All Forum Posts by: Jacob Morgan

@Cassia G. In the northern states it is common for landlords to separate the heat bills by installing inexpensive electric baseboard heaters in one or both of the apartments. They only cost $50-$75 per heater and will need to be have proper electric lines run for them, likely by an electrician. You can avoid the cost for the furnace or expensive mini splits with this option. However, this may not be the best option if you are in a warm climate and the local rentals typically have central AC instead of window units.

I have not heard anything about this yet, though it would not surprise me since new things keep trickling out about the provisions of the 2019 law changes. Where did you hear this? 

@Tyler Labelle

I'm going to guess that there is a separate heating system in each unit. Perhaps electric baseboard and maybe hot water, especially if these houses were converted from SF to 2-family at some point in the past. As for the cost of the units, i don't think that $50 is enough of an increase over base to justify the investment cost in equipment. You will likely pay over $3000 for each of these units installed professionally. Depending on your neighborhood and likely class of renter, they may or may not be necessary. With rents being around $600 for those units, this suggests the more budget end of the rental spectrum and for that AC unit type is not much of a concern. If you are really concerned about the looks, buy them a moveable in-room AC unit to replace the window units. BTW, i have no problems with window units personally and don't associate them with low class - just older houses usually.

I first became aware of surety bonds when signing a rental lease at a large apartment community in one of our country's overpriced coastal cities and was presented with a choice - pay the customary one month rent equivalent for a security deposit, or pay less than $200 for a surety bond which would pay the landlord for damages at the end of the tenancy. Not wanting to part with my precious cash, I opted for the surety bond. 

Today, I read an article in Curbed about the rise in these bonds and their adoption as a tool for making housing more affordable, especially in the more expensive cities where rent+deposit could run you from $3000-$4000 for even lower end apartments, effectively making it impossible for many renters to come up with the funds to sign a lease. 

https://www.curbed.com/2019/11/21/20976075/apartment-for-rent-tenant-security-deposit-insurance

Also, politicos are jumping on this and addressing the potentially long delay in transitioning to this by sponsoring legislation that would make it mandatory for landlords to offer this choice, and to not exclude the bonds as an option.

I'd prefer to steer clear of ideological opinion responses about big government vs socialism here - but I would like to hear your thoughts on the material ways that security bonds would affect us as landlords. Some questions I have are:

Will they cover what we need them to? Will we have a harder time receiving reimbursement from the admin company for damages? How much substantiation would be needed and how long would that take to receive payment? Is there any upside at all for us?

Thanks for your input. 

@James Murphey I haven't tried Tenant Cloud, but i have used Smartmove and RentPrep for screening. As for the management, I usually just collect payments via Zelle or Square Cash. If these services charge a fee for rent collection, I'm usually not interested. 

In case anyone was curious, I went with the immigrant family. They move in this weekend. 

While working on processing a security deposit refund for a prior tenant i was surprised to learn that the deadline for returning these had recently been reduced to two weeks from a "reasonable" time (30-60 days). This is both annoying and unsurprising in our newly tenant rights org dominated state legislature. 

What other changes are you aware of or have concerns about the new laws? 

@John P. NY state limits us to collecting a deposit equal to one month rent. Does CA allow for more than that? 

@John Underwood @Joseph Copella Thanks. I need to be patient and stick to it until the right one comes.

@Davido Davido I agree about #3. My interaction with them just left a bad feeling about their honesty and potential disputes by not being forthcoming. Since you are pretty relaxed in acceptance of these people, how often do tenants not work out for you? And what does more management look like for you, how do you correct emerging problems?

@Alan Grobmeier & @Anthony Wick  I found the eviction filing (not judgment) from the Smartmove screening which they both paid for. This actually became a research project to understand what these records actually mean (is it an actual eviction, or just a filing, which sometimes gets filed preemptively when rent is late). The one with the record said he was not aware of it, but explained that it was from money orders for rent getting lost/stolen in the mail and needing to be replaced. They had some agreement worked out with the management company about this, but the mgt co filed the eviction suit a couple days before he moved in with his new wife into her apartment (5 months after the snafu with the money orders). I could not reach them to verify this story. My take: he bailed on his lease to move in with her. 

@Haseeb M.undefined Yes, my current tenants meet all these requirements. One of them took a month and a half to find. The other one took two weeks. I got lucky on that last one, possibly both. 

@Lynnette E. I like this response. It's pretty much where I'm at right now in this. The MtM lease is a good idea for this. I just wish I could get a little more documentation on at least the income since I don't have anything else. 

@JD 

@JD Martinundefined No social engineering here, but I'm applying standards to some people and not to others based on whether the data exists to be found. I feel like I'm flying blind on screening the immigrants who may have similar financial issues that I can't uncover. I really can't verify much about their financial or residency aspects at all, or at least enough to feel completely confident. As the co-worker said to me when he brought them over to the showing, "you're just going to have to take a leap of faith." I don't really feel comfortable running my business on faith.