All Forum Posts by: Jenny Bayless

@Kyle Mitchell You could google your location along with the phrases 'we buy houses', 'sell your house fast', 'cash buyers', or similar phrases and you will see wholesaler pages come up.  You can reach out via the website's contact page and say you are a buyer and want to be added to their list.

Hope this helps some!

In our leases, the tenant is responsible for the full amount of the lease, regardless of whether they want to live there or not. For our only lease break experience so far, we had the tenant provide 2 months' notice, and then held them responsible for the lease until a new tenant's lease became active. The tenants who broke the lease found this to be reasonable, and we thought it was reasonable as well since we didn't have to pay for any vacancy costs. I'm not sure the implications of her being a HUD tenant on this. Since she seems to have a list of complaints, I think I would just let her out of the lease and you both part ways to avoid any headaches (assuming it's easy to find another tenant this time of year).

I would probably put the sewer bill in my name, and then charge the tenant, just to avoid any lien situations. 

I didn't really understand your statement about the late payment for rent, but my suggestion would be to assess the late fee as soon as the grace period has ended.  This way you start the precedent that he needs to make paying you a priority, and if not, there is a cost associated with it.

I like to market my properties on Zillow, since that syndicates to other rental websites (such as Trulia and Hot Pads).  Regarding the question on what legalities you need in place, I would suggest getting a lawyer-drafted lease so that it protects you and follows your state's laws properly.  The Book on Managing Rental Properties is a fantastic resource to get started.

It sounds like from your post there is a chance the tenants may leave if the rent is raised.  If they left, consider that there could be about a month of turnover vacancy ($900 in lost rent) plus turnover costs (such as touch-ups, or other repaits), vs a rental income loss of $50/mo*12 months= $600.

Can't hurt to let them know you will be raising the rent, then if they balk or say they will leave, you could negotiate in the middle.  We have had inherited tenants (renting under market value) get frustrated we are raising the rent, but when we tell them to shop around before providing a decision, they have always chosen to stay.

-Jenny

Hi @David Epstein

You will really enjoy Colorado Springs!  It is a great place to invest, but everyone had caught wind of this fact so it is getting harder to find deals that work.  They are definitely still out there though!

Feel free to PM if you ever want to chat buy and holds.

Much success to you!

-Jenny

Hi BP We’ve entered almost our second full year of self managing our properties, and by far, placing the right tenant in our properties is the most stressful part of self-managing in my opinion. We live an hour each way, 2 hours round trip from all of our our rental properties. In terms of general management, this does not pose an issue as we have a great team of local contractors for repairs, coordinating administrative activities with our tenants can be done remotely, and we are close enough to have face time with our tenants if needed. However, one issue we continually run into, are showings of the property to potential tenants (we aren’t comfortable allowing for self showings... just yet). When we were first starting off, we would arrange for a series of individual showings, but due to an overwhelming number of no shows, we have transitioned to open houses in order to preserve our time (driving two hours for a no show is nothing short of infuriating!). I do want to point out, that demand is crazy high in our market, so I understand if the market softens, we may need to cater to individual schedules out of necessity in the future. Some inquiries from potential tenants do provide an air of entitled attitudes (I.e we as landlords need to cater to their schedules, as if our own schedules are irrelevant), in which my response is to say “sorry you can’t make the open house, good luck to you in your search”. However, some seem to genuinely be unable to make the open house which makes me wonder if we are shutting off access to potentially good tenants. My question is: should we consider individualized showings? If so, how do we ensure the tenants have skin in the game (and not waste our time and gas)- should we ask them to apply first before scheduling an individual showing? That may seem like a scam to some without seeing the house and seeing us in person. Thanks in advance, I am definitely looking for some great ideas from more experienced (or creative) investors!

@Shannon McKenzie

Is there a valid lease in place?  If so, you will need to honor the terms of the existing lease.

If there is not a valid lease in place, and they are there month to month, you can simply provide them with a notice of non-renewal (make sure to follow the proper length of lead time required by your state).  Or you can have them sign one of your own leases if you'd like to keep them as tenants.

Regarding the appliances, usually there is a bill of sale included that would list out which appliances the previous owner had, and were transferred as part of the sale.  The next place to look would be the lease.  If nothing is stated in either of those, you might not have much proof that they are yours if the tenants walk off with them.

Hope this helps!

Jenny

@Jacob L White

I believe that someone who you've described as an 'equity buyer' would be someone who is buying either for equity at the time of purchase (priced well below the FMV...so instant equity) or someone who is looking for a high appreciation potential (but doesn't necessarily cash flow). A 'cash on cash return buyer' is looking for something that cash flows monthly very well, but may or may not necessarily increase in value during the hold period.

@Alex Silang

I think it depends on the scale of your portfolio.  I used to manually track our properties via excel up until this calendar year.  MS Excel, while free, can lead to user-error, and can be time consuming/manual.

This year as our investment portfolio increased (managing 9 properties ourselves), we made the switch to QB and I am very happy with it, especially since it will combine my entire position and for each individual entry it lets you attach supporting documentation.  

There is a bit of a learning curve to maneuvering around QB, you may want to pay a bookkeeper/accountant to set it up for you and perhaps give you some training.  I think it is worth the time investment.

-Jenny