All Forum Posts by: Gary Pilkington

I have learned over time that:
I don't use Craigslist (too many scams for me in my area)
I don't use a sign (to advertise that a property is empty)
I only listed on three sites- Cozy (Now apartments.com), Zumper (mainly for its Facebook Marketplace listing), and Zillow. With these three listings, the listing gets posted to several other sites including Facebook Marketplace without using my own personal facebook profile.

This method more than enough quality applicants and allowed me to quickly place a quality tenant. Its now been years since I have had to find a new tenant.

Going forward, I will most likely replace my Cozy listing with one on Avail which syndicates out to Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads, Zumper, Apartments.com, Padmapper, Apartment list, Doorsteps, Walk Score and Realtor.com

I'm in the exact same boat. After visiting Capterra.com to compare rental property management software, I have a small list. Looking closer into Avail which seems like it might work

Take a look at:
https://www.capterra.com/renta...

For Capterra comparison of various alternatives

How many people recently received a notice from Apartments.com stating that we need to add/update tax information to continue to receive rent payments and the system will not let them enter valid tax information?

As a Cozy migrant to Apartments.com, I haven't been impressed with the system and need to look at alternatives.

@Mike Kedziora depends how long you have been there.

If it has been your primary residence for two of the last 5 years, you can probably avoid capital gains on that 70k. If you rent it out, depending on how long you do that, you will have to pay capital gains on that 70k (and any other appreciation going forward) when you sell.

And yes, there is also a 1031 exchange later on but you will eventually have to pay capital gains (in less you can avoid it now and then put the capital to work on another property.

@Adrienne Binder

So much depends on YOU.

Age, adverse market conditions tolerance (have you seen the rehab costs swing in the last 7 months), risk tolerance, other financial situation etc.

What if you put all of it in and paid cash for fewer properties? What if you leveraged it to buy more properties? With each scenario, what if the market tanked (again) and you were left holding the bag(in multiple scenarios)?

There is no right answer. Because it is a personal decision which needs to be based on education which is then applied to your personal situation.

I know what I might do in a similar situation (as would other people). But, I am not you.

Just my thoughts.

@Terrell Garren and that they don’t support property type Duplex and list two halves of a duplex as separate “town houses”. Some people like to look for duplexes specifically.

@Alex Smith I was migrated a few months back and tenants or I haven’t had any problems so far. Not looking forward to going through a tenant turnover as, it looks more cumbersome.

Slowly starting to look into alternatives - just in case.

(And I also appreciate continued discussion about this from others in the same boat)

Thank you very much for the good info. I'm staying for now as well but, I'm looking into what I need to do for listings when that time comes. Zillow has a similar type of rent collection mechanism?  

As the owner of a small rental portfolio, I took over my own property management duties in 2019.
Cozy made this transition extremely smooth and easy for someone who has never managed rentals prior to this.
As a seasoned IT Professional, I was actually impressed that the migration was actually seamless to tenants and me and without interruption to payments etc.
This question is for Cozy users like me who are now (or soon will be) Apartments.com users.
What are your thoughts so far? Have you needed to market/find another tenant since this change?

I have not been into it too deep but, I haven't found a way to do some things (like background checks) that were included in Cozy's service. While I don't immediately need it, I'm wondering about how this will be during a tenant transition.
I would appreciate your input.

@Matt Huber Brandon Turners book “the book on managing rental properties” helped us a lot when we started with rental properties in 2015.

Also, if you are selling a home you lived in, make sure you take advantage of the tax situation.

If you lived in it for two of the last five years, you can avoid capital gains tax. Otherwise, you pay taxes on gains going back to when you purchased it.