All Forum Posts by: Sam Leon

@Scott W.

Thanks for the advice I called the City Of Hollywood Treasury and they told me this particular lien does not have "SUPER PRIORITY" status and therefore when the bank sells it the lien would be extinguished as long as the city receives a $500 lien release fee.

However this is all verbal and I am not able to get any sort of written confirmation of this.

Sounds like I need to consult a RE attorney who might be able to research and explain it to me.

oh, the title exception is a 60 day deed restriction for cash deals.

This is pretty interesting to me, a REO property in the city of Hollywood, FL. Listing price 90K. I put an offer on it a couple of weeks ago, they want best and highest, then BoA went under contract with someone else.

A week later the property came back on the market and the description has the added verbage:

BUYERS MUST TAKE EXCEPTION TO TITLE & ASSUME ALL FINES, LIENS, VIOLATIONS, ETC

Turned out the property has a bunch of utility liens, $45 here, $120 there, nothing too alarming.

Then there is an outstanding code enforcement lien from the City of Hollywood.

Description = MINIMUM PROPERTY STANDARDS GROUP FOR RESIDENTIAL

Status = Open

Daily Amount = $350

Accr. Amount = $248,850.00

So, now you have a house listed for 90K, with a lien of 250K and counting.

The bank wants the buyer to absorb the lien. Who is going to pay 340K for a 90K house?

So how do these things ever get resolved?

Will the bank just give the house to the city and say "hey, it's yours, take it?"

I had the same exact problem once. A 70s oil tank, huge one. It was somewhat corroded and filled with gas/oil. I believe it was used previously for the swimming pool heater, as it was situated right next to the heater in my backyard.

My concern was if they move or cut it to pieces and if the gas spilled, I will have some sort of EPA hazard waste disposal issue - one of my neighbors said the city will force you to dig 3-4 feet either side of the spillage to make sure no additional soil is contaminated.

I took a picture of it, measured it, and posted it on CL, said I wanted it removed and disposed of, and the gas inside feel free to take it but it needs to be completely siphoned out before you can take the drum apart. I posted the pictures and the dimensions and asked for a disposal quote. I got all kinds of email from $100 to free.

OK so as a quick summary:

• Craigslist
• Zillow
• Postlets (which is actually by Zillow)
• Trulia
• Hotpads
• I also found a few others such as Oodle, Vast.

Anyone has more they have used?

Now some of these will syndicate to other sites. I used Postlets and it showed up on Zillow (obviously), Hotpads, Oodle etc...someone said it also syndicates to Trulia but I didn't see that.

Movoto was another site I tried but had trouble making it work.

I have to say though, I am not sure those syndication work well. May be it's because of the mismatch of the various site's data, or may be by design, the ads syndicated were missing details and contained wrong information.

On Postlets I checked that I have a "Patio", but on Hotpads it showed as me having a "Yard", a "Porch" and a "Doorman". Go figure. On Oodle it showed only part of the information and only one picture out of 16 I posted showed up, the ad says the listing was provided by Zillow and to see details go click the link back to Zillow. So it's syndicating with a boomerang. In fact, there are "ads" mixed in with the property description. In the middle of how many bedrooms and bathrooms and square footage is:

Pre-qualification:Get your credit score before you apply.

@David Sisson,

I sort of operate the opposite. I wanted only one person to be on the lease officially (unless they are married) because I don't want to have to get in between.

If Mary and Jack are renting my place I don't want to know if they split the rent 50/50 or may be Mary is responsible for cable TV but Jack pays the electric etc...and I don't want to be paid half by Mary and be told to go get the other half from Jack when they have a fight or something. I want to have one name to be responsible for the entire rent and they work out the rest themselves. So I have one person being the official "leasee" and the rest are "occupants".

If you sign a lease with two roommates then you end up having to arbitrate right? Say Jack moves out suddenly what do you do is half the lease broken? For me the lease is binded to Mary.

I am sure there are pros and cons. I may have to rethink a bit. Like right now I am wondering if I need to credit check them all. I have always rented to a family and this is the first time I am dealing with renting to two friends.

I require an individual application for each adult occupant of the rental unit.

Now, do you all run a credit / background / eviction / reference check on all applicants or only the one responsible for the rent?

For example a 2 bed room unit with a male/female but the male is the one I am signing the lease with (which include the female as an occupant) do you credit check both or just the one paying rent?

Thanks steve babiak, that makes sense.

A tenant applicant asked if she could repaint the rooms in the color of her choice.

She doesn't know the color of her choice yet.

How do you all handle that?

I don't know how handy she is. The current paint was done and I took trouble to move out stove, fridge...removed electrical cover plates, AC vent covers, to paint the back wall and around. I removed closet doors so I can paint the walls and gaps you couldn't otherwise reach.

I don't know is she's going to end up painting 90% and doing a lousy job of it and I end up having to reverse it.

and I don't know if she may paint them purple or dark brown.

Would you allow your tenant to repaint? Any advice?

Do you all impose a "hard" rule on income, what I mean is, the rent being at least a certain percentage of after tax income? If so what's the number you use?