All Forum Posts by: Megan A.

Hey Helen, I have a friend who is an agent in the Rochester area. I haven't worked with him personally though.  If you'd like his contact information I could send you a private message!

yeah those are great ideas!!' I appreciate your input @johnwoodrich.  We are still just getting started with real estate investing and learning all the time!  Once we aren't living in the actual duplex and having our living situation depending on it I think things will be a little easier to manage.... ha maybe!  We are so glad we bought the duplex overall though. We just need to get into the other unit to fix it up so that we can move out of there all together!

Thanks for the very helpful advice and input everybody!! Just needed some other opinions! @John Woodrich I didn't think that vacations had bearing on a lease agreement ha we planned our trip intentionally in Septmeber, thinking we wouldn't need to move until May. So now we have 2 weeks where we won't be available to show our unit to potential tenants if we don't have one by the time we leave. That's the only reason I mentioned the vacation :).

@Matthew Olszak we have been waiting until our renter didn't want to renew her lease to move to her side. I should have explained better... we took our side of the duplex and added a bedroom and family room in the basement (it was unfinished before) now we can increase rent for our unit. We want to do the same on her side. We just did an exterior renovation so we were fine with waiting until May to get to work on her side when her current lease is up. 

The only trouble is we really HAVE to have her pay through the end of September.  We can't move until then because of vacations we've had planned for a long time (we are in Europe the first 2 weeks of September, meaning we can't be showing our place or working on moving/preparing our unit for a new renter).  Our plan all along was to renovate the side we are living in then move into her side.  So we have the added issue of timing when is convenient for us to move.  We thought it would be next May at the end of her lease which would have worked perfectly.  We don't want to be the "bad guy" but we aren't let with many options because of the fact that we also live in the duplex and have to move too now.

We've had a reliable renter for almost 2 years.  She just renewed a 1 year lease last month on May 1st.  She is now saying she is being relocated for a promotion at work (not sure if this is an excuse to get out of the lease or not) and asked if we could work with her on some type of arrangement.  We owner occupy our duplex and would need to move our stuff into her unit when she moves so this will be a lot of work a lot earlier than we were expecting.  We can't move until end of September.  Is it fair to ask her to pay rent through the end of September as well as forfeit her damage deposit (it was $1,000)?  We do not have anything in our lease about what happens if a renter wants to get out of their lease early...I will be adding something for the future though.  So I didn't know if legally we can keep her damage deposit in MN if we agree to her moving out early?  It is technically breaking her lease agreement though. It is also a big inconvenience to us.  However, I am certain we can rent out our unit that we've been living in and remodeling for at least $300 more than what we've been charging her.  Any input would be greatly appreciated!  I assume we would just type up a document stating that we agree to her terminating her lease at the end of September and that she agrees to forfeit her damage deposit? Thanks!

@Chris T. It isn't anything major that would need to be done prior to us moving in but we want to paint and have it cleaned really well before we move out stuff in.  The other renovations are minor on the main level.   The basement will be open for us to work on and we don't need to work on that immediately. Its a small space so once all of our furniture is in it will make painting everything really tricky.  We could stay with family for a while probably but I am just wondering if we bit off more than we can chew with moving.  If we were getting a new tenant we could slowly move our stuff over with a couple weeks to do so as well as make sure everything is ready for the new renter and also prep the other side for ourselves to move into.  We both work full time too so we really don't have tons of free time to get this all done ourselves. Just seeing if anybody could offer some tips to us!  

My husband and I own a duplex in the Mound area in Minnesota and our renter's lease is expiring in the end of April.  We have updated the side of the duplex we live in (added a a bedroom in the basement as well as finished off part of the basement for a family room.)  Our plan was to move into our renters side on May 1 to do the same renovations but she really wants to stay and said she would pay $300.00 more in rent to do so.  After thinking about it longer she thought it may be better to move into our unit so she has the extra square footage for the extra money she is paying (I understand why she would want to!) however, I am wondering how we would coordinate moving.  Has anybody dealt with this situation before?  We can't move our belongings into her unit until hers are out and vice versa.  We also can't prep our side for her properly until our stuff is out (cleaning, paint touch ups etc.)  Any suggestions?  Thought about renting a storage pod possibly but I was wondering if anybody else could offer their advice if the've gone through similar moving situations!  We love our renter, she pays her rent on time and is so easy to live next to so we feel it is worth it to us to keep her around if she would like to stay rather than find a new renter and risk getting somebody that isn't as responsible.           

Hello!  Does anybody have a good recommendation for a reasonable cleaning company to hire for tenant turn over? We have a duplex that we occupy half of and are moving to the other side in 2 months to renovate (we've already renovated the current side that we live in!)  With the amount of work we will need to get done in the span of 2 weeks before a new renter moves in we think it may be best to hire a cleaning company to clean both sides of the duplex, the side we are moving into as well as the side we are moving out of to prep for the new tenant.  I am unsure what the going rates usually are for cleaning companies so I was just wondering if anybody could offer up some advice on who they have used in the past.  Thank you! 

@Deanna McCormick thank you for that helpful information. I will follow up and check out the MMHA site.  Our duplex is in Mound and Mound does not require a rental license for landlords. I have not completed that course with the local police department but that is good information to know should we ever buy another property in the Minneapolis area.