All Forum Posts by: Grace A.

Top 3 suggestions is get a team, get a team, get a team.  

I'm a military landlord, and am sort of forced into out of state rentals, as we live in one place (buy a house) and rent it after we leave.  

I'll caveat all of this by saying, we are planning to rent our first home in October, so these systems are untested, but it is what we have put in place. 

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@Grace A. I self-manage one of my properties (SFH in Pensacola). I use zillow to list the property and screen tenants (min 650 credit score, clean background check, must make 4x the monthly rent, income verification, and I need references for past landlords).

@Grace A. Oh, great catch as I did not mention the significance. He claimed it was a racial attack when it reality it did NOT matter what color or ethnic origin he was. This claim only complicated the matter more. There was zero argument as the facts spoke for themselves however if he really wanted to press the issue, I could have lined up many culturally diverse tenants I have including people of color. Thanks for asking about that as it was a part of the story.

@Alyssa Lebetsamer kind of went through this. We bought a 5 plex, and inherited unit 3 and unit 5 was vacant. We rehabbed unit 5 and found wonderful new tenants. Unit 3 was a black man who admittedly took medicine to help him mentally. All the tenants were afraid of him. One day I get a call from unit 5, 1 and 2, all telling me unit 3 beat up unit 5 so bad they got the police involved and the man you got beat up went to the hospital with several injuries. People wanted to move due to unit 3 and his erratic behavior. No one had any proof and each told a different version. After a little investigation, unit 3 went off on my telling me he could have cut his throat and left him on the sidewalk to bleed out. This same crazy tenant also put a red dot through plastic when my contractor installed granite and windows in his unit. He proved to me how mentally unstable he really was. So I had no choice. The other good tenants were all wanting to move. The man injured was afraid to ever reside there in the future. I hired a lawyer and went for eviction. I knew this was tough as the police involved did not even uncover what had happened. In the end, it costs me $7000 to do the right thing. My lawyer used the law to make a case as unit 5 ended up needing surgery on his wrist and they also wanted to press charges on unit 3. The judge in my case found unit 3 guilty based on evidence and tenants who showed up to testify. I won the case, stood up for my other tenants, but the judge would NOT grant financial victory for me, thus costing me the $7000 in fees. Unit 3 left his place a mess. I felt better about the situation and then I was called as a witness when unit 5 went after unit 3. That judge said he found my testimony credible and of course we cited the eviction we had also just won. I forgot to tell you, we were right in the middle of selling this 5 plex, and there was zero upside for us. We spent the money to uphold integrity and the protection of the other tenants. Moral victory sometimes comes at a price. My advice is protect yourself and document. Maybe both of your tenants are at fault? Maybe one is? But you have to show good faith as a landlord that you will protect your tenants in some fashion. We did not want to manage the drama with this nearby city and sold it with only a 1 1/2 year hold time, but proved to be a good investment. Paid $370k and sold for $545,000 and paid ZERO realtor or escrow fees!

Best of luck with your situation! Dealing with people’s drama is a real mental and emotional time suck!