All Forum Posts by: James Are

This is what I've been considering. They seem excessively hard on the property. They also try to repair things, albeit sloppily (I sent them a warning). Below is the tenants' attempt to repair the door trim in the bathroom.

They do take responsibility when I confront them as well as paying rent on time so it's a difficult decision. But managing this one house is taking a ton of my time, between the damage and roommate dramas. I do try to stay out of that as much as possible but when they move out I'm forced to become involved a little to protect my interests.

The home was completely remodeled before the these tenants moved in. I understand and agree that depreciated values should be used when assessing repair costs and that makes sense to me for items like flooring, appliances, or paint but how does it work for things like doors that should last for the life of the house?

I wouldn’t mind adding a dog door. I know nothing about them, though. Is it a security risk? Would future renters without pets be less inclined to rent a home with a dog door?

I used to be a research scientist until I couldn’t continue do to disability. Now I contribute to my household through property investment and management. So I’m pretty limited in what I can do physically, fortunately most everything can be accomplished from a computer. So I really have to hire out even small jobs.

The benefit of my current contractor is that he does an excellent job and will always make sure that it’s done right. If there’s an issue he doesn’t argue simply fixes it with no extra charges. But he works a lot in Seattle and prices for most tradespeople are significantly higher than Tacoma where this house is. So I’ll probably need to look into more affordable contractors, unfortunately. 

We would wait until they leave to do the repair. I hadn't considered adding a dog door, are they a security risk, especially for a large dog?

We were thinking something like this for the kickplate. I should cover up the damage to the door but the trim will still need to be fixed.

I have three roommates living in a single family home. Of course they have an ESA, a Doberman. After only about nine months he's done a lot of damage to the two doors leading to the backyard. Both the door and the trim are damaged on both doors. My contractor has suggested that it's probably cheaper to just replace the doors since filing in the scratches would require multiple trips. They agree that they're responsible for the damage. They're polite and respectful tenants that follow the rules and pay rent on time. One of the tenants did just move out due to conflict with the others but she brought in a subletter that I accepted. In only 6 months they've: broken the handle on a new dishwasher, broken an old doorknob, and now this. The total cost will probably be around $2000-$2500 everything included.

I have two questions for my fellow landlords:

1. Would you offer lease renewal in a few months to this group?

2. I do feel bad that the cost of damage repair is so high, though it's typical for the Seattle/Tacoma area. My husband has suggested adding kickplates to the doors to cover up the damage to reduce the bill. I'm not sure how that would affect the value of our home. Thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance for your time and input.

My husband and I recently completed the conversion of our detached garage into a small home (DADU), total cost about $240k and just signed a year lease, monthly rental rate $3050 (we also have an investment property we rent out). We initially refinanced our primary mortgage back in 2021 to obtain capital and lower the interest rate but construction costs were significantly higher than anticipated. The remainder of the cost was financed through credit cards and a HELOC. Our credit is excellent but varies depending on how much of our credit lines we use.

My plan is to chip away at the HELOC debt first and potentially refinance the $220k loan when interest rates go down a bit. Our financial details are given below. Perhaps the bright minds here might see other options or ideas that would be better for our situation? Thanks in advance for your time and attention.

Liabilities

$25k in 3x 0% cards, offers expiring beginning of October 2023

$71k HELOC @10% fixed (opened 2/2023)

$220k mortgage @7.625% fixed

$500k mortgage @2.75% fixed

$15k loan owed to family (asked us to cash out gold bullion, I did so but have been sitting on returning the money until they request it)

Non-Real Estate Assets

$20k Cash

$100k in Traditional IRA mutual funds

Cash Flow

Debt Service ($5500 monthly)

$200 0% Minimums

$500 HELOC Interest (minimum)

$2000 ($220k mortgage @7.625% fixed)

$2800 ($500k mortgage @2.75% fixed)

Income ($13500 monthly)

$5900 Net Salary

$3050 DADU Rent

$4550 Investment property rent

I have a property in Tacoma, WA with two houses separated by fencing. Parking for the second house is behind the garage and is not enclosed by a fence (see photo). The pathway from the second house to the parking area is a big mud pit. I bought the house late last year and have been watching for a four to five day window of good weather to add a concrete driveway and walkway to the home. The current tenants (2 adults, 3 small kids) moved in late January and will vacate and the end of April (previous tenant broke lease; these tenants are paying $250/month extra for short term lease). They’ve politely inquired about the walkway but have been patient. I’d like to start the project next week. All together it will cost me about $7k. I am NOT looking to pass this cost along to the tenant so I’d love to hear ideas/suggestions to be sure that their kids don’t ruin it before it can fully set. I will charge them if they damage it but would really, really prefer to minimize the chance of that happening. I don’t have any security cameras on site and would prefer not to have them there long-term but perhaps it makes sense to have a camera short term in case someone damages the drying concrete? Should I have them sign something that gives their permission to proceed? Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. I will let the three adult tenants in the other home know about the project but they’re unlikely to accidentally cause 

damage since their house is separated by a fence.

Fortunately this kinda of fraud isn’t to hard to combat. I don’t call the number provided by the applicant, I Google the company and call the listed number to verify employment. I’ll ask to speak to someone who can verify employment. Next I ask for the person listed as the employment reference (often it’s the same person). I’d think that this would be sufficient to prevent employment fraud. 

I think it depends a lot on how many doors you have. I only have a few so Google Sheets works great for me and I love it’s availability cross platform. Best of all is the pricing. 

Vacancy rates are pretty low in your area. Most landlords will also require past landlord references and no evictions. I’d make them an offer, not very high, but letting them know that they’re destroying their chances of obtaining housing in the future if they try to stay until the sheriff forces them out. 

Are the floors real hardwood? If so then no pets although as previously stated you may get stuck with an ESA. LVP is great for pets so if you have that then it’s all good, just make them run the animal through Petscreener