All Forum Posts by: Bobby Narinov

It looks like I am doing a lot of learning with my 21 unit apartment complex.

So here s my first blind person rental. I got this very nice lady that wants to rent with me. I ran a background check and she is perfect. No problems with previous landlords, no evictions, FICO above 740. The only problem is that she is disabled, i.e blind. Her sister is doing most of the hand holding for her but the problem is how binding is the lease agreement if she can not see it?

Do I need to have her sister that read the contract to her sign something? I have other disabled people in my complex but their disabilities were not sight.

Her sister will be visiting her pretty much daily but her sister goes to work during the day and she will be alone during the night.

What should I be watching about? Any experience with renting to a single blind person?

OK. We all have been there. You have a bad tenant and you want to evict them fast.

But the process is long and expensive. Here in CA it takes 1.5 to 3 months to evict someone and about $800+. If your rent is $500-$600/month that is $1,500-$2,500 not counting potential damages to your property.

So what do you do?

You offer cash for keys so the tenant moves out faster and you save yourself some dough. But do you really? Are you just kicking the bucket down the road and postponing the inevitable?

This may work for a single family house but in an apartment complex it creates a perverse incentive not to pay rent especially in a low income blue collar small community rental properties.

I have a 21 unit apartment complex where the previous owners offered generously cash-for-keys. When I took over half of my tenants though that paying rent is optional. On the top of it they felt that they deserve to get paid so they can move out after stopping to pay their rent. They even knew how much it costs me to evict them so they offered to save me the wait and move out for the generous amount of $1,000.00. I suspect that was what others got from the previous owners. In my area this is the first month rent and the deposit. The amount is fair but it teaches everyone not to pay their rent. because what is the downside for not paying your rent - you get to live a month for free and you get paid your next month and deposit and you even get your deposit back. And you get a clean background.

Now if you are a good tenant that pays on time every time, you look like a sicker to those guys. You are a complete idiot if you don't want to play that game. So you decide to try it once. And it worked. And even though you felt bad for your landlord initially, you decide that he can afford it . He is what the others call it "The MAN". So you tell all of your friends how you screwed up the man and how there were no negative repercussions to it and you made money out of it. And because you are on a fixed income (social security, or any government help) the additional money can go for buying some pot or even something better.

Your dead beat friends start doing it and soon the whole community stops working and starts playing this game. Why work for $1000/month ($800 after taxes) when you can not work, get $600 from the government and $500 from your landlord? And you can feel great because you are sticking it to The MAN and the government at the same time.

Meanwhile all the landlords are wandering why their "good" tenants stop paying their rents after the first month, why their places are half full and have a churn of 50% or more per month. So what do they do - they offer a nice incentives of first month rent at 50% to attract more potential tenants and fill in the empty rentals just to realize that they are loosing money even faster than before.

This scenario may seem a bit far fetched to you but I assure you it is real. The churn may not be 50% per month but it is starting to pick up. Another recession and it may get there.

So what can we all do: STOP INCENTIVISING PEOPLE TO NOT PAY THEIR RENT.

You are hurting the other landlords that are trying to make a living. As I said I had to evict 50%+ (11 units) in my apartment complex to train the rest of them that I do not pay you to not pay me rent. The new ones that come, are aware that I don't play this game and try to avoid my place. Occasionally there are some that didn't do their homework and try to get me to pay them but they quickly learn that I am willing to loose money to get them out.

I know that I am loosing money on the occasional bad guys but this is way better than loosing money on 50% of my rentals and the bad tenants get reported to the courts and hopefully when the next landlord checks their background he/she will not rent to them so they'll pay for their bad behavior.

I really hate cash for keys. I understand that short term it makes sense. But this is ...

OK. I'll start a new discussion on that topic.

No I don't have anything against home business but I have plenty against illegal activities. Unfortunately I didn't realize that proving illegal activities may be so difficult.

I have a pair of tenants that are known by all tenants as the drug/pot dealers but no one is willing to testify.

Before they moved in, I checked their background and they had nothing bad. I could not talk to their previous landlord because they have been living with family before that and at a motel for the previous 6 months (maybe that should have been a red-flag to me but I do have tenants that came from a motel and are great tenants). On paper they both looked fine and the lady was due in several weeks and they wanted to have the baby in a better place than the ****** motel they were living at. I really wanted to help them.

The things started bad pretty much from the beginning.

Ten days after they moved in, someone broke their window and I had to replace it: about $300 - parts and labor - dual pane window replacements are not cheap. They claimed, it was not their fault because that happened while she was in labor and both were at the hospital. They refused to pay for the replacement so I intend to deduct it from their deposit.

