All Forum Posts by: Jennifer Rysdam

If I were young again I'd purchase a live-in 4-plex every year. Low down payment and cheap living. Once you get several of them you can sell and go bigger with your cash. I'm very much encouraging my kids to do this. We're getting our daughter started in it next year when she goes off to college. Good luck! Sioux Falls is a great market!

I'd do a live-in 4-plex if you can. Low down payment, plus you can do it over and over and over again. A great way to get lots of doors. If I was young I'd do it for sure! Good luck!

I think the best way to gauge a deal is to turn it around. If the partner found the deal and you did the rest, would 50% be fair? I really think it would depend on how hard it is to find a deal in your market and how much work it needs. Good luck!

Can you house hack a 4 plex? Then rinse and repeat every year. You will have a good number of doors in no time to pay down that debt. If you still live in Texas you can find a lot of good deals and the low down payment will allow you to keep doing it. Good luck!

Generally when I have someone moving out I offer to refund them up to 7 days of rent if they move out early and leave the apartment in good condition. Many will take me up on it if they can.

You may have already done this but I would check with an attorney about the specifics of the law. That would be really disappointing if tenants are now allowed to smoke in the building because of that. I'm all for medical mar. but there are liquid forms that won't affect others. I've had tenants smoke pot in my building and it goes throughout the vents into other units. Not cool!

I'd pick neither. Is there something in the contract that says you can't also actively look for a tenant?  I have a flip listed with a Realtor, but I still market that thing like crazy. If they don't like it tooooo bad! I need it sold.
Can you link your listing here so we can look at it? Sometimes it's nice to get other people's ideas of things that might make it more marketable.

Do what you can to put a stop to it. That's a huge water bill, plus if they are required to move out they may just dump it in the yard and cause floods to the yard or house. Does your city have ordinances about pools? Ours doesn't allow a pool without a fence.

Congrats on your new purchase. A lot of decisions might depend on cash flow. I would give the tenants month to month leases (after inspecting their units and making sure you even want them there). While you are redoing the other units you will get a chance to see how the current renters are. If you like them you could always offer them to move into the new units and then remodel theirs. Otherwise, just do an inspection on their's and fix the important things. If they are happy with it why spend the money now. It's best to wait until they decide to move out and fix it for the next person. That way if they are hard on things it will be old things and not your new stuff. Just depends on your goals. Just don't go overboard right off the bat and spend all your funds. You may need some for other things that may come up. It's always good to have some reserves. Good luck! :)

Thanks for the info. I'll have to check out Tellus. How long do they take to process the payments? My problem isn't that they are paying late, it's that Quickbooks takes 5 business days to process them, which ends up being 7 days or more. By the time they finish processing it the funds aren't there. So I don't know if people are paying their rent just hoping the money will get in their bank account in time, or if they are paying rent and then spending their money thinking it has already been taken out. It's frustrating.