All Forum Posts by: Lei Zhao

 They said over the phone the contract will be the same as the old management team, but never sent me anything. 

Hi Friends,

I have a duplex in a not very good neighborhood at Forth Worth. The previous property manager sold his company to another property management team recently. During this transition, I have the tenant from one unit moved out. The new property manager seems nice from the beginning and communicate with me very actively to get the unit fixed and post for marketing. She asked for over $3000 for fixing several things in the unit, I sent money to her. I asked for the picture of the unit afterward, and she always had excuse she's not able to send picture somehow from her phone. A few days later she mentioned there're water leaking and mentioned she has the video of the damage. I asked her to send me the video. She said she can't send video from her new phone for no reason. After I sent the $3000 she's like a different person. I sent email to check update on tenant, she doesn't reply. I really think I'm in a bad situation. I'd like to end the contract with them asap, and even thinking to sell this duplex. Please advice how should I proceed on ending the management contract with them in this situation since they can put faked bills of thousands of dollars on my account and charge me for that when we end the contract. 

Thanks

Lei

Hi Friends,

I just noticed this rent relief program recently. We have a unit in Fort Worth and the tenant didn't pay the rent for almost a year. We successfully evicted her in March 2021 for the reason of end of contract. I wonder if we can still apply for the rent relief program for the missed payments from this evicted tenant? Many thanks for your input!

Lei

Brilliant suggestions @Michael Mullins ! With the details you mentioned I even feel I would be very comfortable to take your binder and read it through afterwards if I'm the appraiser. Strongly agree need to give appraiser space and be kind. 

The other challenge I have is, the units are rented out and I don't live in Taxes. Shall I ask my PM to present during the appraiser's visit? I also have concerns if the tenants keep the house clean and organized (which might be hard) during the visit. Will it impact the result a lot if the house are messy? 

Thanks @Doran Summers! If I don't show any documentation how does the appriser know what I'm saying is true? I'd like to mention the the roof since I believe it'll bring up more value. 

We bought a property this June in cash and are thinking about refinancing now to pull some money out. It's a duplex with new roof installed last year. However, I don't have the documentation for the new roof. I wonder during the refinance do I need to provide any documentation or this information could be found somewhere else by the apprasier? Thanks!

Got it @Poem Turner! Looks like Texas does have more stringent rule to prevent landlord from being "discriminating". I've seen many posts from other states selecting tenants after both meeting minimum requirement. In Texas we'd better list things out clearly in the selection criteria to protect ourselves. 

Thanks @Neil Narayan! Since we can select Best Qualified or First Qualified in MLS, does that means there's no Texas law to select the first qualified? For one of the units I've gone through two tenants with almost nightmare experience. Long stories (I'll share in a separate post when things cool down). This is why I'm so careful when selecting the next.

Does Texas law allow screening multiple tenants and select the best one? I've heard from local people that we're only allowed to do the screening one by one and should give the unit to the first one who met the minimum requirement. However, I didn't find this law online. We have a duplex in Fort Worth area which has a tough tenant pool so I would like to screen more tenants if possible. 

I'm from out of the state. Any ideas if Fort Worth zip code 76140 and Arlington 76010 are good rental investment areas? What's the tentant pool? Vacancy Rate? Safety? etc. Many thanks!