All Forum Posts by: Marian Smith

@Viral Mehta What Marci said. Tenants who rent asap are often a tad irresponsible. You want a tenant who plans to move, gives current landlord a 30 days notice...most require 60...and shops around then selects your rental.

You do not owe your tenant help in reducing their cost to break the lease, especially if the cost is you ending up with a new tenant who needed to move asap due to poor planning, being behind in rent, or drama.

@Scott M. Why do you say that? I think Zillow just wants to make money, take a cut where they can to pay themselves for running the most popular real estate site in the country. I have no problem paying them to host my rental advertisements...but I don't think I would link them to my bank account.

@Andrew B. I thought the tenant associations (unions) were typically in government owned complexes. And it was encouraged. I read somewhere that small investors own 90% of rentals. I assume that means 1-4 units, but around here it is mostly small investors who own smaller, older complexes. Even some of the large new apartments are locally owned, in partnerships.

I think neighbors should always get together and improve neighborhoods, or their complexes. Problem is if their "leaders" encourage them to achieve changes in ways that come back and bite them in the butt.

@Raymond Macasaet If you trust them enough to cosign they should trust you enough to put you on the deed. You can deed it back to them periodically.

If they need money choices are reverse mortgage (not a recommendation, just an option) or sell.  If you want the house, whether for sentimental reasons or because you want to make a buck, buy it.  But no way can you rent it back to relatives in a win win deal.  What are their property taxes?  Do they have heirs?  There is a movie about a guy buying a life estate in a Paris apartment and the seller living forever.  If you have cash and there are no heirs you could buy the house cheap and give them a life estate in exchange for the cheap price.  But your cash is gone until they are.

@Jason Holloway I just went through this and I replaced some. That looks great. I had 1/4" added to two bathroom ceilings because we didn't think the current ceiling would hold up where we wanted some little led lights with the tension clip mounts. Should have added 1/2 inch in retrospect and the guy we used insisted we did not need to apply some sort of construction adhesive to glue the two layers together. Hope that turns out to be true, but I wish I had just insisted. The two bedrooms we did what a retired drywall guy I was chatting told me he always did, which is screw the old drywall in every 8 inches or so. He called it shotgunning or somesuch term. Because the old stuff was nailed in and the nails slide out over time. We did that, pretty easy and we didn't have to tape and float, but there was a light ceiling texture so filling the nail holes resulted in wavy lines (chatter) so we had to skim coat. Hindsight I think I would replace it all. (Depending on price). Not closets. Tip. I was at a drywall supply and they sold a wide band of special drywall repair tape, probably 8" wide. Never seen anything like it at home depot, etc. I took a photo and will post it if I can find the photo in the cloud...too lazy to get my phone. Good luck. Also, Some of our ceilings were 3/8" and code is 5/8...for fire. And 3/8 may not be strong enough to support rockwool, which is what we used in the walls....so if your old house was built as crappily as ours you may want to replace so your ceilings can reliably support insulation.

@Wayne Woodson My son has a 1400 sq ft house that was built in the 40s or 50's with a 350 sq ft attic conversion, two rooms with a bathroom between the two. The stairs run up between the back living room wall and a bedroom and could easily open to the outside and closed off from the downstairs. I think he could get $700 month if he added a mini kitchenette like the extended stay suites. He would have to keep the upper unit connected to the lower part of the house because of sf zoning. I also saw an airbnb online where a separate entrance was built off a backyard second floor small deck to a bedroom and bath. Pretty sure they had closed it off from the rest of the house...just studs and sheetrock so easy enough. This was in a newer neighborhood and I dont know how well received it is/was by neighbors...but they may not even know if it is on a corner.

Didn't Freakonomics have a chapter on names and job interview offers where Black sounding names were less likely to get an interview, all else being equal? It does seem fair that if you can only get the street address of an airbnb after booking...to check how the area looks or whatever, etc...the host only gets your name and photo after booking, so they can look you up on facebook if thats what hosts do or I guess in this case find out your ethnicity.

@Johnathan Flaggs I would call a few of the large Molly Maid type companies and ask if they have a rental make ready crew that can spackle nail holes and remove scuff marks from floors. If no, you might ask to talk to a manager and ask if he or she has a suggestion or recommendation for someone to do repairs prior to cleaning.

@Philip Beckwith Oil based trim paint yellows over time so the hybrids like bm advance are becoming more popular, or just a good semigloss water based acrylic like sw pro classic is very durable. Light warmer gray on walls is still popular, very light for smaller rentals.