in half. Same policy and amounts regardless of rent amount.

Without no smoking clauses, not sure what your options are.

We currently have a duplex with strong no smoking clauses where we are fairly certain both sides are breaking the rules by smoking indoors. It is hard to prove. When we purchased it it was smoke infested, so know that elbow grease and paint and flooring brings it back relatively easily.

But we are thinking that when these tenants move out we will just market it as a smoking unit and see if we can get a rent premium and not need to get it back to pristine condition. We can keep fighting it, or use it to differentiate our property. I can't stand to be inside, but I don't have to live there.

Sam,

I went through something similar a few weeks ago. At move in I explained move out as it is outlined in the rental agreement, but they couldn't come up with rent, got scared, and left quickly. Unfortunately, without any notice at all. We had no idea they were gone for awhile. But still better off than eviction or cash for keys, when they go willingly.

We finally reached them (using their unforwarded mail as leverage to get an updated address) and they can't understand why they owe us money instead of getting a deposit back.

If you inherited the tenant you may not have an application with emergency contact references, which is another avenue to try to find them. I agree with everyone else that re-renting the unit is the priority though.

Pawan,

We are dabbling in cost sharing upgrades with our tenants as well. Jury is out whether it is unwise, as our colleagues suggest.

We have stopped providing window screens since they always disappear. Our newest tenant really wants screens, so I offered to cost share them. Photocopy the receipt and give her two weeks to pay half the amount, independent of rent. Since blinds and screens don't fit other properties easily and are low cost, I don't really care if they are still in place when they move out.

If it keeps a good tenant longer, I will gladly cost share a new kitchen or anything, I think, as long as it is on my timeframe and my choice of quality/material.

As far as blinds go, I always install the 2" slat faux wood blinds in all windows before move in. They are hard to destroy and look really nice. And the low end tenants still install blankets over them!

Welcome to BiggerPockets, Trent! We just jumped in, and have been successful, if not in exactly the niche we'd want to be in if we were wiser in the beginning. A lot of the experience is in trial and error rather than research, so it's kind of a catch 22. Good luck!

My market is low income, in a smaller suburb about an hour away from a larger higher priced city. So Craigslist gets us a lot of folks from the bigger city, where signs get us people familiar with the low income neighborhood. Applicants lose points on my point scale for not living in my city for the past 5 years - my logic is that they don't understand the area so may bail faster and will be harder to find when they move out compared to folks who hover close. If we put up signs while the current tenants are still there, however, the mail carrier stops delivering mail, which we learned the hard way and is a bummer.

Kelsy,

Welcome from southwest Washington! I give 40+ hours a week of energy to Weyerhaeuser, headquartered near you. In the evenings and weekends energy goes toward landlording.

Spent a month in Thailand once, lovely place.

We would use the 30 day option to raise rent (M2M agreement, not lease) to recoup the increased costs moving forward, and are considering adding a clause that if the water is over a certain amount that they have to pay the extra, to be able to act faster. Two of our tenants have recently been informed that their water bills are higher than expected and we're going to raise their cost if next month isn't back down to normal levels.

I like to provide new doormats as a kind of housewarming gift, plus a fire extinguisher and any specialized floor cleaner. And a roll of TP hanging up. We clean the carpets (and charge them) if they don't leave a receipt proving they did, assuming we didn't tell them we'd be replacing the carpet so they don't need to. I consider 4 hours of cleaning for one year of tenancy to be the expected level, and charge them for anything above that.

Phil, welcome to Bigger Pockets! I'm down south, but my heart is still in Seattle. I currently have 2 great, 2 good, & 3 bad tenants, and one just moving in this week that we are hopeful for but time will tell. I guess that's not too bad of a distribution given that it is low income...