All Forum Posts by: Kevin P.

I'm a landlord in the Central Jersey area too. I only use Zillow and it usually gets at least 50 responses. I always pre-qualified people when they call me or email me. I'll pre-qualify them for income and usually try to get to know a little bit more about why they're moving. I always make sure that they have references from a previous landlord before I show. I tried to reduce the number of people I'm going to show it to. My time is valuable just like yours. I've never asked an agent to lease my apartment for me so I'm not sure what that's like but sometimes I'll get a call from a realtor that wants to show it for their client. I always let them know that I'm not going to be paying any commission. I'd rather they didn't show it anyway because like you said they do need to use their own rental lease agreement for their agency. It just makes things more complicated. If they want to apply now I use the Zillow application for their background check and the tenant can keep using that background check with other landlords for 30 days for about $30. That way I don't feel guilty about having them to pay an application fee where they may be unlikely to get accepted.

Regardless of the maximum allowed amount, my advice would be to lower the late fee anyway. The purpose of the late fees to encourage people to pay their rent on time, not to make extra money. I have late fees specified in my lease agreements but I very rarely charge them.

if the tenant has paid late or is a little bit short I may charge $25 or $50 and then I let them know that once the rent is paid I will extend them a courtesy once and credit that late feedback to them. In this case there's a very high probability it's going to end in eviction anyway. My attorney has advised me that charging an amount every day is really frowned upon by the judge and it will be ignored anyway.

 Definitely do not get insurance under any false pretense. A lot of the major name brand insurance carriers won't cover landlord insurance or anything too close to the water. My agent set me up with Cumberland mutual a long time ago so I know they may be a good option for you here in New Jersey. Good luck. You will definitely find insurance and it shouldn't be too difficult.

I don't have any experience with wholesaling so I did a quick lookup and as I thought, you do not need a license to wholesale in New Jersey. Here is a link to what I found on the web.

https://www.realestateskills.com/blog/how-to-wholesale-new-jersey#:~:text=No%2C%20you%20do%20not%20need,property%2C%20NOT%20the%20property%20itself.

Hello Jack,

I'm in Monmouth county but I think they probably would have that for Bergen county as well on the county recorders site. I would search for the Bergen county recorder and search for documents using the address of the property. And one of those documents you should find the legal description that you can copy. Good luck!

Hi I just want to add two things. Your real estate agent should be an investor and maybe you can even ask them to provide a track record document which they'll probably have if they've used hard money. Once you have a real estate agent / investor they can usually lead you to the other team members. That's how it has been for me and I'm also in New Jersey. The other thing is that my experience without-of-state investing is not optimal. You had mentioned that you want to learn the business from the ground up and if you're doing it out of state you'll just be relying on others to do everything and you'll be out of touch with your investment. Good luck to you and your brother!

Hi Jeremy ,

I didn't raise rates for a number of years and when things got far below market rate I started to raise everyone's rent each year at the same time. For those with less ability to pay an increase I made their increase very small, something like $25. Just to condition them that rates do go up every year. I usually send them a letter to go along with their rate increase form. Samples can be found on the New Jersey government website for the rental increase. I have a good tenant who had the main income earner died during the covid time and for them I just raised their rent $100 each year now. The market rate is 2,600 but they are now paying $2,100 and I'm satisfied with $100 increase each year. The goal is not to get to market rate but rather to keep good tenants and also to make sure my conscience is clear. I think 10% is probably a little too much but in the state of New Jersey you are able to do that as long as the end result achieves a rate that is not unconscionable. Good luck with whatever you do. I like to look at the social security cost of living adjustment COLA as a guide and of course they have been high for the last couple of years. 8.7% was the most recent. In my letters to the tenant I usually mention what I think is the market rate and then I let them know that their rate is still well below market and that I think that's softens the blow of raising the rent.

 How did this work out, Ganesh? I'm experiencing this currently. The creditors meeting is 5/31.

I would either buy a duplex or a single family home as a foreclosure fix it up and rent it out refinance after 6 months to a year and then do it all over again. That's what I've been doing for the last 10 years or so. That's what works for me. Doing so, I've ridden this great wave of appreciation the past 10 years. Good luck to you! You've got the right attitude.

 I've been using TD Bank for my landlord tenants accounts and they used to require that I bring a W-9 but I just opened one and they say they don't need that anymore. They need the birth date and the social security number of the tenant. Then you can open up the account. I keep my personal account at Chase Bank and to save time I was going to just open one there but they required me to bring the lease and I didn't have it with me so I just went back to TD Bank as usual.