All Forum Posts by: Jason Moore

I generally caution Clients against being confident in language written into their Lease(s) which is counter to established law. Just because you put the provision in writing (and have a tenant's signature agreeing to it) doesn't make it enforceable in Court. An analogy I would offer is that suppose I have a tenant who is comfortable with me cutting off their hand if they are more than 2 days late on rent. If I in fact remove that tenant's hand upon being 3 days late (with their willingly given permission).... a signed document allowing me to do so would not prevent a charge of battery levied by law enforcement.

No Lease Agreement can supersede Federal or State law. Most likely, you'll be able to convince tenants to go along with this "no-cash" provision without incident at your discretion - but do be careful to check current statutes if you get any push-back from tenants who wish to challenge you on this. Rent is a legal/legitimate debt, and United States tender is a legal/legitimate source of absolving that debt. It's not worth several hundred dollars in legal fees attempting to enforce a provision that you're not legally able to enforce....

Best to you.

If I may jump in to offer some insight from the "other side"....

There are crooks in every profession to be sure. Some professions more than others - yeah, I can get behind that as well... but don't stereotype me. I wouldn't look down on you in a conversation about your livelihood without giving you a fair shake. Here's my rebuttal to a few of the more common complaints/concerns in this thread:

My company charges a $400 Leasing fee, or 50% of first month's rent - whichever is cheaper. Will I pay for your eviction - no.... because I give my Clients access to all of same the information I have on the prospect. Credit, eviction/background check, employment, rental history, etc - and we make the decision whether to rent together (I offer some insight into my personal opinion of meeting them as well). As a Manager I can't control what happens to our tenant after day 1 of tenancy any more than you can. But get this.... I feel that my fee should get you a 1-year tenancy at a minimum (I hope for more, as explained below), so if the tenant is evicted in that first year - I re-lease the property at no charge. Re-upping fees? Come on.... docusign and 5 minutes of modifying a template I've had for years is not worth charging anything for, let alone half a month's rent. Up-charges for maintenance? Here's how that works: if a tenant contacts us with a maintenance request, I have technicians for every need. HVAC, painting, pest-treatment, handymen... you name it. I provide them with enough regular work that I get discounts. Think of it like buying in bulk - if a pest-treatment with a local company costs $110.00, I pay $95.00. Guess where my profit comes from? Do I feel bad about charging my Clients the $110.00 they would normally pay, and making a $15.00 profit? No! I have overhead that needs to be paid for, and they didn't have to answer that call at 9:45 on a Saturday night themselves. Tenant turnovers? I hate these. When the property is vacant, I make less money per hour than when it is occupied. Let's say "hypothetically" that a turnover costs me $750 in materials/labor. I'm going to charge my Client $825.00 because.... overhead - that's how business works (would you work for free?). When this happens I make $75.00 for a few hours of walkthroughs with the turnover crew (before/during/after) and can expect another $400 for leasing the property after 5 round trips and 17 showings which total 10+ hours after driving time (don't forget to add another 10+ hours for putting together the listing, scheduling appointments, calls, emails, application screening, more emails, phone calls to previous landlords, the Lease-signing appointment, etc). I would much rather just make my 10% of the monthly $900.00 rent than go to those lengths. As for why I make that 10%? The same reason people put attorney's on retainer.... and then some. When you can call your attorney's cell phone at 2:00am after being arrested for jaywalking, that peace of mind is going to cost you. When your tenant calls me at that same time because the neighbors tree fell into the roof - that's going to cost you as well.... but nowhere near as much as that attorney. More importantly than this is that I'm paying someone (or I'm doing it myself) to physically check on your property at least twice a month. Strong storm come through town - how is your roof doing, are those gutters draining well? Heavy rains the past several days - is your tenant taking care of the lawn well enough to keep the City off your back?

