All Forum Posts by: Kelly Conrad

looks like before you can schedule the fire occupancy check you have to complete the Landlord 101 class, which isn’t super clear on their site...next class isn’t until January 2018 and so I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for the next scheduled posting

I am almost! We close on October 5th on a duplex in St. Paul 😊

Hello! I want to be sure I have everything ready to go. We close on a duplex in St Paul on October 5th, and we want to be sure we hit the ground running. St. Paul's site isn't exactly explicit on everything you need, so is it just the Fire Certificate of Occupancy? If so, can that be done before closing or does it have to be done after? 

I know the city of Minneapolis requires a landlord license, but that doesn't seem to be the case in St Paul from what I'm seeing. If there's anything else required to be a legal landlord in St Paul, I'd love to know :)

@Thomas S. Hmm alright. So they could potentially be great tenants and be M2M for several years? 

Interesting, without screening we'll do month to month, and after 2 months we'll agree to a full year if things go well? Although that does put us in the holiday/winter season and it'll be tough to find someone to move then. What do you think? @Kim Meredith Hampton

Hello!

If this property ends up working out, the owner currently has some relatives that are living in one of the units. They do not have a lease, and because of that, I'm not really sure how to handle them once we close on the property.

I'm assuming we screen them and then if everything is fine, ask them to sign our lease? If they don't meet our requirements, I'm guessing we'll give them 60 days to find a new place and then start screening new tenants ASAP to try and have someone lined up? 

Just a little odd since we're not picking up a current lease, and I wanted to confirm we treat them as an applicant. Also, if the property passes inspection and we move forward, can we screen them before we've closed to make sure they fit our standards, and then have them sign our lease the day we close?

As a note-we do know they make 3x the rent, and the place is well kept, so it is in our interest that we keep them so we can cash flow right away since our upper unit is currently vacant and we'll want to get that filled right away.

I look forward to your input!

@Tim Hertz Awesome! So you just say it's a utility bill that must be paid along with rent on the 1st then?

If you have a duplex that has one circuit breaker & one water heater, how are you splitting the utilities? I've heard of folks setting up the "budget" payments through their power and gas company so you pay the same price every month and then you either pay in at the end of the year or they refund money back to you. I'm guessing you just include those utilities on top of rent, but how would you divvy it up? Some were saying to have it based on square footage, so if lower unit is 1200 (3B/1BA) and upper is 950(2B/1BA), would you split utilities 60/40 and bill them that way?

We aren't interested in adding them into the rent. Come winter time, we have a feeling the house could be 80 degrees if tenants don't have to pay for it. Looking for how others split it up.

Thanks!

@Dustin S. Awesome! Thanks :) I'm hoping that due to how the current owner finished the basement we may have a chance, but worse case if we can't, we just have to figure out what to do with a weird not bedroom (it needs an egress window) that they made downstairs where everyone can go currently..

@Dustin S. That link looks to bring me to a 404, which page were you trying to link?