All Forum Posts by: Jamie O'Connell

Hello! I do all of my income properties in Chemung County. Elmira is where I own 6 of them. In general the return is good but the town is honestly horrible. The only nice things in Elmira is the food at the dive bars. So I wont say not to buy cause I have and it has paid well but getting anything appraised is PAINFUL. For every good matching comp at a high price theres 16 poor priced matching comps that the appraisers only focus on. Your also spending 4-5k a year in taxes on a 90k house. Corning is nice, I personally wouldn't live there but id buy at some point when I have more morning. As of now I do Section 8 and you pay an extra $30k for a house in corning over Chemung County and make about $300 a month less. But I do believe the houses hold their appraisals better there.

Horseheads is the cream of the crop in Chemung county. Taxes are just as expensive as Elmira but the schools and the town are much better. Houses more expensive but you can get some good deals and the rent is steady. Lot less multifamily which is why I haven't bought but it is where I grew up.

Make sure you study the eviction laws, I believe tioga County (but could be a different close county im not sure) my lawyer told me that you now HAVE to pay to pack up an evicted tenant professionally and store it for months at your own cost if they leave their stuff behind. I haven't looked into it because I never plan on buying there but thats what he said was enacted in the last year. 

 Love this! That is exactly how the program is supposed to be used! So far I dont think I have one tenant who is on track for doing so but I love hearing the success stories. It is 100% a great program to get into and I love everyone's different views but I have also signed 2 new section 8 tenants since I posted this so I am staying firm in my belief! 

Jamie 

I use this term on my 3 year old nieces and nephews DAILY so thats hilarious. 

I will say a friend in real estate just posted last night on his story that he did cash for keys to get rid of two non paying tenants and 5 dogs. So it works but I think I will take it out of my portfolio of to dos. 

 I will say that it is a tough pill to swallow principal wise. However in my area which truly is horrible, about 75% of tenants go through about 4 - 5 jobs a year, own NO assets and dont pay taxes or care about things like garnishments or judgements. Which is why I go the section 8 route whenever possible. But sometimes I can't fill them with section 8 so I have to take the risk. I do background checks and such but well, not always accurate. Probably due to people doing cash for keys and it not showing a record haha. 

So I agree, I wont be doing cash for keys. But each area is different on what to expect with tenants. 

Congrats on not having to evict so far! 

I have tried those and never end up working for me. But good to know it works sometimes! 

 Thanks for the info, yea it's a pretty common theme in the podcast and such world. I agree though, not worth the hassle. I dont think I will be offering it again. 

The theory is good, not pay $1200 for a lawyer to do an eviction and wait 4 months not getting paid rent when you could pay $800 the first month of non payment. But as in most theory, only good in theory haha.

 So I spend a lot of time on TikTok (too much really) and I have NEVER heard or seen this squirrel in my life. Apparently it's in Elmira NY which is where all of my investment properties are! Almost knocked me over. But also people are thinking of marching to the house of the lady who POSSIBLY reported the squirrel and burning their house down, so I think it's best I dont go down that route haha. 

Yes that is my thinking too! But you hear so much about it and time is money so in theory I think it's a great idea. But seems to be a bit of a smoke screen. 

Very thankful I kept going with the eviction route as well and didnt blindly trust them. Would have cost me a fortune! 

I know that most people preach about cash for keys, I have had two tenants I have tried it on and it has always lead to an even bigger headache and elongated the stress. 

I inherited one tenant when I bought a property that the seller moved in right before I closed. I knew the risk of them not paying as they hadn't even signed a lease but it was my first Seller Finance property so I was willing to take the risk. 

They paid about 90% of their first months rent after my ownership (after a lot of follow up on my point) and never paid another cent. In Upstate NY it takes 3 - 4 months to get someone evicted and it's a stressful situation to begin with. I ended up trying to do the cash for keys, offered them a set amount, offered to forgive the rent they never paid and gave them 2 weeks to move out. They took it, and then dragged it out for another 3 months, kept promising they were moving out and found. place and yada yada but never ended up leaving. I of course (always recommend this) had my lawyer working on the eviction the entire time as I knew they were not trustworthy due to their lack of paying rent and lack of any remorse. So I didn't end up losing any more money than what was owed but it added about 2x the amount of stress with false hope and promises that never ended up happening. I did eventually get them evicted and thankfully they didnt trash my property (though they left a lot of trash that cost me $500 to get rid of but o well).

The other time this happened was a tenant I moved in who had a good job at a hospital, the hospital had a program where they paid the security deposit and first months rent. The tenant was responsible for the other 11 months of the lease rent and paid two months and then stopped. Following up with mass amounts of excuse and ghosting so I ended up starting the eviction process per usual. I offered the same terms as the previous one and they were very happy with it and made the usual promises. Move out time came and they hadn't even started looking for a place etc etc. 2 weeks out from the court date for the eviction they upped and moved and didn't even request the funds (not that I would have given it to them anyways because they were 2 months past the agreed upon move out date). Thankfully the tenant above let us know that they saw them packing a haul so we went in, all was good and non damaged and empty. Spoke to our lawyer, posted the necessary documents to confirm it was abandoned property and went on to have it cleaned and a Section 8 tenant moved in.

My question is, I hear everyone talk about cash for keys, cash for keys, cash for keys. But so far I have found it to be an emotionally exhaustive process and have had zero luck. I have only tried it twice so just wondering what the more experienced investors think of this, or is this just something that people talk about to try and make a real estate investing negative seem not so bad? 

REMINDER: Even when you make a deal with a non paying tenant to always continue the legal process in tandem. Never trust that someone who doesn't keep a promise on paying their lease contract will also keep their word on leaving. It's a game and they have probably won it in the past.