Let's talk regulations for a bit - I have no problem with them! But please keep in mind that it is going to cost you. In my state, a Real-Estate License is required to manage property. That translates to several hundred dollars in licensing, several dozen hours of education (plus continuing education on a regular basis), yearly fees to the State Real-Estate commission, etc. This has to be paid for, and I can't imagine that you'd be OK with your boss telling you that he/she is planning on increasing your hours - while paying you less money. Think of it like this.... if the price of a patty of beef goes up by $0.12 - your McDonalds hamburger isn't going to be $0.59 anymore (remember when that was a thing??). The great thing about some regulation though? You get the peace of mind that your Property Manager knows your local Real-Estate law backwards and forwards, and can shield you from liability in landlord/tenant matters. Speaking of landlord/tenant matters....

I think perhaps the best reason I can give for why people would want to use a Property Manager? Enter the search term "nightmare tenant" in the box at the top right - more than a few threads will come up. A good Property Manager would just consider this "a tenant". We take care of handling every situation. Have I personally experienced every situation as a manager?.... No, of course not - but I do know the steps that would be necessary to begin resolving each of them. Anyone who tells you they've seen everything in this business is either fairly new to it.... or a snake-oil peddler.

At the end of the day, it sounds like many of you have had bad experiences with Property Managers.... and I'm truly sorry about that. I wouldn't want to place my hard-earned dollars with someone who didn't genuinely care about me/my investment either - that just plain stinks. It makes me happy to see my Clients making money... it's somewhat of a source of pride for me - a lone feeling of accomplishment in a mostly thankless job (you'd be surprised at the lack of phone calls when everything is going well... you IT people will get me). Regardless, I know that some of you do a fantastic job of self-managing - and a genuine kudos to you... you truly are getting more bang for your buck. For those who don't have the time/knowledge/temperament/patience - just know that there are options out there.

Best to you.

Per the federal HUD guidelines outlining bedroom requirements, bedrooms in both basements & attics are subject to ensuring a ceiling height of only 6'8". If the inspector raises an issue about the height in the basement bedroom, point them to the appropriate section which outlines this (I have had to before).

Best to you.

Ahh...Trees. One of my favorite aspects of rental property (sarcasm). Generally (check with your local guidelines) property boundary law works as such: that your property line extends "down to the center, and up to infinity". Now obviously there are variances for Elec./Cable distribution, sewer, air travel, etc. - but between 2 homeowners, the basic rule applies. What this means in my municipality, is that technically that isn't your neighbors tree - not all of it anyway. It's also obviously not yours either. Rather it's shared between the 2 of you. Your neighbor owns everything on their side of the boundary line, you own everything on yours. Sounds like your neighbor owns the vast bulk, but most assuredly those branches belong to you - and as such, they're your responsibility. An unfortunate situation obviously, but nonetheless it is what it is. In the past, when I've been unsuccessful getting a neighboring property to properly prune the tree to prevent encroachment onto my property - I'll hire a company to come out and shear everything off straight up about 2 feet into my property (just to be on the safe side, never know exactly where the boundary lies). This makes the tree look rather ridiculous, and has a few times angered the neighbor to the point of threatening to sue. I let them know I tried working with them, then explain the law and encourage them to speak to an attorney - I have never heard back from any of them.

If the neighbor won't work with you, perhaps approach them about sharing the cost of removing the tree? You could offer to pay for a percentage, and while you would spend more on that today than simply trimming - this would likely save you money (and headaches) having to do multiple trimmings in the future.

Best to you.

Hi Ketan,

I've lurked on the site for a while now, but finally decided to join to I could add to your discussion/topic. I have used Cozy.co for screening in the past, and have experienced the same wait times as you for certain screening checks. The 2 times I've experienced wait times longer than 48 hours from Cozy, both missed evictions records which were easily accessible through Missouri's Public Records database. The 1st miss was an applicant that had an eviction in 2012 (less than 5 years), and the 2nd was an applicant that was undergoing an eviction proceeding at the time of applying. The Cozy check missed both items, eventually (after several days) declaring both as "all clear". Thankfully, Cozy was not the only screening service I use, and as such - both applicants were turned down. Long story short, don't rely on Cozy.co's Eviction checking as 100% accurate/up-to-date without your own research.

Best to you.