One month in the tenancy another tenant called me to inform me that four people barged in the drug dealer's unit and one of them threatened to shoot him. After they left the wife called the police. When I talked to them, they were very aggressive, refused to take any responsibilities and claimed that they don't know who those guys were and what they wanted from her and her husband. She played the victims card: How dare you accusing me of something.

That is when i started to get complaints from my other tenants about the constant flow of people coming in the middle of the night on average one per hour. They stay inside for about 5 to 10 minutes and leave. I have talked to my drug dealer tenants but they were again very aggressive and told me that I am harassing them because they are very social and just have a lot of friends. And they are not dealing anything and anyway I have no proof of any wrong doing on their side.

I installed a 24hrs surveillance system with a camera pointing directly to the entrance of their and 3 other units. That is how I measured the flow of "friends" they were having. Because I cannot single them out I had to do it everywhere so this costs me over $2,000.00 for equipment and installation.

I talked with them again and I told them what my cameras have captured and gave them a 60 days notice to leave (breaking 12 months lease).

I did talk to the local police department and I was told that unless I see them exchanging drugs for money there is nothing they can do and suggested I call them next time I see something happening so they can catch them in the act.

The day I served them with the 60 days notice they told me that I cannot prevent them from doing their innocent internet business of selling cell phone batteries especially if it does not bother anyone. Then a guy popes out of their unit and says to my tenants "Thanks for the battery bro". That was at 3pm on Saturday afternoon. I am pretty sure you can find a cellphone battery elsewhere and a purchase does not have to take 10 minutes. 

The audacity pf those people, they are doing it in-front of the cameras and in front of me and they don't really care.

They have even been investigated by Child Protective Services that went through their unit and found nothing. So I guess they know how to hide their stuff.

I wonder what else can I do to get them out ASAP. I have tenants that are already trying to leave because of them.

In retaliation to my posts about him and his company here, Jim Moody decided to retaliate and he sent me a "Termination of Services." email today. This is the first time someone fired me as a client over e-mail.

I am posting his full e-mail below.

I am so disappointed in how delusional this guy is. Even after I offered him to buy my house at the same price he sold it to me he refused to do so. I would think that anyone would jump on an instant $10-15k profit. I even let him waste 6 months of my time and money letting him try to sell my house at whatever price he wants, he was still unsuccessful. It took him 3 months to realize that he cannot do it. Despite his claims that he is easily approachable, my multiple attempts to contact him failed and I was reassigned to a different lazy person from his team. I had high hopes for her and gave her enough rope to hang herself. And she didn't disappoint me: she did nothing, absolutely nothing. I wasted a month with nothing to show for it, aside from 2 phone calls and couple of emails promising a lot and delivering nothing. 

I wonder how can such a bad service even be allowed to exists?
If it is not for the pipeline of idiots like me supplied by Marshall Reddick Real Estates in Orange County CA, this guy would be out of business years ago. They are still doing that to unsuspected victims even though I was told that Marshall Reddick Real Estates is severing all business relations with Flex xxx and Jim Moody in January 2016. You can go to their site and see how many properties in Toledo, OH they are trying to push on California Investors.
After I complained publicly - Jim Moody decided that he had enough. No Jim, you were 5 days away from being fired due to incompetence, carelessness and laziness of you, your staff and your companies. I guess the saying "the fish stinks from the head" was created exactly for companies like Flex Realty, Flex Property Management and Flexible Maintenance Solutions. I've tried them all and they left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I hope other will learn from my mistakes and run away from that place. Or not, and get what is coming their way.

What about Ohio Cashflow (ohiocashflow.com)? After my posts about Flex here I got contacted by their owner who seemed to be a decent guy that was even featured on the BiggerPockets podcast. They are too small but growing.

@Wayne Brooks. I agree with what you are saying but several Bigger Pockets members told me that the reasons for all the problems is that Flex Property Management is overloaded but other than that they are "the best property management company" in Toledo.

In addition Jim offered me to sell my property for free for an amount that I didn't believe is doable. There was no way for me to prove to him that there are no equity in that deal if I had picked another company.

I guess he played on my greed, laziness and/or inertia well. So now I am stuck with him until August 1st, 2016 which is coming pretty soon. After that I'll be looking for another management company and/or real estate company to rent or sell my Toledo, OH property.

After having a bad experience with Flex Realty Property Management (See my other discussion on those scammers), I decided to see how far Mr. Jim Moody's audacity can go so I decided to take him on to sell my rental for the amount she claimed my property is worth.

