All Forum Posts by: Lynn Harrison

thank you David.

You should be able to find a state specific rental or lease agreement online and modify it to your needs. I found a free one for California. the Nolo website may have one. You may even be able to find a free one.

I haven't had a tenant yet but have had many roommates in the past where I was the responsible party. A contract is important but what is equally important are things like; is the prospective tenant employed? How do the references pan out? Make sure you are talking to the actual past landlord rather than a friend of the prospective tenant who is posing as a landlord- someone on this forum had a good idea of checking the phone # to make sure the reference's names match up.
And I would also say never ever take payments on a security deposit.

thanks Raymond :)

Thanks Jon :) I'm also posting a few links for others, the basic inflation one may be the same info as yours;

inflation
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Articles/Decade_inflation_chart.htm

food, 1940- 30 years

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=food-price-index&months=360

oil

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Chart.asp

Jon, wow again, thank you!

I assumed there would have been a housing bubble in the roaring 20's but I was wrong. Huh. Perhaps also the west kept "expanding" into parcels far after the 1870's and wasn't considered as valuable. Or financially as hard to obtain.

"Don't have a handy link, but at one point I did google up the inflation data and combined the two to reproduce that graph."

I'll google it, thanks much.

"But could easily be higher if lending is ultimately looser than pre-bubble or lower if terms end up being tighter. "

Thanks, I'm reading a lot on that right now, this is all new to me. Good. Looks like we don't need to worry about rushing out and buying anything ASAP.

Hi, I hope this is the right forum.

Does anyone have any links to data on housing prices from 1900 or 1910 to 1950's or present? Charts? detailed history? Personal knowledge?

I'm very curious how the bubble came and went from 1910 to 1940's in particular. How long it lasted. How many years of a "bottom" it had. A chart would be very interesting wouldn't it?

Any leads very appreciated.

This site may be useful;

http://www.relocate.org/view/

But I don't know how they come up with their statistics... It may give you a ball park figure though. I found it's easier to search google with "relocate" and the city or county & "vacancy rate" in the search terms instead of the site itself. I've had a few onsite searches that didn't return the vacancy rates.

"Does it really matter all that much, or will lowering rental price get you some one in there no matter what"

Probly would get someone in there, but if an area has a high vacancy rate I'd be VERY careful WHO you got in there. One area we looked at has a 25% vacancy rate, and I believe it actually does have close to that. Lots of smashed out windows and I think the eviction rate is very high also. Window glass alone is pretty expensive.

Another area says 12.5% vacancy but I believe the rate is actually closer to 3% except for houses for sale.

"I would only add - don't rent to people and pets you don't feel comfortable living next door to."

Yes. And don't rent to anyone who's pet is the boss of the household...

We don't mind big dogs, we have one. They don't pee on the floor as much as little dogs, and I think they usually get more training. Yes, I've also seen houses where the floor and doors were eaten away by big dogs. I think it has more to do with the owner than the dog.

My boyfriend used to train, show and breed dogs. We'd be looking for people who have good control and relationships with their animal.

OTOH I HATE cat pee... OMG hate hate hate cat pee.

thanks everyone. We're looking to buy within a few hours of us. We're hoping prices come down on REO's and it looks like they very well might.

We bought a bad fixer mobile home last year for dirt cheap without being able to see the inside first. Boy did we learn a lesson... It ended up costing us just slightly less than if we had bought one in good condition. Not counting our labor... LOL, yes, this site could save us some costly mistakes!

Hi Tivon, welcome to BP. There's an lot of information in these forums. I'm new as well and have learned a lot in just a few days.