All Forum Posts by: Jon A.

@Neal Collins, thanks very much for the response. I would love to get more info from your colleague. I know that this a new business for these guys and this would be their very first one so I feel like we would both be taking a risk and facing a slight learning curve.

Hello all, 

I have been lurking for awhile on bigger pockets and this is my first post. I have a duplex in downtown Asheville, NC that I have owned for 10 years and recently finished rehabbing the upstairs part of it and have it for rent. My price is a little high and the neighborhood is a little rough. There are a couple low income housing complexes in the area that keep it somewhat "transient". I have never had a problem renting it but the rents have always been on the cheap side. The downstairs will be vacant at the end of March and that will leave both units empty. The downstairs still has old paneling on the walls and this house was built in 1909. The upstairs looks great but I am not allowing pets at this time in the upstairs apt and I am trying to get a better caliber of tenant than I have previously worked with, hence the higher rent price. 

I have been approached by a for profit company that would like to rent the whole house as a halfway house for substance abuse. I am curious if anyone has any experience renting to an LLC and also if anyone has been down this path. I have spoken to an acquaintance that has gone through a program like this and has several years clean. He simply said that the halfway house he was involved in saved his life. I like the idea of helping out a community that I have lived in for 20 years and as you can imagine, "fair market rent" in this city is a very hot topic with many tenants that have a retaliatory attitude towards landlords. Drug abuse in this city is a growing problem and I don't really see a need for this type of housing disappearing any time soon.

Apparently they would put two people in each bedroom and have a live in, full time, house manager. From what I understand, the clients are paying them for a service and not an actual "tenancy". Of course, they have a zero tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol and if the client violates it they are immediately removed. The clients leave the house every day at 10:00 am and after 9:30 pm are quiet hours. I am meeting with them tomorrow to show them the downstairs unit and really am not sure how to proceed. It sounds like they would be very invested in the property and are willing to obviously pay higher than market value for rent. 

Has anyone done this before as  landlord and what are the pros and cons? I have found a few threads on this forum and a few other places but generally speaking I am mostly reading horror stories about half way houses for people coming out of prison. I am calling the city zoning dept tomorrow to find out if this bring up a zoning issue or not. Any thoughts on this subject would be greatly appreciated. 

That is probably too much information. Like the poster above said , I would call a local log home builder and get some info from them . They should have moisture meters and be very knowledgeable about the age and condition of the home. I am sure it will be time and money well spent. Replacing logs can be expensive and basically your only option if there is an issue is replacement. 

In the photo above posted by @ Chris Svendsen , the logs are flat on the inside. Your older log homes are round and have not been flattened like that . Water collects on the round outside logs and travels down to the chink. The moisture  collects there and rots the log. They sell an expensive caulk that you use to seal the where the log meets the chink. This prevents moisture from entering the wall and rotting it. Therefore, the maintenance on these homes can become an annual thing checking for cracked and or split caulking to prevent moisture from entering under the log.   It can be difficult to explain without pics or drawing it out for you on paper.  But basically, if that kind of maintenance has not been done over the years, the logs can rot. Another thing to consider is your wiring. Much of it will be exposed metal conduit because it is not that easy to just go hiding wires in log walls. Not to try and scare you out of the deal or anything but these are factors to consider when looking at log homes. I have only worked on a couple of them over the years and I think the older ones are really a labor of love and most log home owners are not aware that their old beautiful log house is rotting around them. Just take a screwdriver and try to slam it into one of the lower logs on one of the corners of the house. If it sink in a couple inches, there will be problems down the road. The one in the photos above seems to be in great shape. You gotta love log homes if you are into construction at all but you have to keep in mind the older ones were built to keep the owner dry and warm, not house wires and duct work and wires. They were built out of a necessity and not a desire. Just my thoughts. 

I have it written in my lease that it is required but I don't enforce it. It is really up to them if they want their property covered or not. Your insurance as a landlord only covers the house itself and not what it is inside of it. A good example is a case of something like a fire and the tenant looks at you to put them up in a hotel or another rental for the months that it takes to remedy the damage. Their renters insurance should cover that. Your homeowners insurance won't. Your tenants need to understand that your insurance does not cover their belongings and your lease requires them to have it. If they choose not to get it, that is their choice. But, if an upstairs toilet leaks on their bed, you are not going to replace it, that is what renters insurance is for. 

I really think it depends on the age of the log home. Lots of older log homes have been painted over the years and require a ton of long term maintenance. The paint actually ruins them and does not allow them to breathe. Newer log homes that don't have the actual "round" of the log on them are different. They have been milled or squared off to shed water more easily. Don't know if that helps or not, but I happen to live in an area that has a lot of old log homes.

I agree with Jill F.

I recently had a  running toilet that costs a few hundred dollars in a duplex. It was very hard for the tenant to notice such a small leak. Once I produced a receipt for the new toilet parts to the water company they discounted the bill for me and gave me an extension to pay it. 

I had a similar issue with a house that I purchased and approached the city so that I could purchase it a s a nonconforming legal duplex and wrote that into the contract for purchase. Before that, I think it was an illegal four unit home.