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All Forum Posts by: Matt R.

Matt R. has started 16 posts and replied 478 times.

Post: I cant get my rental unit filled

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313

The various rent estimating tools have already been covered.

The ad pictures look OK, except for the very last one, with the picture of the train station parking lot.  If people aren't paying close attention, they might think that's the view from the property, or that the property is right next to the tracks.  The map shows that the south entrance to the train station is actually across the street and a few houses east, but that's not clear from that photo.

If I Google "101 Bradford Ave #1, Downingtown, PA 19335", Google thinks there is a social service organization office at that address.  If that's no longer true, maybe work with either Google or that organization to update the Google Maps listing; potential renters may or may not like the idea of being on a "commercial" property.  (That organization's Web site currently has a different address for their office, in Exton.)

Zillow also says the house has "missing facts"; I'm not sure what they think is missing, but if you have an account on Zillow, you may be able to supply the data they think they're missing.  This might allow some of their automated comparison tools to work better, which might increase interest in the listing.

Renting a house can sometimes take longer during the school year; people with kids don't want to pull their kids from one school and put them in another.  I'm not saying to wait until May; just that if you listed the same property for the same rent in July vs in October, you'll get more interest in the July listing.

Post: Should I add grab bar to remodeled bathroom?

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313

If the wall around the tub is open (studs exposed), you might consider installing some more wood where the grab bar would go.  Basically, something like a 2x4 or 2x6, between each pair of studs, with the broad side towards where the cement board/tile will go.  After that wood is in, and before the wall gets closed up, take some photos and measurements, and save them in a way that you'll be able to access them 5 or 10 years from now.

That way, if you want to install a grab bar later, you can put it at the right height, anywhere along the long wall of the tub; you won't have to find the studs or buy one of those giant toggle bolts.

Your regular contractor that is already doing the remodel should be able to do this for you.

Post: Selling Rental Property Question and Advice!

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313

Do you have a property manager for your rental, or do you do it yourself?

If you end up living 80 minutes away from both properties, you might want a property manager for both of them.  Otherwise you're in for 2.5+ hours in the car if a tenant has a problem that requires you to go to the property.

If you don't have a property manager now, hiring one will affect your cash flow numbers.

Post: Purchasing a Model Home and Leasing Back?

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313

@Steven Griffith I appreciate the offer!  I can't swing a note that big, though.  :)

Post: Purchasing a Model Home and Leasing Back?

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313

Disclaimer: I've never actually done this before.

The as-is term in the deal probably covers this, but you might need to plan for a little money to "turn it back into a house" when they're done using it as a model.  Sometimes they just put a desk in the corner of the living room, but sometimes they do something like finish the garage all the way and put the "office" in there.  Sometimes they go as far as walling off where the garage doors are supposed to be, so you'd have to demo that and put in garage doors.

I know some people who have a former model home as their residence, and the downstairs living area has a whole bunch more can lights in the ceiling than you would ever normally put in that size room.  Looking at the pattern, there were probably a few different desks for the sales agents in that room.  *Some* of them still work, and it's not just the bulbs; they think there used to be more switches than normal, but when the model was sold, the builder took out the extra switches and rewired some of the lights to one switch.  They got a good enough deal on the house to not care about it, but on an $800K house, you might want to pull out the extra lights, patch the drywall, paint, etc.

I would also wonder about the possibility of your model home becoming a "parts bin" for the rest of the development.  If they have to get the fixtures installed in another house, with a buyer breathing down their neck, and they unbox the toilet and it's cracked... it's real easy to run over to the model home and steal the $300 toilet from your upstairs bathroom to get that house done, and then replace it with a $79 Home Depot special later.  :)

Post: Rent payment question

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313
Originally posted by @Elise Hazzard:

Matt, we are unhappy with that ‘carry trading’ aspect of Cozy too. Looking for a better option. For some reason the tenants have the worst time setting up ACH w/ their bank.

There's a big thread here https://www.biggerpockets.com/... about various ways to collect rent; maybe something there will be interesting.

To me, it seems like if you have a relatively small number of doors, you are either going to pay a couple of percent and get your money "right away", or pay nothing and have the rent-collection service sit on it for a few days.

hope this is getting less common over time, but I think some banks pretend to be bad at ACH on purpose.  They still want you to move money as a wire transfer for $30 to $50, instead of as an ACH that costs $0.40.  (Or, they sell you a wire transfer for $30, but run it as an ACH for $0.40, and keep the $29.60...)

One thing I've experienced with a couple of different online money-transfer things is that usually the service deposits a few small amounts into your account, asks you what the amounts were, and then withdraws them again, in order to verify that they're connected to the right bank account; it's essentially a PIN done with pennies.  I haven't had it happen personally, but I am led to believe that some banks will combine very small deposits on their statements.  If the money-transfer service deposits $0.20 and $0.17, the account holder might only see a single deposit of $0.37, so when the service asks "how much did we deposit?", the answer the account holder gives won't match what the service is expecting.  It may be possible for the account holder to go to an ATM, or to a branch in person, or to the bank's Web site, and get a more detailed statement that would show the separate small deposits.

