All Forum Posts by: Jack B.

I am raising the rent by $200 a month while still renting $200 a month below market. Basically right now I'm GIVING away $400 a month. I split the difference with the tenant since she's been there a couple years and is now a single mom though she originally was with someone when moving in and now the lease is all on her only.

Anyways, she's a good enough tenant in that she doesn't bother me for trivial stuff. There were a few small stains on the carpet in one of the girls rooms and the living room last visit, but that's it. Otherwise they keep the place up. 

She realizes I'm still giving her one heck of a deal and wants to stay, however; she can only afford it if a room mate, someone she knows from work, moves in (with screening and all). I'm torn. On the one hand, it would be the least hassle solution. On the other, I could make ANOTHER $200 a month more by turning the place for full price, for a total of $400 increase. I've had a few bites at $500 more even....

The only reason I can think of to say no is the above, and the fact that it's not clear who's deposit to ding (assuming I charge the roomie a small deposit) if there is damage. While I have a ton of grad school stuff going on and stuff going on at work as well as 3 other rentals to manage and am short on time and would prefer she stay, I kind of assumed she would move on account of affordability and that I'd end up renting it at market price anyways, but either way, I'm still "winning".  Both give me more money, one gives me even more money but with some effort involved. I don't see too many issues with the roomie situation, but I figured I'd ask those who have horror stories about this...

Florida doesn't have reciprocity with WA. I'm only buying 1-2 more houses at MOST if ANY in WA. But when I 10-31 my Seattle Portfolio for property in Tampa I want to make sure I get the buyers agent commissions...

Anyone have an RV or trailer parking storage agreement for WA in Word format? I've found one for public storage in WA but it's in PDF.

 I disagree.  Landlords who are not providing subsidized government housing, are not expected to provide housing that is priced under market value, any more than a car dealership is expected to sell cars under market value to people of low income.

For some reason, there is a belief among many tenants that if they have lived in a unit for a long time, that this alone provides such value, that an increase in rent is not reasonable.

Which of course, is an unreasonable assumption.  Try telling them that their salaries should remain the same from the day they got a job, because they owe it to their employer to not charge them any more money based on the fact that the employer hasn't fired them for so many years - and see if their logic holds up.

Reading my OP, I think it's clear to me that I was leaning toward raising it because I'm giving so much money away at this point. Almost every landlord I know personally "never raises the rent" on good tenants. There are tons of landlord blogs about this out there. However; no good tenant is worth such a deep discount IMO. And, at the end of the day, they are not 100% perfect tenants as I see stains on the carpet that were clearly not there before. 

Rather than raising it $50, I think I'm going to raise it by$300, which is still $100 below market. That's still giving them a deal they won't find elsewhere if they elect to stay. Otherwise, it's down to a 2 bedroom apartment for them for what they are paying for 3 bed/3ba/large house with a huge yard and garage.

I already posted a recon add the day I posted this thread and have had tons of interest. Of course the pics were from when the house was empty and cleaned, not how the tenant has it setup now with their clutter. In any case, I'll just be sure to remind people of that as they are looking, that it looks different when they don't have their stuff there. 

 A logical assumption that I'm ruled by emotions because I ask a question with quantifiable data to get perspectives I hadn't considered? OK...if you say so buddy...

As I noted earlier, your "logical assumption" about how people can run a business when ruled by emotion was way off. Again, in case you missed it the first time, the market has heated up and I didn't raise rent in 2 years. Not that difficult to do such simple math for such a logical person...

Agreed on tenant screening. Do you see rising or declining property values in such bad areas? I imagine at such a low price, the prices are flat or declining.

 Lol, I've been in similar straights! After I paid cash for my first house, my truck broke down. I had to buy a new car at the dealer. Had cash to cover but only put 5K down on a 10K car. No car payment now and driving my now 117K mile Honda 5 years later. Stuff is starting to fail but still cheaper than buying a new used car. I do have my eyes on a 2014 Leaf with 16K miles for 10K if this car dies. The Leafs are pretty cheap and their batteries last a long time and are not that expensive to replace. Point being I have a plan...

OP, even though your interest rate is high, I would still try to buy property in an equity market. Why? 24% interest on say, 10K, even 20K is not that high compared to what you could make in RE in a year. If you have 60K to put into an equity property that nets you 60K in a year between appreciation, cash flow and principal pay down (like one of mine did), you're way ahead. You always have to calculate the opportunity cost...

 Either way, that is her problem not mine really right? She made the choices that she did to end up at the salary she is at with two kids. I will find another tenant above what I would be raising the rent to and below market in a month. In fact, I think I will post a recon add with pics and see how much interest I get before I pull the trigger.

Since none of my rentals are in Seattle proper I don't have rent ceilings and such. I believe I can raise it as much as the market will bare, but still. If I raise it by $400 she will def. move out. I was thinking more like $50, but I suppose I might as well just get it over with...

Nobody is ruled by emotions here, that's your assumption based on lack of reading or  comprehension of comprehension of what you read. As I said, when I rented it out the market rent was not that high. Lot's of landlords rent  below market as you would have noticed in the thread. It's easier to fill a vacancy that way.

I also had a vacancy at another house that did need a lot of work turning as mentioned before, at the same time as a rent increase would have been due for this house. Given a FT professional career in the low six figures and a full time grad school course load, it wasn't feasible to have two vacancies at the same time.

 As full time HS students I doubt they could add much meaningful income.