All Forum Posts by: Kevin S.

@Ryan Faber if you leave $20k in the deal just to get your cash flow over the $100/month mark then you're just buying cashflow, which makes no sense. Also, regarding resale, from what I've seen half-duplexes tend to sit on the market for a while here, for the price someone would pay for a half duplex they could just as easily go get a detached SFH so not too many homebuyers are interested unless its pretty underpriced. And I'd second what @Todd Willhoite said about the risks related to the other side not taking care of their property and how that could negatively impact your ability to rent it out.

@Adam Craig glad to hear you're getting a lot of interest in your property. My first question on reading this is, are you underpriced for your area? That could be one reason you are receiving such a large response, and could indicate you can raise your rent and still have plenty of qualified applicants. As for your questions:

1) If you have that many people interested and are self-managing, I would stick to your guns with the open house. Otherwise you are going to have to spend a lot of time doing multiple showings. It also, in my opinion, sets the tone for the whole relationship if you are making special exceptions for people to get in early.

2) This is one of my favorite ideas from BP, and it sounds like it could be useful in your situation, basically using Google Forms as a funnel to help weed out the unqualified. 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/476093-how-we-screened-300-tenants-with-zero-phone-calls-for-free

Good luck!

@Nathan Gesner That's a good point. I'm going to give it another 2 weeks and if I still don't have it filled I'll probably reduce the price down

That's what I was originally leaning toward @John Thedford, thanks for the input

Hey BP Community, general question for you about price adjustments on leases. I've got a duplex that's been listed for around 2 weeks, it's received some interest but not a ton (maybe 20 inquires, 3 showings, and 2 no-shows to showings), none of which has resulted in an application being filled out and returned although all 3 showings acted like they were very interested. I know it's a slower time of the year, but I still expected to at least have had one or two applicants to consider by this time. How long do you let an empty property sit before you lower the price in order to find a tenant? This property is in Tulsa, Oklahoma btw (I know all areas differ, just looking for general advice).

@Justin Swann and @Jane Baker great, thanks for the info, sounds like it could be a good deal provided the tenants pass my criteria/background check.

@Justin Swann how did it go? I just received an email from ALE about a rental property of mine, unsure if I'll follow up with them or not.

@Steve S. what are your local ordinances/state laws regarding occupancy? I know that in some cases occupancy is limited to 2 persons per bedroom + 1 additional person, so a 3-bedroom would be limited to 7. Not sure if this applies to you or not, but if not just follow @JD Martin's advice. Good luck! 

I currently have a duplex listed for rent, and have been contacted by a relocation specialist trying to place a family that had something happen to their house (don't yet know the details, just told they are working on an insurance claim on it). They are looking for a 3-month lease with the option to extend and are "willing to pay a premium". Apparently they also have 2 dogs. So my questions for the BP community are:

1) Would you do this? The property is normally a 12-month lease type property. Assuming I rent to them I'd have to look for another renter sometime between May and August.

2) How much of a premium would you charge? The property is currently listed for $1250/month (assuming a 12-month lease)

3) Would you charge a pet fee in addition to the rent (I normally charge $250/pet on normal leases)

4) Are there any additional risks, etc. I should be considering when looking into this?

@Tanya Brown looks pretty good to me, though I'd up your vacancy percentage to 8% since that'll give you about a month saved up each year (1/12 = 8.33%). Are the rents at market for the area? A $200 difference between a 1BR and 3BR seems like a pretty low gap, but I obviously am not familiar with your area. Good luck!