All Forum Posts by: David Clay

Just a suggestion: replace the carpet with a vinyl laminate or something similar? This will eliminate the need to worry about carpeting. I'm doing this in every unit. When it is time to replace the flooring I'm going with a hard surface. Easier to clean and the new tenants don't have to worry about walking over the old tenant's dirt (or pet dander). When you saw the tenant had an unapproved pet you should have started charging them a pet fee immediately and a monthly rental for the pet. This likely would have either covered the costs of cleaning the carpet at a minimum or contributed to replacement. I agree with @Bill B. that your walkthrough should have been completed with the tenant. If you didn't note any deficiencies at the time of their departure I think it will be difficult to hold their money. The real question is whether the wear and tear on the carpet is unreasonable. Does the carpet have a pet smell? I suspect that it does. This, in my mind would be justification for cleaning services, but not for a replacement. I can smell pets and smokers when I go into hotel rooms. I have to change rooms b/c those feel grimy to me and smell so bad I end up irritated during the whole stay. I can tolerate a low end hotel, but not those smells. I'd almost rather sleep in my car honestly. Thus, I can understand your tenant's concerns. Good luck. 

How about this, renovate the one side you're living in and finish it before end of the tenant's lease. Sign the tenant to a new lease at a higher rate and move that tenant into the newly remodeled unit. He'll be happy with the new look and you can move on to updating the other unit and getting your heloc setup. Timelines are important here so give that some consideration. If you need the heloc faster you could attempt to do both simultaneously, but like others have said it becomes a bit more complicated. I haven't done any with a tenant inside, but prior to getting involved in REI my wife and I had a couple jobs done in our home and she hated it. She won't even consider getting work done if we are still in the house now. We have to be gone for a bit or some other work around. Sigh. Anyway, good luck.

I just went to their web site to check them out. I'd never heard of them. They say they're LL's as well. That's good. The service seems interesting, but I'm not really sure about the value especially in a rural community like I live in. Most people here have credit problems and if they don't they're not renting b/c they already have a home or are in the market for one. One problem I noticed is they say that premium features require a fee, but I couldn't see exactly what their premium features were. They have a list, but which are premium? Anyway, I figure normal screening is good enough, call previous LL's, check credit (which seems the best indicator to me honestly), verify employment, and look for previous evictions. I talk to them and plan to start visiting their current homes in the near future so I can see how they're living as this will show you what you can expect them to do in your home. I don't know that paying an extra fee for this service will prevent me from doing all the other things. Thus, it seems a waste unless they can show me definite proof of the value they report. 

If the owner has a friend with a few pitbulls, maybe a rotweiller or two, maybe ask that friend to also move into the house and have the dogs simply harrass the hell out of the squatter. No bites, but make it extremely uncomfortable. Shoulder shrug. I'm sorry my dog bit him, but he chose to live here etc. Maybe he gets results. Or, once the squatter exits the home leave the dogs in the yard. He's free to come in if he wants to, but I'm under no obligation to move my dogs. They're my protection. All of this may be illegal, but these are the types of thoughts that run through my mind when our state governments create what I often think of as unfair housing laws. Just not smart in my mind. I get the pandemic stuff, of course, but someone should have thought about these kinds of problems or at least talked to landlords to get a sense of what makes the most sense. Don't kick out people who are legitimately struggling, but this is nonsense. 

I like your process on inherited tenants and will use it going forward. I bought a six unit some few years ago and had mostly all good tenants but they had some quirkiness. One guy didn't want anyone in the unit for repairs and wanted it done on his schedule. Mostly, this was not an issue except it irritated me that he couldn't be available for people to do the work consistently. Then he had an urgent request while I was out of town. When I finally got someone to do this emergency work for a bathroom maintenance issue on a Saturday (the day before his family came to town per his request) he wouldn't let them in b/c he had to go to work. Yikes. The contractor had to pay a guy to do work he didn't need him to do b/c the tenant wouldn't let them in the apartment to do the repair. I simply terminated his lease since he was month-to-month and didn't want to renew to a regular lease prior to this episode. That was an easy fix. I went in and did some rehab on that and raised the rents a bit. Another tenant is very similar, but easier to work with all around so I didn't cancel her MTM lease. We eventually were able to get a regular lease signed after the city damaged the building and she had to move out for six months. 

Not terrible tenants, just not ideal, but some I've had since then have been worse so go figure. You never know how it's going to go I guess. I do screen or attempt to screen, but my area has so many high risk tenants that if I rejected all tenants with marks I'd never fill these apartments I don't think. My best tenants are older. They just pay their rent and they don't cause any problems with neighbors. 

Anyway, good post. 

I'm not expecting any tenants to miss rent, but I only have 7 tenants if that's worth anything in this discussion. 

I'm not sure that this is helpful, but you could call the local office and ask them if they have people looking for places to live. Also, if you want to run an experiment, when you have a vacancy that you want to rent to a section 8 tenant you could go to the local office and place signs on all pathways toward the office. This way people who are looking for section 8 rentals will see your signs and may call you before they call others who are listed on the list they pass out. Good luck. 

Do an anonymous call to code enforcement. Have them come out and inspect. They'll at least make him get his property up to code. If he can do that then he can get a higher quality tenant if the neighborhood is right. Sounds like he's bringing the neighborhood down. I wonder if you could get with your neighbors and form an HOA. Include nominal dues for admin and then create rules that limit unwanted behaviors and activities. Once things are better regulated it could go dormant unless needed again.

Hmm. I often recommend that people consider doing this when they start living off campus. I think you need the first year on campus to develop friends and get a sense of things. This doesn’t seem relevant to you. Without knowing details about location and prices etc., I would encourage it. Instead of taking out a loan, I would recommend you do a first time home buyer program. Hopefully, you’re working, but if not you’ll need to be able to show that you can make the payments on the mortgage. I’m not sure that your student loans will count as part of your income. Thus, you’ll need an income to purchase. However, there are creative deals. If you can find someone who will do an owner finance you could get in that way and sell the property when you’re ready to transition or simply cash out the owner. You’d have to do some searching, but it is a numbers game. You’d have to keep asking someone until you got a positive response. You could contact the real estate association in the area of interest. When you find the house, rent it out by the room to other college students, but treat it like a business with legitimate leases, responsiveness to maintenance requests, etc. Even better, if you have a down payment and can get a duplex or a triplex, maybe even a 5 BR house. This will help to cut down on your cost of living. I’m certain others can give more specific advice and probably better. Good luck. 

Thanks, I’m near Tallahassee. Too far north for your guy but thanks for the information.