All Forum Posts by: Jason L.

 I assume it's just different in your state. Florida landlord law requires that you send them notice of of claims against the deposit first, then give them a 15 day grace period to respond, and then disperse the check after the 15 days and/or when landlord and tenant settle. The problem is that I can't find anything in the law about what happens when the tenant ignores/doesn't read/doesn't pick up the initial claim letter.

Okay that's what I had assumed too. I just didn't know how it worked in case the tenant receives the check from me in a few weeks and then all of the sudden decided to protest something I had claimed damage on.  Assuming the letter is returned without them ever technically seeing it, are they then past the statute of limitations to make a counter claim? I just want to make sure I understand the laws before I potentially need to take any further action. 

I sent notice to a previous tenant on making a claim on their deposit recently. I sent the notice via Certified Mail to the address the tenant gave me. The tenant was not home at the time of delivery of June 20. USPS transported the letter to the local Post Office the same day, but the tenant has still not picked up the letter as of today, the 25th. By Florida landlord law, the tenant has 15 days to respond to my claim after receiving the letter, meaning they would have until July 5th. However, I don't know how the law reflects when a tenant was not home for the delivery and has not picked up the letter from the Post Office.

I'm sure some other landlords have experienced this before. Assuming the tenant does not pick up the letter from the PO, when would I be required to send them back the remainder of their deposit? 

Widen your time horizon. Most markets won't support instant refis for all of your capital (at least not for the majority). If you can afford to leave money in a deal for 3-5 years, then there are still plenty of opportunities in Florida. By the time you go to refi in a few years you would have benefited from all of the cash flows collected (which returns a higher rate since you are on the cheaper mortgage) and possible price appreciation (if the home appreciates at 3.5% per year, then in 3 years the house will be worth around 10% more, all of which is equity to you available to refi).

I own a duplex in St Pete. It was tough to find a decent one that wasn't in a terrible neighborhood as supply is low. There's also no way I could refi that house and get all my money out like it seems you want (not saying it was bad buy, but you need to be okay going in with leaving money in the deal in order to buy in a desirable part of town).

Jacksonville is cheaper than St Pete right now, but you are also going to face far more intense competition from institutional buyers and smaller investors for MFH. You can still find cheaper SFHs but you might struggle to find a multi-unit that you're going to be able to house hack and quickly refi.

A new garbage disposal and a cheap fan should run maybe ~$250. So $400 with materials would sound fairly reasonable. However without materials is nuts. 

Age (especially of the roof), location relative to the water, and yes number of units does matter. Call for quotes like others have said. Try Kin Insurance. I got my lowest rates working through them. 

It's a follow the leader approach. Once all the big hedge funds came down a few years ago and started soaking up as much inventory as they could, all the mom-and-pop investors followed. You might have a bunch of disciplined investors trying to make offers with reasonable spreads, but realistically all it takes is one frustrated, over-zealous investor to bid over ask to take a good deal off the market. That's going to be common in all the big metros. 

For budgeting purposes I generally consider it to be the same category, yes, but my threshold also depends on how much work I did up front. Fortunately (unfortunately?) all of my houses required a lot of rehab up front, so the need for future Capex was low and I've been way under budget every year since. To answer your question though, on an older property that I was just trying to live out as much as possible I'd probably start looking more at $1.25/SF.

You might want to double check that because your report clearly has you budgeting 1.5% for repairs and Capex (or about $14.63/month).