All Forum Posts by: Jon Blackburn

@Rick Trivedi I did not. The property I was looking at needed a decent amount of work, and the owner was able to get more money by selling it directly to one of his tenants. I still see a decent number of properties there on MLS though, where the numbers look decent...so I'm keeping it on my radar for this year!

I’ve started attempting to evict a tenant. After posting a notice to vacate on the door, if the tenant agrees to leave, is there something I should have them sign to officially terminate the lease and legally take back the unit?

Hi folks,

I just purchased a 5 unit mfh, with rents well below market. One of the tenants just qualified for section 8 assistance, and was asking me if I could start accepting it.

I've been reading up on the rules, and I could practically double the rents and still be at HUD's fair market rents...but they talk about "rent reasonableness" and that rent can't be higher than for other units on the property. So with 5 tenants, all on staggered leases, how can I go about getting more from section 8?

@Jaron Walling there isn't an unpaid balance...it's a strange scenario. Even though the lease says tenant will pay water, for some reason the city had the water bill in the previous owner's name. When I asked him about it, he said their records must be screwed up because he's never had to pay water. 

You make a heck of a point @Scott Mac. The two living there aren't the most savory individuals either, so that very well could be a scenario that plays out.

Looking for some non-licensed legal advice for a rookie Ohio landlord! Recently closed on a multi-unit property where one tenant is part way through the eviction process (hopefully wrapping up by the end of September). Per the signed lease, the tenant is responsible for paying all utilities. However, the city informed me that the tenant never established utilities in their name...so my options are to foot the bill myself or give the utility company access to the unit so they can shut off water. 

I'm wanting to tread lightly, as I'm reading a lot of articles about how legally you cannot use utility shut offs as a means for forcing out a tenant...so I don't want that to be the implication here given they are being evicted! Am I allowed to give 24 hour notice of entry, in order to shut the water off? How would you all handle this?

Hi Team,

I recently closed on a multi-family property where the seller allowed a new tenant to move in to a unit needing rehab right before closing. He collected a security deposit, and told the guy to keep his receipts from fixing up the place and that the cost would be deducted from the rent (HORRIBLE situation to inherit...I know). 

The silver lining is that the guy is doing great work, and it was something I was going to need to pay for anyways. We're still ironing out the numbers, but hypothetically let's say the rent is $400/month and the total job was $2,400. If I give the tenant 6 free months of rent to compensate, isn't that going to make my P&L look like I've had a vacant unit for 6 months? How would you address this? Should I pay him $400/month and then have him immediately pay me $400 in return, so that I'm showing income on the unit?

@Chad Hale thanks. I think I’m just paranoid of the “check’s in the mail” excuse for late rent.

Could you explain what you’re referring to with by paying over the phone?

I just inherited some tenants that are older and don't have email addresses. However, I really don't want to be accepting paper checks in the mail each month. I was checking out Cozy's ability to set up ACH payments, but it requires the tenant to receive an email and then fill out and authorize Cozy to take the payment each month. Is there another platform out there that would let me get around this hurdle? How are you streamlining rent collection from people that don't use the internet?

@Yelena Willingham welcome! All the books suggestions below are great. The one I would add is “Building Wealth One House at a Time” by John Schaub. I read that very early on and it really simplifies a lot of the concepts and approaches, and shows how “easy” it is to slowly become a real estate millionaire by buying sfh’s one at a time!