All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Greene

The advice you've been given above is far too severe in many cases. You've owned the building for four days and already talking about evicting a tenant for adding an unwarranted occupant? The first things you need to ask yourself are the following:

- How much due diligence did you do with the tenants in advance, prior to closing to establish a rapport with them and to go over what the new procedures will be?

- Per others above, what does the lease allow and how long is that lease good for?

- Is this really a big deal? If it's a one-bedroom you may have fire hazard remedies and code violations you could cite, but if it's a two-bedroom and there is room, is it a big deal if the tenants are good tenants who pay on time?

- What are you so worried about? In the rental game over your career, you will have 50% of tenants have an overstay guest or quasi-roommate that isn't on the lease. Is this against the lease, yes. But what if the person got kicked out of her house and needed a place to stay? What if they were escaping an abusive relationship? Before you start drawing up eviction paperwork, find out what the deal is.

Most errant new relationships between landlord-tenant start on the wrong foot because the new landlord didn't take the time to build a relationship before becoming the owner of the building. All tenants, when a duplex gets sold, think they are getting kicked out. Don't be so quick to push legal remedies as a landlord without more evidence. A bad tenant can ruin your unit so taking a first step to legalize the process on them won't win them over.

You shouldn't be counting on any landlord trying to end a lease early for cause during a sale. Tenants rights in most states far outweigh landlord's right especially when it comes to eviction. If you are looking to buy and all of the units are occupied, find out which units are on month-to-month leases and as said above, request as part of the sale, that a unit or both units be vacant at closing. It's much easier to evict a month-to-month tenant with 30-day notice.

One thing to note though. If you are buying and moving in to house hack and you evict one tenant, your remaining tenant may find that unreasonable and worry about their tenancy. It seems like rentals go quick where you are so you wouldn't have trouble renting again if they left, but it's something to note. Also, what if the tenants in the building are close. All things to consider.

All of the appraisers know each other. I don't think you are considering the blowback you and your client could get by not handling this privately. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that his intentions were nefarious? What if he thought it was going to be thrown out and was trying to let a HAM enthusiast know that there is equipment available for sale? What makes you believe someone was going to steal it? Reporting him is one thing, but threatening legal action and trying to get him barred from the approved appraiser list without any evidence beyond a photo shared is only going to come back to hurt you in the end.

The first question you should ask yourself is what are you trying to get out of this. Was he wrong? Definitely. But is it also possible that he was trying to find a buyer for some things that he thought were going to get thrown out. Is there any evidence that he was planning a theft? I can see why you are annoyed, but the amount of time you will spend on trying to get this appraiser a light reprimand (which is all he would get because he will have an explanation like above) will not be worth it. Did you talk to the appraiser about it at all?

@Aaron K. If the tenant hangs up on the landlord and is then unresponsive to communication to a forthcoming inspection, you aren't testing anything by knocking on their door to set the inspection in person. There is no chance a court would find a constructive eviction for showing up after a tenant won't respond to a landlord's right (and contract) to inspect the premises. You have to always respect your tenants, but you can't be scared of them.

@Aaron K. are you saying the law is that you can't show up without notice at any time for any reason in CA? I wouldn't expect to gain entry or force entry, but if a tenant is being non-responsive I would think you could knock and/or be there for maintenance purposes.

Set the inspection or just show up at this point. That's classic language to try to deflect what they are hiding. In my experience, it's usually unauthorized occupants. There is no hanging up on the landlord. I would get an attorney to send her a pre-eviction letter ASAP so she knows it's either follow the rules or leave. Once a tenant shows angst at a very regular question and process, I worry about the upkeep of the unit.

Use HubSpot CRM. It's free and will do everything you need to for what you are asking. I use Podio for my off-market acquisitions, kvCORE for my agent business, and HubSpot CRM for a smaller investor list. And I do think it's best to keep them separated like this especially if you have separate business entities.

Here is my take on courthouse auctions when you are new to doing it @Jenna Walker. In every market there are foreclosure hounds who have been doing it a long time. When you go to the auctions you will see the same people every week. If they aren't interested in it, it's not going to be a good deal and they won't play with too many condos because the margins are tight. If the upset is low the bank will always buy it back first. In hot markets (on-market), it's in their best interest to put it on the market especially because the listing percentage they pay for REO listing agents isn't very high compared to 6%. I've found that you can do better with condos by creating a list (using say, ListSource) targeting no mortgage or low mortgage and been there 7+ years. Most people are ready to move out of a condo by then if not before. Also, if you cross-add out of state owners you will find owners holding condos and probably not wanting them, especially if they own no other properties in the area. That's where you are doing them a favor. You could direct mail on your own and probably find decent condo deals for a rental.

My pleasure. Yeah, three times passed is not a surprise. Sometimes the bank wants to buy it back to list later as an REO and sometimes the upset value and opening bid is just too high at courthouse auction for it to be worth it. With only a 130k market value, I wouldn't be looking at it to renovate. There just isn't enough spread for it to be worth it at 98k unless it needs just cosmetic. Auction.com info is not reliable for extra liens. Only a title company can find out more information so if you plan on investing and buying foreclosures you want to develop a relationship with a local title company that can do quick searches for you to see if there are some hidden monsters there. There are a lot of potential pitfalls in foreclosure buying from the courthouse steps, the most being no inspections and the back liens that could come up later. You would have a bit more protection looking at sites like Hubzu, HomePath and Xome which are selling REOs, but on the market with some protection in that you can view them (with an agent) and they have generally cleaned them out and presented them at their best. Any questions at all, send me a message.