All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Also, she's probably not "motivated" to sell because we are very good tenants, never any issues from us, been here over 10 years, and have kept it cleaner and nicer than when we moved in.  In other words, we're not the ones who made it a dump...it already was falling apart.

I'm considering offering to buy our rental from our landlord because she's about to raise our rent higher again, which we can't afford.  It's a dump, so there's room to fix it up for equity, too.  

Dear Landlords: Any advice on the best approach for this? It needs a lot of work, so I would of course ask for a discounted price, but I've been concerned it will offend her, or plant the idea to list publicly on the MLS and put us out of a place to live (since there's plenty of people who can overbid us these days). Thoughts?

What do you all think, should you keep rent lower for good tenants?  Or no?

The other thing is we've lived her for many years (over 10), whereas the units around us have super high turnover.  We've had so many neighbors (problem neighbors, I might add) come and go.  Pot smokers, partiers, people fighting/screaming/throwing things at each other, dogs that bark and howl all day and whine all night, unsupervised teenagers lighting backyard bonfires in the bbq grill while mom away at work, etc.  We are the very good tenants -- no pets, no smoke, no drugs, no parties, very quiet, very clean!!  (Oh my gosh...I've seen neighbors' homes...gross.)   I've talked to the landlord for the unit next door, and he's always over there doing repairs, and completely refreshing the unit every 6-12 months due to his high turnover tenants, he seems very stressed.  I asked him once for info on real estate investing, he said being a landlord sucks all his time.  

Our landlord, on the other hand, never hears from us, we pay rent on time, and we keep her place clean and maintained nicely -- it actually looks way better now than it did when we moved in, because we've repaired crumbly wall sections, spackled holes/dents, touched up scratched doors and floorboards, de-stained the linoleum, replaced cracked lightswitch plates, power-washed the patio, washed the blinds (the landlord didn't, there was cat hair embedded in them from a previous tenant, which by the way the landlord wasn't aware of anyone having a cat, LOL), etc.  Someone once told me you don't want to raise rent much on good tenants like us... but the landlord just exchanged ownership from the mom to her daughter, so technically...new landlord...even though they haven't given us a new rental agreement, still in the mom's name.

Well the problem is, we're actually NOT saving all the money per year, because the heating bills are astronomical due to the junky windows and doors in this place, so we basically pay the difference there.  Other units are updated with the energy efficient windows, and we have those thin single-paned alumimum windows.  We've been paying over $400/month in energy bills, whereas neighbors pay $60.  And there's other costs, such as older appliances using more energy too.  And they told us when we moved in that the heater units in the walls don't work well, and advised we use plug-in space heaters.  I know we're lucky to have had lower rent, but we don't complain about anything for that reason and never ask for anything unless it's needed.  Our carpets are so old, they have stains that magically return after shampooing, and the walls have places that crumble, the bathroom fan is the cheapest kind you can get so it gets moldy if we don't clean it constantly....we've probably paid so much extra in cleaning supplies, too, that wouldn't have been needed if we had updates.  The windows get extra wet and prone to mold if we don't clean them constantly, for example, and extra energy from having to vacuum spider webs off the ceiling from bugs getting in so easy from poor sealing around windows and doors.   *sigh*  Can't wait to own our OWN place!  :)  Just can't afford it...yet!  P.S.  I did a typo...our rent is $400 below market, not $600.  

That sucks.  Ok, thanks!!

We rent, we live in a nice condo complex from the 70's.  Most units have been nicely updated, new weather efficient windows, doors, carpet, paint, updated bathrooms and kitchen, etc.  Not ours... our unit has never been updated since the 70's, and is crumbly.  However...we don't complain ever because our rent is $600 lower than all of our neighbor's with updated units, and we'd rather have lower rent than updates.  BUT NOW our landlord is starting to raise the rent due to the area comps, but can she do that when ours is a dump compared to the others?  We're in California.

And, if she raises our rent (slowly) to $600 more (over time, per law requirements), can we require her to update our windows to energy efficient windows and doors?  (Our heating bills are over $400/month in the winter due to heat loss.)  New carpets, updated bathroom and kitchen appliances, etc.?

Thanks.  

@Sarah Lorenz  It's mostly by myself because hubby works, but he is trying to do it part-time in every minute he gets.  He does what he can on his lunch breaks, but once he gets home I pass off the baby like a football, lol, and try to eat, get a bath, do some cleaning, do some real estate stuff, then it's bedtime already.  :[  Hubby stays up later doing some additional real estate stuff, and tries to share with me in the morning when I'm half asleep before it's time for him to go off to work.  It is hard....  I am definitely going to see how we can budget for a paid mommy's helper, or find someone willing to do it for trade-off. 

@Account Closed  Sounds like we're in a really similar situation!  Mine's a 9-month active boy, too, he's discovered the fun of crawling all over, pulling himself up on things, playing with curtains and cabinets, crawling under things, etc..  I'm also the one trying to figure out how to do it full-time, and hubby's doing part-time due to his full-time regular job.  But it's actually both of our goals for him to eventually quit his job, and this be BOTH of our full-time job.  

How do you get up an hour early without waking the baby?  I imagine an alarm would wake mine.  I've tried to take calls while he's napping, and half the time it wakes him up.... gosh.  I'm experimenting with putting on engaging educational DVDs during calls instead (like Your Baby Can Read, Baby Einstein, and Baby Signing Time) and letting him crawl around the living room floor, but that's still a work in progress until we get a large gate or something because he crawls out of the area at times and I have to grab him while talking.  It works for the most part, just not perfect, and my callers can hear it in the background.

I would LOVE to hear how you're doing wholesaling with a baby, please!  Especially since you're a wholesaler, in general I'd love to share info on how we're doing it, what we've learned, challenges/successes, etc.    Thanks!!

@Sarah Lorenz  Our goals were originally to do a minimum of 5 rehab/flips a year, and buy/hold at least 30 rentals at minimum $300/month cashflow each unit (and would increase as rents increased over the years).  But after hearing multiple seasoned investors recommend not buying a rental unless you can afford to own it outright, or have major reserves to cover long vacancies and unexpected repairs, we decided to start with wholesaling instead.  Not limited to that though, meaning if we encounter a deal we can do, like a subject-to, owner financing, etc., we'll be open to it.  My goal is minimum $100k/year with wholesaling, ideally 10 deals at $10k each, or if I take less on some, then I'll have to adjust my goal by increasing the deals that year.  I can't wait to be the Buyer and the Client!

@Sarah Lorenz Oh! I forgot to say, about the REIA that won't let me bring the baby.... one really good positive came out of it -- since I wasn't allowed to attend, the organizer was kind enough to personally take time educating me on the phone about what I was hoping to learn there anyway, so that was nice, saved me a trip too. After I received that education on the phone, it prompted me to start calling/emailing others for help too, so it opened up a door of learning opportunities to me that I wouldn't have considered prior.