I know he is not an honest man but I was hopping that he is dishonest only to his rental clients and he will be more honest to his real estate clients.

So after the last non-approved tenant saddled me with a ton of unpaid bills he suggested to me to sell my property. The price he suggested was the price he claimed my property was worth and he even had a BPO with a list of properties that justified his inflated price but first, I had to spend $1800.00 on making the property sale ready. I don't know why the difference between sale ready and tenant ready is so high but that was his claim. Grudgingly I paid the amount and the house was ready for sale in mid April. As part of the preparation someone supposedly did some gardening of the place.

Imagine my surprise when less than a month later (May 10th) I received a Fine from the city stating that I have overgrown grass in my front yard. Their pictures clearly showed 2ft of grass. I am not sure how the weather is in Toledo but to have a grass like that in California I have to use a ton of Mirracle-Gro. I got no response from Flex Realty on whether my grass was ever cut as part of the "light gardening" included in the $1,800.00 bill. I guess he is not paying the $300+ expenses ($75.00 city fine plus BAT:$233.14 fees).

Now back to the sale of my property. I got nothing. No information at all. I called but could not be connected to Jim. I monitored my property on Zillow and I saw that there were a lot of views and people saved it for later but I got no information from Mr.Moody on how is may sale going on.

After 2 months of being kept in the dark I had enough and I started chasing him more aggressively - emails calling to the office, leaving voice mails but I got no response from him. Here is the email I sent him on June 5th for which I got no response at all (Today is July 24th):

I got an automated "out of office till June 10th" message on that. I guess Jim was enjoying a nice vacation while his clients were loosing money. I waited a week after the 10th giving him ample of time to catch-up with his emails but nothing happened, so on June 16th, 2016 I tried again:

Wow!!! I got nothing on this one as well. I am a patient man but being constantly ignored will piss me off. To top it off I got the second letter from the city asking for the above mentioned $233.14. So on June 21, 2016 i send an email to him and the scammers from Marshall Reddick (www.marshallreddick.com) that recommended Jim to me. I'll write another post on Marshall Reddick later. So here is my third letter in a raw which got no response as well:

The next day, i got an one sentence email from him with a picture captured god knows from where:

I cannot believe I was ignored so badly. No updates. No talk. Just a picture stating that the last week's home sales have dropped 99 which was 33% less than a year ago. Like I would care about that. There were still 99 sales happening. Why was mine not one of them.

After that I was assigned a new person from Jim Moody's staff. How I got a lot of hopes that things will change for better. Boy was I sadly mistaken. Her name was

She promised to take care of me. She promised to go to the property and inspect it and she promised to put there a lease purchase guy there soon. She even said that there were two potential candidates that she is going to talk to. She promised a lot of things but that was a promise that stayed in June 24, 2016.

And I waited....

And waited ...

And two weeks later on July 8th, I asked for a status:

I got a response within 24hrs:

I understand that we have to take care of our elderly parents but after a week of nothing happening I started pushing again:

I got a very short response which looked like washing her hands off:

So stay put. You do not need any status. I am not going to tell you what I am doing for you and you should take it without questioning me or asking any questions. So I wrote the following

I think she decided to admit, that she is one of the 3 types (or all of them, I do not know) but here response was again very short (I guess she does not like writing or working too much):

My last response to her and Flex Realty was:

It has been 9 days since my last email. I got no response from her or from Jim - the owner of that customer's trap. My contract with them expires on August 1st and I am anticipating a better luck with my next management/real-estate company.

Am I expecting too much from them? Am I being too harsh on Flex Realty and all other FlexXXX companies?

So what do you think? 

@Susan Pompea Thank you for the advice. I did talked to her before installing the cameras and she really wanted it because she wanted "all those druggies to be taped on camera" but she didn't think that some of the cameras will point at her as well. I think she got what she wished for but now she doesn't like it anymore. I told her I cannot target only certain people in the apartment complex because I have to treat everyone equally (good and/bad). She seemed to agree with me but after I left, I got the accident recorded on camera.

I did served her with a notice and got my maintenance guy to fix it. So far she is complying but I also found out why is she complaining as well: her adult son is visiting during the day her quite often bringing his drinking buddies and are making a scene in front of the other tenants cursing and giving everyone dual hand 3 finger salutes. I gave her a notice to correct that one as well. We'll see how it will go after that.

As they say, In real estate you either make money or you are learning. So far I AM learning A LOT with this apartment complex.