All Forum Posts by: Gail K.

Sometimes what can "make or break" Section 8 for landlords is the particular housing authority associated with the program for your area. If they are easy to work with in terms of inspections and reporting problems with your tenants to their caseworkers this makes things easier for the landlord. If you get an inspector that's a pain in a low spot this can drive many landlords to the point where they decide it's just not worth dealing with this program.

Discuss the experiences other local landlords have had with the housing authority in your area.

Gail

Rashad...Planning on living in the home? As others have mentioned, HUD homes are often snapped up by Owner Occupants and if they aren't, there's a number of hunger investors in my neck of the woods (Richmond county GA) waiting to bid on these. I can remember a time when HUD homes sat forlornly for a while; no longer.

My youngest son just purchased his first HUD (will close in several weeks); plans to work on it, live in it and when the time period required by HUD has passed, turn it into a rental and move on to invest in other foreclosures, hoping many of the new investors have gone belly up (or mom has now become so senile he gets all my houses).

Gail

A fair number of insurance companies are handling the "dangerous dog" categories quite simply by not covering ANY breed of dog.

We don't allow puppies (ANY puppies) because there's a reason puppies are just so darn cute....they have to be because they're so darn destructive!! The vast majority of dogs that end up in shelters or on craigslist being given away for free are only about 6 to 10 months of age; out of their "cute" puppy stage but not yet out of their chewing, barking, digging, no-house breaking, jumping, etc. etc. stage.

Gail

This has happened to some of our ads. In fact, we were working on the roof of a house after our last ice storm and three different families stopped by to check out the "great deal" ($650 rent for a 4 bedroom, 3 bath house I rent for $995). The funny thing is, all three sorta "knew" it had to be a scam so at least they had the common sense to check it out. I'm wondering how many just sent the deposit in to the person claiming to be the "owner".

Here in the south you can sometimes (literally) get away with murder if you claim to be some type of reverend/ minister/man/woman of god/whatever which is exactly what this scammer was claiming.

I report the ads to craigslist, they are pulled, only to show up again a few days later. And the newest ones have no pictures included, just a description.

I hate to say it but I can't monitor craiglist/zillow/hotpads each and every day (and one of the ads that still shows up involves a house I've had rented since September of 2013). I'm coming to the conclusion that while there's a lot of naive and desperate renters out there, there are also a whole bunch of folks looking for "that deal" (who isn't??) and I suppose if they are dumb enough to fork over the money without viewing a place; well, maybe that's just a hard lesson they'll have to learn.

Had a patient (with obvious mental health issues) who ended up with a colostomy after consuming two BOXES (yes, boxes) of Ex-Lax believing he was a bit constipated and...literally...blowing out his colon. He resided with his parents who were unaware (until winter) that his habit was to empty his colostomy bags into the ductwork in his room. They found this out the hard way when they turned the heat on and just about keeled over from the odor. Had to evacuate (literally..how ironic!) the house until the duct was replaced.

Gail

I don't use their credit reporting but I know a fair number of landlords who do. I enjoy their forum.

Gail

We're in the deep south so air conditioning is a must. I have just one house that doesn't have central heat and air and it's our smallest one; under 1000 square feet. And yes, I do supply window units; it's such a small house that a unit in the back bedroom and in the living room takes care of the whole place. Like most of the older houses in the area it also has ceiling fans in every room.

I don't rent the units to the tenants as I figure if I had gone to the trouble of putting in central H/A it would cost me far more than these two units. I do attach them to the frames with star screws and so far, none have "walked" between tenants. The house isn't in the best neighborhood and I'd fear more of a central unit being torn up for the copper.

The house only cost under 20K about six years ago and even having the cheapest rent of all our places ($525 a month) it's been paid off a while back. These units would be easy to replace should they go belly up.

Carrie

Attached is the latest policy on residential group homes in the VA system:

http://www1.va.gov/vhapublications/ViewPublication.asp?pub_ID=2984

If you hear from this gentleman within this organization, make certain he is a federal employee who understands these regulations and not simply someone who wishes to rent your house for the purpose of housing these vets. As with most things having to do with the "feds" there are a number of regulations that must be met and monitored with these programs.

Gail

Carrie...the HUD-VASH program is different from what you are thinking of which is a residential (also known as a personal care home) for veterans.

HUD-VASH are vouchers given to homeless veterans similar to the Section 8 programs many may be familiar with. Often these vouchers limit the veteran to a 1 bedroom rental property.

The residential/personal care facility requires more than simply housing 3 or 4 veterans in a home; it often requires some type of 24 hour maintenance for these vets (depending on their level of care needed), which can include meal preparation and monitoring of medications these veterans are on. While they would have to be able to bath, dress, feed themselves, there is often a level of monitoring required by a certain level of health care professional (often at the nursing assistant level stage) to be present much of the time.

It can be financially rewarding for the person running such a program; the veterans themselves in my neck of the woods will often pay upwards of $800 to $1200 each for their room and board (still less expensive than their next step which would be a nursing home facility) but the VA does require regular monitoring of these type of facilities.

Gail (who works in a VA Medical facility)

My son was showing one of our smaller 3/1 houses and mentioned the attic was partially floored for storage. Woman asked if it was OK to put a bed up there so grandma could sleep in the attic.