All Forum Posts by: Joseph Leonard

I have a duplex where tonight the lawn mower company that I hired hit my tenant's vehicle side mirror with his lawn mower and knocked it off. The tenant's vehicle was parked on the street which butts up against the yard. The tenant is saying the lawn mower also scratched the side of her vehicle and put 2 dents in it. The lawn mower company is claiming they only knocked off the side mirror.

I obviously was not there when this happened, but received the call from the tenant. I called the local police department and had them come out to file a report with the tenant present (the lawn mower had already left). He did not provide his insurance information but rather told her he would fix the broken mirror at the end of this week. She thinks this is unacceptable and he did more damage than he is claiming. 

My question is, as the landlord, am I responsible/liable for any of this or is this simply a dispute between two parties as if it were a vehicle accident even though it was a lawn mower hitting a vehicle? 

Thanks everybody for the advice! I will definitely check these lenders out. 

BP Community,

I wanted to see if anyone can give some insight on lenders in the Indianapolis area that allow more than 4 conventional mortgages? I currently have a mortgage on my primary and a mortgage on 3 rental properties. I'm still looking to grow my rental portfolio but am not sure where to turn for future lending. (25%-30% down payments are not a problem for me if that helps at all.)

@Andre Manning - I am closing on a duplex around the Little Flower area late this month or early Jan. Let's connect. I need someone to do a kitchen remodel.

@Annie Li - glad to hear they all got rented out. I own a rental about 10 mins from your 21st St. property. Mine is around 16th & Shadeland. It was actually my first rental in Indy and I just picked it up about 1.5 months ago. It took me about 3.5 weeks to get it rented out. 

I didn't use a PM and did all of the advertising myself. I put a sign in the yard, posted it on Postlets.com and also on Craigslist. I had a lot of applicants but I ended up passing on several of them because they didn't meet my criteria. It is a 2 bed 1 bath with an attached 2 car garage. I first had it listed at $850 and ended up dropping the price after about a week and a half because the market was telling me I had it listed too high. I, like you, was scratching my head a bit at first but started to realize that 1) it's not a very desirable part of town and 2) I had it listed a bit too high to start out with. 

In your explanation about your PM, I also have to agree with some of the other members that it seems he was a bit lazy by not advertising it online. When you're listing a property for rent, you want to create the largest funnel of applicants you can get. It was also a bit strange that he made more not having it rented than he did having it rented. That seems like he's looking out for his best interests and not your best interests as the customer. Let me know if you would like a recommendation on another property manager for future rentals as I have a couple I could recommend to you that manage rentals over in that area. Good luck!

I own one condo out in CA and hold it as a rental. It happened by accident. I was living in it and had to move for work. I have had good luck with it in the past 2 years I've been renting it. I agree with @Chris Seveney that the HOA dues are basically your CapEx. To me, condos are a bit easier to manage.

A couple things to keep in mind are special assessments from HOAs and also the financial state of the HOA. Also, some people argue that in bad economic times, condos are the first type of housing to lose value. This may be true, but if you plan on keeping it as a rental and can still maintain a rental rate that will cover expenses, I still like condos as an investment.

@Allen Fletcher what they are saying is the estate will only allow them to sell it for a price that is equal to the appraise value which is still way high. 

BP Community - give me some ideas here:

I found a house listed on Craigslist listed as an estate sale. An older man passed away, did not leave a will and now his kids are having to sell it as an estate sale. The seller told me they have to sell it at the appraised value which is $80k. This figure would not make sense with the amount it would rent for. The house also still has a loan on it (amount unknown right now - working on finding that out) which the kids have been paying on.

I need to get this house substantially below $80k but it seems like the lawyers of the estate or whoever is handling the estate won't allow that to happen. I need to get it at around $48k-50k max. The seller I spoke with seems pretty motivated to sell it because like I said they've been making the mortgage and utility payments on it and they have no use for it. Any ideas here BP community or is this pretty much a lost cause?

@Adrien C. does make some good points about the values of condos. He is correct that condo investing can be different based on what part of the country you're trying to do it in. I've owned 2 condos in CA. Here is my story and my long term thought on this:

2012 - purchased my first condo in CA for $260k. Lived in it for about a year and a half, rented it for about 6 months and then sold it for $450k. 

Now, keep in mind, this was a matter of PERFECT timing. My wife and I talk about this all the time. That condo was the first home we ever purchased. Had we bought it 5 years earlier, we would have probably bought it high and then it probably would have lost a lot of value in the 08 crash. 

During the time I had that condo rented, we purchased our second condo in CA (which is the one I still have rented out today) for $493k. We did a full remodel on it and it is in tip-top shape. With the rent, we are just breaking even right now. We are holding it for the long term because 1) If we sold it, we may lose money, 2) we want to move back to CA eventually & move back into it 3) we have a 20 year mortgage on it and 4) I hope the CA market will continue to appreciate over time.

In my opinion, condos in CA are a bit different than condos in the rest of the country. In the Midwest, most people want to live in a big house with a big yard and they can do so because houses cost less. In CA, most families cannot afford a single family house and turn to condos if they choose to purchase.

@Aaron Grant - I own one condo in Southern California while living in Indiana. I kind of became an accidental landlord when I was relocated to Indiana by my company. I have been renting my condo for almost two years now and things have been great so far. 

In my opinion, a pro of owning condos is you don't have to worry about the exterior part of the building. You of course do have an HOA that covers exterior maintenance on the structure, but to me, I just like the idea that I'm not having to worry about those major exterior maintenance issues like a new roof, new siding, etc. I guess you could say by having to pay the HOA dues each month you are basically forced to "sit aside money for cap ex" but in my opinion this is a good thing.

I have seen people on BP discuss the fact that you should speak with the HOA before you purchase the property to see what shape the HOA is in. How much do they have in reserves, if they increase the HOA dues often, when their last special assessment was, when they plan to do another special assessment, etc.

One other thing to keep in mind about owning a condo which has also been discussed on BP and in various real estate books is the fact that condos are normally the first to lose value when the housing market declines.