All Forum Posts by: Jason C.

Usually when a tenant leaves a mess in a rental, I take it on the chin and clean it up, keep the full security deposit, and move on. They never leave a forwarding address anyway (if the property is a mess). The question is, if I wanted to account for and bill for the cleanup of the property, how should I estimate what to charge them?

I do the work myself. In this most recent case, I spent about two hours loading all the junk from the yard onto my trailer (it filled a 16 foot flatbed trailer) and will take it to the dump this weekend. Obviously there is the cost at the landfill, but how should I estimate the charges for unskilled work I chose to do myself?

Thanks all for the feedback.  

@James Wise  and @Christina Linn I should have clarified in my post the only reason I was hesitant to consult with a realtor is that I'm only considering this because someone called me and asked to buy the property. If I can't make a deal with that person, I'll just be renting it back out. DIidn't want to waste a realtor's time since I have no desire to actually list on MLS, but I did not realize they could run a CMA and just bill me for that piece only. That's fair.

So I received an unsolicited call today from a neighbor of one of our rentals. He sees our tenants moving out today and wants to know if we are willing to sell him the house. I told him yes but I would have to see how much I have tied up in it and will call back.

Now, I am willing to sell any of my properties and this one, based on its location, is one of the first I’d probably get rid of, even though we are more in our accumulation phase

I bought the house as a package with two others for 95k. I’m not really sure how to evaluate the exit price of the property though. Looking at my available sources, tax records have the house at like 34k, Zillow has it at 75k, and that’s the extent of my research so far.

I don’t want to ask a realtor how they would value it and I’m not super familiar with this market to know what I should try and get for it.

Also important to note is that I have no made no capex investment yet in the two years I’ve had the house and it’s been rented the whole time. So my whole investment in the house is about a third of the original 95k. Say 32k

How should I find the right price for this house to offer?

Originally posted by @Julie Marquez:

Along with the rekeying question, how does everyone lock their doors? I do the deadbolt lock system with a passage lever so that no one can lock their keys in the house.

This is a great idea. I have done it on some of my units that were further away from home, but will be switching all to non-locking doorknobs on the front entry door as they turn over. I have had one tenant lock themselves out of the house twice in the last year.

@Mark Fries I have also been irritated by this change. I like to rip out most if not all the blinds when I turn a unit over and spend 5.00 per window to make the place look much better. Maybe we should switch to just installing cheap curtain rods at each window? Does anyone do that instead?

I have a small duplex that we renovated and have one family wishing to rent both sides. They meet all screening qualifications and I gave them a speech about how it has to remain two units (i.e. no knocking down of walls to make it one place, etc) but I was wondering if I should sign one lease with both units listed, or have them sign the lease twice, once for each unit of the duplex? Any benefit to going one way or the other?

This toilet was a little too dirty, so we DUMPED it, and put in a new one.

I have a good one but can’t figure out how to post a pic on the app.

On my SFRs the tenant is responsible for landscape maintenance per our lease agreement. Even on one of our duplexes I have the tenants each mow their side, but the issue on some small multis is there is no place to store the lawn equipment. (No garage or shed)

Those of you that are defending her choices, please remember, this is the Internet. We are supposed to be out here passing judgement on complete strangers. That’s what it’s for! Have a great day!