Post: Rent payment question

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313
Originally posted by @Alyxandria Welch:

It does look like it takes about 5 days to process through Cozy but as long as they pay on or before the first, Cozy will not apply the late fee, correct?

As far as I know, that is true.  Cozy considers the payment made when the money comes out of the tenant's bank account, not when the money goes in to yours.  As long as the payment comes out of the tenant's account by the 1st (or whatever you have set up), Cozy thinks the payment was made on time.

Post: Rent payment question

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313

There were two people in one house on my previous lease and they both paid through Cozy.  They would each make a payment that would total up to the amount of the rent.

The speech I gave them when we started was, approximately, "I don't care how you split it up.  If one of you pays half and the other pays half, OK.  If one of you pays it all, OK.  If one of you pays $100 and the other pays the rest, OK.  But if the payments haven't all started by the due date, though, the late fee will apply."

They were always on time, so I never had to worry about the late fee.  If you do get into a late fee, I think Cozy just applies it to the whole account for the property, and it's up to the tenants how to pay it.  In other words, Cozy doesn't care either who pays what; they just see the total amount for the property, and if it's not all there by the due date, they add the late fee to the total.

As far as I remember, my tenants always split the payment 50-50.  Sometimes the two payments would start at different times - I think for a while, one of them had it set to automatically pay out of their account on a certain day each month, and the other would wait until payday and then manually approve the payment.  I told them that when I got the email from Cozy that said they had made the payment, I considered that the date and time of the payment.  The tenants don't have any control over how long Cozy sits on the money, so I didn't want to make them responsible for that.  Also, I'm pretty sure Cozy actually pulls the money out of the tenants' bank account(s) before it sends me the "they paid" email.

Cozy always "sits" on the payments for 3 to 5 days or so.  I think, but don't know, that they do some kind of short-term investing or trading with the money for that period, which is how they fund their service.  They offer to speed it up for about $3 per property per month, but I never used that option.  

Do you know if the person who hasn't paid yet has a bank account?  If they don't have one, I don't think they can use Cozy.  If they have a credit card, Cozy charges the tenant the 2.75% credit card fee, which they may be looking to avoid.

Post: First week on the market,now what?

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313

You may also have a bit of this: people who wanted to move, and had a lease ending this weekend (October 31 or November 1), probably already started shopping a few weeks ago.  I think most people that have rented for a while know that it takes a little time to look at a new place, apply, get approved, etc; you can't do it in a couple of days.

The people with a lease that ends at the end of November or December might make their last or next-to-last rent payment tomorrow, and then start searching for a new place to stay.

Post: Estimating repair costs off MLS pictures...okay to do? Or stupid?

Matt R.Posted
  • Blue Springs, MO
  • Posts 481
  • Votes 313
Originally posted by @Kingsley Okwerekwu:
Are there certain major expenses (roof, heating etc.) that may be hidden from the pictures and the mls listing?

YES. Some of the problems can't be seen in pictures. Sometimes they can be seen if the picture is clear enough, but the listing agent deliberately uses a flip phone from 2003 to take the pictures of the fixer-uppers for the MLS. :D (Look at their other listings and see if the photos are better on the houses that are listed for full retail.)

You can usually see a few things from the pictures.  If the listing says "central air", or you can see an air conditioner compressor sitting next to the house, but there are window A/C units sticking out of many of the windows, then the central air is broken.  If the house is at the bottom of a hill or backs up to a creek, you should think about basement leaks and sump pumps.  (Sometimes it helps to look at online maps or street-view images to figure out if it's at the bottom of a hill.)  If the roof is so bad that some shingles are missing, you can usually see that.  If there are two-prong outlets, then the wiring is older and may need updating.

The square-footage thing has been mentioned.  In my area, a lot of the houses are in mid-1950s to late-1980s subdivisions, and were born at around 1,000 to 1,400 square feet.  Lots of them have had part of the basement finished since they were built, which legitimately adds around 200 to 300 square feet to the living area.   A few of them have had additions built on the back, which usually also adds about that much.

However, some listing agents have decided that if the basement is finished, they can just double the square footage that the county has, and list it that way.  If it was built with 1,000 square feet, they list it at 2,000 square feet.  The reason they do this is that most sites like Zillow, Trulia, etc, have an option to sort listings by "$/square foot", and inflating the square footage makes their listings show up first when sorted that way.

The county appraiser or assessor will have the tax records that show at least what the house was built with.  In most major metro areas, these are online, and free to search - often you can either punch in the address if you know it, or look at a map and click on the property you are interested in.  Usually you can find out the year built, square footage, current assessed value, and current or upcoming property tax bill.  Often they will have the historical values and tax bills going back 5 to 7 years or so.  Google things like "worcester county tax records" or "worcester county appraiser" or even "worcester county GIS" to find their site.

A few areas may still try to charge you to look at the tax records.  In that case, there is usually a computer at the county government building, or maybe at the public library, that can search those records for free, but you have to physically go there yourself and use that particular computer.  COVID-19 may have limited access to that computer, as well.