All Forum Posts by: Mitchell Smith

@Frank Dortilus, I’ll definitely keep that in mind!

Hey BP peeps! 

Sorry, this is not a flip, but a house hack/buy and hold.

Just got a personal home UC in North Atlanta and my wife and I are planning on house hacking (renting out the basement) and then moving out and renting out the upstairs area as well. Just wanting to make sure we are looking at everything correctly before we get out of due diligence.

PP: $305,000

Seller is contributing $9150 to our closing costs and we are putting 5% down.

HOA is $500/year and taxes were roughly $2800 last year.

HOA has no rent restrictions but does have a clause in their bylaws concerning household composition. It says they hold the power to require occupants be member safe of a single housekeeping unit... so that's my main concern. It seems like it's not "not allowed", but they reserve the right to restrict it, assuming they find out and it's a nuisance.

We think we can get $800-$1000 for the basement rental and upstairs we could probably get $1750-1850. However, since they will be living under the same address, I’m not sure how much of a discount we will need to give to get the unit filled, if any.

We are in an area that should continue to appreciate based on Atlanta growing and the surrounding areas investing a lot of money in infrastructure. 

We are thinking it won’t  be super hard to rent out the basement and get our monthly payment to around $1,000 including utilities. Once we move out, we are thinking we should be able to cash flow $500 at least. Am I missing anything? What question should should I be asking?

well I’m worried that if she moves out that I will have trouble with getting a new tenant... 

And if that test comes back safe then I’ll just have to tell her to suck it up... may decrease rent a bit

Awesome! So I called the water treatment facility and it's going to take some time for them to fix the smell, but I will have someone come by to test the water and make sure everything is SAFE. Beyond that, there isn't much else I can do!

Hey guys!

So I've got quite the predicament.... My tenant just moved in about a month and a half ago and has been pretty good so far. However, recently she has been complaining about a sewage smell in the house. Right before my wife and I moved out, we started to smell some pretty foul smells OUTSIDE and it only happened every so often. We did not think that there was anything wrong with the house and had even gone to our community forums and heard of other people having the complaints. We told her this, but she persisted that the smell was unbearable and that it was even waking her up in the middle of the night. I had a plumber go out there and he said that he smelled it too, but couldn't find the source and recommended doing a smoke test... which costs roughly $600... I'd like to avoid that at all costs. Then, I got an email from our HOA saying that the water treatment plant was to blame. There was a fire and all the sewage was released into an emergency reservoir, which is it's sole purpose for being there. The plant hasn't made a full recovery yet, but they are still working on it... I sent this to my tenant hoping that it would get her off my back because there is nothing that I can do about it... Then she mentions to me that her water is starting to smell weird and that the water is looking hazy and complaining that it may be a health hazard to her and her kids. Now, I'm one of those guys that wants to make sure that I'm treating others the way that I'd like to be treated... If I was her, and what she is saying is all true, I'd be upset and blowing my landlord up as well. So, if I can fix it relatively easily, then I'd like to... So any advice for that would be great! I'd also like to just know legally, what am I responsible for doing. Am I doing too much? Any help would be great!

Awesome!! Thank you guys for your help!

Hey, Bigger Pockets Community!

I'm a new investor and just recently rented out my first home. I know how important it is to get your tenant to understand that they shouldn't call you for every small issue. I was wanting to get some opinions on how you guys handle NOT being the middleman. Is it as simple as just providing them the numbers of a local plumber, electrician, HVAC company, etc. and just merely having them call those guys first? I like that idea but I also know that a lot of the small stuff that comes up can be easily fixed by me without it paying some guy $300 to do it...

Great responses! 

Mike, what do you think about doing a 6 month rental agreement just to see how she does for those 6 months and then extending another 6 months from there? That way I'm not tied down to a full year should something happen with her financial situation.

JC, most of the other questions checked out. She needs more space for her and her daughter, who is a Junior and apparently very smart. Background check and credit check completed. As I mentioned before she does make close to $6,300 each month so she can afford the rent. I'm calling references tomorrow. She only has one landlord because she owned a home with her ex husband prior to divorce. Sadly she is our best candidate. We need someone who can be flexible on the move in date because we need to find another place to live! 

I'm seeing Georgia in multiple threads as a very landlord friendly state!

So I'm in Georgia and will do some research! I remember reading that Georgia does not have any limit on how much the security deposit would be though. I'll double check!