All Forum Posts by: Frank Kosiba

Good afternoon BP Forum. I've posted some questions a few months back and got some great feedback. I'm posting again to look for some guidance to take my investing to the next level. 

Currently house-hack a multi family in Boston (live in one unit, rent out the other) and own a rental property on Cape Cod.  Multi family was purchased July '15, Cape purchased April '17. Both using conventional mortgages. 

What I'd like to do is get both homes out of our names, into LLC's and form a relationship with portfolio a lender. Want to do this for the obvious reasons as well as to get the debt out of our personal credit and into a business.

Goals are to buy a 'forever' home in the next 12 months as well as purchase additional buy-and-hold rental properties. 

Any advice for next steps would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks @Steve Bracero, I just joined. I look forward to the first one and may hit you up to chat!

Hi @Steve Bracero, I just came across this post and would love to join. I live in Suffolk county and have a multi family in Boston and rental property on the Cape. I'm looking to expand my knowledge to take my game to the next level. Thank you!

Deanna, this is very helpful. Thank you! We live in a city environment where the demand is very high for our unit. We posted it last night and have 5 interested parties. Best case is we get it rented by 9/1 and refund the monies (less any damages) and be done. fk

Good Morning BP, 

We have a tenant that has a lease in place with us. The tenant signed a lease from us from Sept 1, 2016 - August 31, 2017. The tenant gave notice on Wed 8/9 that their job is transferring them ASAP out of state and they would be out by Aug 31, 2017 or earlier and stay locally with their parents. 

The question becomes: What is owed to them? We collected First, Last, Security at the beginning. She's paid August rent which means we have Security (1 month rent) and their last months rent. Although we've had to deliver a Notice to Quit and other correspondence multiple times for late rent, she is current. 

We've looked into the law and found that tenants need to provide 30 day notice to a landlord. 

Thank you in advance,

fk

@Andrew Wong As mentioned I've turned it off. Sadly enough the first instant booking we received was Dec 23-27th which means no Christmas at our property for us this year!

Kevin - thank you for this. We won't hesitate to do this moving forward. Since posting this, the long term folks reached out and want Jan - May so we won't have to cancel. However, I've turned off Instant Booking as we've gotten enough inquiries without it.

These are all great points. Very grateful for the replies and varying perspectives. I think being new to VRBO (having only 2 reviews) thus far, I'm included to refund $200 of the $250 security deposit and explain it cost us money out of our own pockets to replace a $50 chair cover than was ripped (admittedly, by the renters). Hoping by applying simple logic this will be fair and result in a positive (3rd) review. Will update.

We recently enabled Instant Booking on VRBO for a seasonal vacation property. The rates are $2500/week peak summer, and go down to $225/night off season with a 3 day min. 

We received a couple random weekends, which is good. 

Yesterday, we received a 3 day instant booking in October. Today, we had a couple who we've been talking to about a long term stay ask us if they could stay mid Sep-Dec which conflicts with the instant booking. Our preference would be to have the long term Sep-Dec renters. 

VRBO says we have 3 days to cancel. Website quoted below. Thoughts on canceling the 3 day booking in October so that we may book the long term renter? Would we get ranked lower, or receive a 'bad mark' somehow?

"Can I cancel an Instant Booking reservation?
Yes, you can cancel an instant booking reservation if the traveler does not meet your stated House Rules, Policies, or Terms and Conditions. If you need to cancel the booking for one of these reasons, do so right away. However, if a traveler meets all your house rules, then the reservation is confirmed and should only be cancelled if the traveler requests cancellation and you agree."

Thank you in advance, 

Frank

Good afternoon BP Community. Hoping to get a few second opinions on a situation where we my wife and I had a 2 week renter and we're weighing the options regarding full/partial/zero refund of security deposit. 

We rented to a woman and her family/in law members for 2 weeks, a total of about $6k. We took a $250 security deposit (I'm aware that's low). We had her accept and sign out T&C's, which include a specific dollar amount for things like not filling up the propane tanks, leaving a dirty grill etc. Here's what happened:

- She notified us that a (brand new, $50) chair cover had started to rip in two places. My sense was this was due to neglect.

- She was able to get into the garage fine initially, then had her son help her the second time and they broke the lock. I called in a favor to a local family friend that promptly came over and fixed it.

- They tore a hole in a yet-to-be-used custom Whale pillow, but didn't tell us. Our cleaning crew showed us. 

- They chipped a 3"x3" area of paint off of a stair case pole, they told us it was already starting to chip. I know it wasn't because I had just sanded, primed, and painted it myself.

- They left the grill dirty and open so that it was rained into and got soaked. We have listed that we charge $25 for a dirty grill.

- We saw one of the family members smoking on the front steps. Our cleaning crew saw her smoking in the back yard. Our policies clearly state no smoking inside the home or on the property; she accepted these terms. 

Thoughts on how to handle the return of the security deposit? I understand it may cost us a negative review but so goes it. I'd really like to give back part of it, but we incurred some hard material and labor costs due to their negligence. 

Unfortunately we weren't able to replace the chair cover as we had back to back guests arriving 5 hrs later and ordered it from Wayfair. 

Thank you in advance, 

Frank