All Forum Posts by: Marcin G.

Originally posted by Rob K:

(....)
I drove to the house, making up new swear words along the way. When I got there, I made a B-line (whatever that is) to the crawl space door. When I looked in, the entire crawl space had at least eight inches of some type of fluid. Just then, I heard the toilet flush and could see it all bubbling up into the crawl. This is when my morning went from bad to worse. The crawl space was full of human S#@*.
(...)

...good one
thats why I stay away from houses. condos are where the real money is ..u pay ur HOA dues + lower taxes and you sleep well. There are places where condos are not so popular ...anyways ... I still dont get why people would buy 3flat. 1 big building with 3 units in it..all 2 BR ..1 in the "basement" we call it here in Chicago "garden apartment" - hard to rent, especially in winter.
...in OK hood such a 3 flat would cost say ...+220K to start.. either foreclosure or short sale. While you can buy 3 different 2BRs condos each in different building for 60K max..you diversify your risk not having all your $$$ tied into one building. you pay lower taxes and share the risk and cost of maintenance with other owners...rental pretty much the same ...900-950 for 2BR in OK condition ..does not matter if its a 3flat or bigger building (bigger building gives you actually more privacy if the thing was built as a condo ..not apartment turned into condos)..you tell me where I am wrong...

Originally posted by Rob K:

It will be a cold winter for her if she becomes homeless.

...in Chicago it might be a no-rent period till it gets warm. cook county Sheriff will not show up if the temp drops below X etc due to local ordinances. eviction process in Chicago is a joke

Originally posted by Rob K:

Originally posted by Marcin G:

>
If your system works for you, then keep doing it. I just think it's weird to meet someone at Starbucks and go through all of their personal information right there. Are you having a conversation with them about their credit when there's other people all around? That's kind of awkward. (by "kind of", I mean VERY.) What if there's an issue on their credit, do you start questioning them about it right there? What if you deny an applicant and they start yelling at you right there, start a fight with you, or throw an overpriced 140 degree coffee on you?

Also, I'm not sure it's even legal to talk about what's on their credit report. When I deny someone because of credit, there's a form that I send them stating that they were denied and there's instructions for them on how to obtain a copy of their credit report.

I also think it's a security risk to have people giving you their personal information right there in the open. Identity thieves love that kind of situation. If I were a potential tenant, I would much rather pay an application fee to a person or company than to meet some guy at Starbucks and start giving him my SS#, etc.

What if you were going to get a mortgage and the loan officer had you meet him at Taco Bell? What if you had to go see a neurologist and he had you meet him in the cafeteria at the hospital? If you're going to keep this "system", I would at least spring for an ipad so you could run credit reports at the property.

you dont have to discuss/talk/dispute anything at the moment you see the credit report. you grab an electronic copy and analyze later...why would you even get into the details at that moment ?

for mortgage or loan officers or neurologist it is a full time job so they better have fancy offices and be professional. I don't like my system but it's a win/win for both parties ...prospective tenants dont have to deal with fees, I dont have to deal with fees and everybody is happy...

>The credit report doesn't always tell about past eviction.

credit report I pull shows public records. i would imagine eviction would fall into that category ?

>I receive an eviction report with the credit reports that I pull.

when you say you receive eviction report...do you mean it shows all the "orders for possession" that were ordered by judge or it shows "Forcible Entry & Detainer" that has been filed with the court clerk to begin the process? it's a long time between one to the other ...and wise tenant might want to move out before "orders for possession" is actually ordered not to get that hit on his record......so to sum up : tenant has not been paying for months, moved out on time ..and the public still does not know that the person is problematic. if the report shows all the "Forcible Entry & Detainer" that were filed at any time at any place ...that's much better..anybody knows ?

attaches is a real eviction case (copy paste the link into the browser if it does not work)

https://w3.courtlink.lexisnexis.com/cookcounty/Finddock.asp?DocketKey=CABA0MB0HBACEG0MD

Originally posted by Steve Babiak:

As I said, your choice to (p)operate as you choose. To each his own.

