All Forum Posts by: Malkia Ra

I failed to mention in my previous response, I've read complaints from landlords who no longer accept Section 8 that their properties were undervalued by the agency; therefore choosing to participate in the program and accepting the voucher meant they were agreeing to pricing their rental below market.  I thought this was strange considering I've always understood the tenant pays the difference.  Not to mention, all landlords expressed how difficult it is speaking with someone at the agency when a question or an issue arises.  And were you made aware of the mandatory property inspections?  Yeah, Section 8 is a hard pass for me.

Also, I never hold a rental for a potential tenant.  I continue to market and accept applications until a lease is signed.  

Landlords who hold rentals are doing themselves a disservice.

This is a business.  You need to bring your rental up to market rate.

That said, you don't allow tenants to dictate how long a lease should be and at what percentage increments the rent should be increased; unbeknownst to you, they negotiated a way for you to not keep up with the rental market.  Rental comps should be revisited annually.

Was contacted by "Travelers Haven," a corporate housing/short-term rental agency, to gather more information about my rental for a travel nurse who's interested.  The rep explained the lease would be with them, not the tenant, and didn't go into further detail about how the business transaction would work.  The call was strange, the rep sounded inexperienced.

Never worked with a corporate rental service before, and considering the reviews I read, this company in particular is questionable.

Does anyone have experience renting to these service providers?

1.  Have the floor repaired properly, deduct the cost from their security deposit.

Since you've already got another tenant moving in (finalized prior to doing an inspection of the rental, tsk tsk), this may possibly have to get done after they move in.

2.  Going forward, perform regular inspections of your property so that things like this gets addressed in a timely manner.  Put this as a condition of the lease.

It sucks the current tenant didn't disclose the damage; however as the property owner, part of protecting your investment is making sure things are "all good" from time to time.  If a tenant can get away with hiding something, they will.

1. With Section 8 vouchers the tenant pays the difference between the voucher and your monthly rent amount.  In your case, tenant should be paying $289 a month.  "The HA representative told me today the the $1,211 is the governments portion and the tenants portion combined."  This is inaccurate; however I if I'm wrong, the tenant cannot afford a rental above $1,211 which means they simply do not qualify for your rental and you should hold off until a better applicant comes along.

Nothing should ever be done under the table.  Everything should be spelled-out in the lease.  Your rent amount is $1,500 and that's that.

2. Is your rental in a decent area and is $1,500 market rent for that area?  The answers to this could possibly explain why you haven't received better applicants.

It's mindboggling that a seller would forfeit any amount of money held from the sale, rather than move on.  $20k and left all of her things behind?  Sheesh.

Pictures and video.

I also perform a pre move-in and post move-out walkthrough with each tenant; this way we can identify together if there are any issues.  

(I also give my tenants 48 hours after move-in to identify any concerns or issues that may have been missed during their pre-move in inspection)

All great questions/concerns.  I'm in the DC suburbs and this is exactly how I started as an investor, through house-hacking.

I completely privatized the basement (1 br, 1ba), switching-out the sliding glass door so the tenant would have a private enter/exit, and kept the the inside access locked to prevent tenants from accessing the rest of the home.  Since there wasn't a separate kitchen or laundry (the main laundry is on the bedroom level), I marketed the apartment as a short-term/mid-term rental (with only a fridge and microwave).  I added a paved walkway because I didn't want a bare-trail in the lawn, and some motion lighting.  It's been a cash cow.

Everything you're thinking of now are all good amenities to consider.  Tenants want convenience and safety.

In many of the house-hacking advertisements I've seen, homeowners simply indicate if there's shared use of the kitchen/laundry.  This is a preference thing.  For me, I wanted privacy and less contact with my tenants as possible, so nothing was shared.