All Forum Posts by: Fran Flanagan

I might ask to see a bank statement showing the source of that money. Does he have any prospects to make money now, or are you looking at an eviction in 12 months? How are the laws in your area?

Obviously you don't want to overpay, but I wouldn't worry about this "safety net" that your friend speaks of. IMO, 10k cash in the bank is better than another 10k of equity in a property any day of the week.

As you implied, doing work to make the place better actually creates value. Putting more money down creates no value at all; it just reduces your liquidity.

I did the same thing as you, bought new house and used old for rental. I didn't have any neighbors as crazy as your lady here, but I made sure that the people in the 3 closest houses my cell phone number and asked them to let me know if there was any problem.

I told them that I wanted to make sure that the new people didn't trash my place, maintain neighborhood etc... I also wanted them to call me instead of calling the township to report a violation.

If you have a good job and good credit, you'll be able to borrow more than 80% at a lower rate. Keep your cash for when something breaks in the house, you want to remodel or maybe buy some furniture. I would never tell someone to wait until they could put 20% down.

The one thing about the FHA loan is that the PMI stays on forever now.

If you can afford the 5-10% to go conventional, ask for a one-time / up front MI, this will remove the need for a monthly PMI payment and then fighting to remove that requirement later. In terms of cost, this will be better for you after about 2 years.

There's no rule that a lease has to start on a first. You could just start and end the lease on the 10th of every month as well. Rent due on the 10th every month, if people get paid on the 1st and 15th every month, this could be easier for everyone.

Instead of FSBO, why not negotiate with an agent for a reduced commission? I'd still offer 3% to buying agent, but you can get your listing agent to take 1.5-2% probably.

There are some websites like hungryagents.com that offer agents the opportunity to bid, offering discounts, for your business. Mitigate the risk of the unknown by keeping the contract short in duration, etc. It sounds like your current listing agent is kinda meh though, so it seems you may have a low bar so to speak :-)

It might save you a few grand, but honestly I think that your biggest savings is to get rid of it as quickly as possible and to stop paying the interest, insurance and taxes.

To make some estimates first:
- Your mortgage payment, principle and interest, is likely just over 2000/month on your bigger house, that's $24,000 per year (probably about 2/3 to interest, 1/3 to principle.
- I would estimate that your property taxes plus insurance probably come to about $6000 per year (likely a little more).
- So over 2 years, you made $60,000 in payments to reduce the principle by ~ 16k.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20 etc, but you need to sell the house and stop the bleeding!

Your house is now worth less than you owe though, you need to stop throwing good money after bad. As distasteful as it is to sell a house for less than you owe, and perhaps write a check for 10-20k at closing... surely that's better than writing checks for 30k per year and not even living there!

I would approach the lender to see if they would consider a short sale, but it seems that your financial situation might be strong enough that they'll resist. You should certainly try to have a conversation with them.

My bad. I mixed up federal and my local, worked out though, since it made me re-read the rules. PA adds ancestry, age and guide dogs to the federal list. Still in PA, one can discriminate based upon source of income, but not in Philadelphia.

Am I correct in that if source of income is protected, then one could not reject based upon occupation? (Apologies for the partial hijack, but it seems related.)

Sounds like you have a pretty good tenant actually who made one mistake. Luckily for you, your insurance made you whole again.

The security deposit is to cover damages. You can't just "keep it" because you feel like it. You need to provide an itemized list of damages that were caused, and how you're using the security deposit to reimburse yourself.

Since your insurance covered it, it sounds like you're out of pocket, whatever the insurance deductible is (~ $500 perhaps?). If you try and keep $4100 of his money in this situation, you'll probably lose with a judge. In most areas, you'll need to pay triple the amount of a security deposit back if you lose. Keeping that 4k could cost you 12k in the end... seems to me that your attorney should advise you on such a risk.

Also, I usually change my HVAC filters in my property so that I can make check on things and make sure things are working ok.

I'm pretty sure that source of income is protected. Not renting to someone because he was a garbage man, I'm quite sure this is illegal.

However, I think that your keywords in the original add are fine.