BTW - do you get a copy of that "free" credit report? Does it show true account history, minimum payment amount, balance owed, maximum limit, collections, etc?

I chose to poperate and my vacancies run into couple days so I think it works. Recently I have had a client who is looking for a rental (yes I do have a broker license)...so I found a nice house..56 days on the market, who is it listed with? Keller Williams....and yes ..obviously we received tons of paperwork to fill out and of course $30 per applicant. the process was very professional ..nice logos on the paperwork, professional staff, mynths in the office and .....56 days on the market...

You are asking whether “free” credit report show you all the data. Yes it does because the report is designed to be delivered to the consumer (for a $30 a monthly fee that covers also credit monitoring, etc - 7 days trial period is the key) not a 3rd party entity like a landlord or employer.
So yes the person who pulls their own report will see everything:

Personal information
Report summary
Bankruptcy and court judgements
Credit inquires
Credit cards/loans/other debt
Credit score

As far as a particular credit card goes …you will see high/low balance payment, date opened, status, limit, and 24 month payment history with a status OK, ND, 30,60,120, KD, RF, PP so yes you see all..

And yes I do criminal with sentrylink, which gives me nationwide check. This is the last stage of the discussion but I incur the cost $20

got it. there are IRS publications that I went thru
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p527/ch02.html#en_US_2010_publink1000219096

In my case the difference in accounting treatment is so immaterial I am not sure they would even want to spend time on it..but who knows

let me asks you what they are asking when the audit actually hits you. do you have to show up with the receipts and a copy of your tax return only? or they are arranging for in-house inspection and you need to point the stove/new ac etc that you bought. thanks

Marcin G,

You must capitalize those expenditures per IRS Code. If you still have one that you are already depreciating you may accelerate the remaining cost between what you dispose of it for and the remaing basis. In other words if you current basis is $250 and someone pays you $50 for it, you will get the loss for the $200 difference.

hmmm...and there is no threshold that you can apply for FA vs expense ? what you are talking about is treating new stove as an $350 asset and depreciating over time...I always used my deluxe turbotax edition ...and dumped all my expenses along with HOA, taxes etc into year the expenses were incurred... I was never asked by the soft whether I want to expense or capitalize an item. I am depreciating the property over 27yrs ..but that's about it ...

being "professional" got this poor dude declining a prospective tenant with 800 credit and a job ;-)). neither I nor th OP dont have 432 properties that we need to apply a "system" to operate. he got brainwashed and forgot common sense....
this forum is very informative but u need to apply the "rules" to specific situation. I NEED to know my tenant's credit history...but there is no way they will pay $30 for that given all the competition around me ..

what you guys think of freecreditreport.com. tenant needs to create an account (need to have a credit card too) pull full credit and cancel the account to avoid the fee. This way full credit info is for free...chicago is a very competetive market. i am in condo business and 50% of population that "qualifies" would laugh at me if I started charging anything. there are mom/pops 1BR, 2BR...left and right ..especially now once the market hit all time low ...and folks are buying out properties for cash...standard story here is "1month rent + deposit" and boom ..approved. true ..al ot of them end up in some kind of mess but ...new ones emerge ;-) so ..once I get an app and take a real close look at income, references, past tenant history ...I meet with my favorite 1 or 2 prospective tenants and pull their credit for them cost free in some area with hotspot (starbucks). some would think ..omg omg .. too much hassle, some would think ...omg omg ..this is so outside of the a standard process ....I can tell : it works

Originally posted by David Egger:

In some states, you can file Notice for Immediate Possession instead of eviction if there is any evidence that the tenants are damaging the property. Can usually have them ordered out by the sheriff very very quickly.

....or if "controlled substance" is discovered on your property by you once you came to "check on heating zone valve". I "discovered" the controlled substance once while checkin on my unit, called the coppers immediately......got them out in no time