All Forum Posts by: Jon Behlke

It feels to me as though they requested both hoping they'd get a yes to one. I'd personally say no to both unless you're open to pets for a fee and increase rent. If they balk when you increase the rent let them know that their inquiry triggered you to check the local rental market and that you are actually below market rate.

2 Votes

Let them know that when they signed the lease the residence was ghost free, and that's the condition you expect it to be returned in if they want their full security deposit back!

3 Votes

I wouldn't amend the lease, I'd move to cure or evict. It's not what your stance is on pets, it's that you had a written agreement, and they violated that agreement. It's not about the pets, it's about the disrespect and lack of regard for you and the lease.

2 Votes

If you're looking locally, it's pretty easy. Just look at areas that are duplex heavy, then go to your county's property tax web site. For me it's: http://property.co.fayette.pa.us/search.aspx

0 Votes

I would buy it only if I were getting it at a 3BR price.

1 Vote

Penn Hills School District grossly mismanaged millions a few years back and property taxes are increasing dramatically every year as they scramble to fix their situation. I would personally steer clear of the area unless you really enjoy throwing rent money at property taxes.

https://triblive.com/local/penn-hills/penn-hills-real-estate-taxes-expected-to-go-up-to-help-balance-the-districts-2019-20-budget/

2 Votes

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

This sounds like a language issue to me. If you're not conducting the background checks, but the property management software company is doing the background checks, I would think that's enough of a barrier. Let the tenant put their information into the system, and let cozy or whoever do the check.

1 Vote

So as you may have gathered from earlier posts, my wife is going to inherit some rental properties once the estate of her father settles. We are looking at the best way to handle some of these properties. The idea I had on one of the SFR was rather than keep renting it to the people currently living there we could do a owner financed sale instead. There are some deferred maintenance issues there that we'd rather not deal with, and the tenants seem like they might be agreeable to that kind of arrangement.

My question is, if set up as an owner financed sale, if the mortgage isn't paid timely, is it easier or more difficult to foreclose than it is to evict? I'm in Pennsylvania if that helps.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @John Nachtigall:

Originally posted by @Jon Behlke:

Originally posted by @JD Martin:

Originally posted by @Jon Behlke:

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Well said. I would argue that we are too far on the end of evolutionary capitalism. Actually its not even that. Its closer to a corporate fascism where the major companies own the government and laws are made for their benefit. There is an exploiting class. Its the lobbyists that fight healthcare reform and minimum wage and labor laws and consumer protection laws and predatory lending laws etc etc that stack the system not only against the poor but also most average americans. I say this with the perspective of living abroad for large portions of my life and interacting with people from al over the world. I would challenge your upward mobility myth. Actually the chances of someone born in the bottom 20% to rise above that threshold is very very slim. Same with the declining middle class who are paycheck away from homelessness and cant find $400 for an emergency. Some of this can be chalked up to personal choices but not all of it.

The ability to rise above the bottom 20% is far from very, very, slim. Even a study stating it's more difficult in the US than in other places abroad places raising out of the bottom 20% at greater than 50%. "A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults." https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html

I'd also argue that your proposed solutions would actually make the problem worse. Minimum wage laws greatly assist large corporations in eliminating competition. Every barrier to entry government creates assists the behemoth companies they refuse to break up. Government tends to make things worse the more they try to help. Which sectors of the American economy are experiencing the highest rates of inflation? Why those sectors that the government subsidizes the most, of course! Government tends to be the problem in most cases, not the solution.

While I think you are on the right path in the first part of your post, the last part of it is a myth and needs to be stated as such. The greatest societies in the history of the planet, whether good or evil, became that way through strong public administration, i.e. government. Strong government in the US prevents unchecked capitalism which is not a formula for long-term wealth but instead a recipe for short-term collapse. I agree that there are plenty of examples of unintended consequences when it comes to government "help", and that there are an equal plethora of examples of intended consequences that benefit specific classes and create have/have not scenarios. That should not be confused with the fact that government, in the US and most other western nations, does in fact get it right more often than not (when the opposite is true, the society fails), and that there is nothing endemic about government interaction with society that creates more problems than it solves - quite the contrary. Man created government out of the abyss to counteract anarchy. Saying "government is the problem" is a quaint sounding phrase but in fact causes more problems than it solves because it encourages lazy, non-critical thinking.

A myth? Do you have any citations for that, or are you just discounting one person's opinion with your own? More importantly, if I want to work at a home improvement store 4 hours a week in exchange for a 10% discount, why does the government need to get involved and prohibit that voluntary exchange? If somebody is a stage 4 cancer patient and wants to try a new medication, why is that person considered a felon if that medication isn't FDA approved? Does the FDA take responsibility when a drug they've approved injures or kills it's users? I was in the military for 8 years, I've worked at the state's Department of Humans services for 3 1/2 years, and I've yet to find something government does more efficiently than their private sector counterparts.

At the risk of taking this off course, I happen to be an expert in the FDA example you used (I work in the medical device industry not for the FDA). First, the FDA only regulates the companies. So the company selling (or even giving away) the cure gets the felony. The doctor is regulated by the state, they would get the license pulled and in only the most egregious cases get a criminal charge. The person taking it is not guilty of any crime. And as for why we care, because it was tried the other way. As little as 100 years ago there were no regulations on medicines and devices and that did not work so well. Bad people sold Bad Things to Desperate people. The picture below is a device where you inhale radon gas and the lead hat was to keep all the radiation inside you so it can "heal" you. Notice the 1940/50 clothing. Simply put the person with stage 4 cancer has to be protected from themselves and others...there is no "right to try". Especially when after they are taken advantage of they will demand better regulation

Rent control has been conclusively proven not to work. But there are parts of the government that work better than the private sector. National Defense, Treaties, Trade, banking regulation, and yes medical devices/drugs, etc. You may not like them all, and we all know they dont work perfect, but regulation is better than an unregulated market solution.

Last thing I'll say about our tangent, for every quack device you point to from 80 years ago, I can point to fake lists at the VA that cost the health of an unknown number of veterans.

Specifically as it relates to real estate however, and government intervention into the housing markets, if low income housing were really the cash cow that this "study" seems to indicate that it is, wouldn't the larger corporations be in this market? Instead, the overwhelming leader in the market is the government themselves as low income housing is such an unattractive market that there are insufficient landlords willing to take on these properties even when the government subsidizes the cost to the tenants. It is highly unlikely that the markets in housing are acting directly opposite to the way they'd act in any other sector given similar parameters. Chances are much higher that the authors have an agenda to push.

0 Votes

Why do all these studies have statistics from Milwaukee? Is there a strong concentration of Marxists in Milwaukee? If so, please remind me never to visit.

5 Votes

All Forum Posts by: Jon Behlke

Jon Behlke has started 9 posts and replied 122 times.

Post: Tenant Requested Lowered Rent AND a Dog

Post: Here's One For You - "I found out the house is Haunted" Tenant

Post: Tenants brought in unauthorized dog.

Post: Duplexes with out of town mailing addresses?

Post: One bedroom changed to two Bedroom. How to price?

Post: [Calc Review] Help me analyze this deal - Pittsburgh

Post: Liabilitu Insurance won’t cover if I perform background checks!

Post: Easier to Foreclose than to Evict or No?

Post: How Poor Americans get Exploited by their Landlords

Post: Eviction Crisis? Spare me.