All Forum Posts by: Michael Clay

@Dennis M. You should take it to the next level, throw your new tenants huge house-warming parties with expensive wines & cheeses. Let me know how it goes...

@Nathan Gesner hahahaha. Liquor, wine or beer?

The one thing that I will say, without developing the personal relationship they wouldn't have used me as their buyer's agent and might not have referred me a tenant. 

@Nancy DeSocio Thanks for sharing! I had already gotten to know them through the screening process so I knew that the liquor would work best LOL.

@Nathan Gesner That could definitely be the case. In this specific case I think it ended up benefiting me to develop a friendly relationship with the tenants. 

I think it all depends on your personality as the landlord and ability to read your tenants. I've purchased 2 more rentals since then and have an all business relationship with those tenants.  I agree that it isn't a good idea in most scenarios, but in this specific one I believe it helped me.

When I purchased my first rental property, a single family home here in Charlotte, 2.5 years ago I bought my tenants a bottle of their favorite liquor on their move-in day. Looking back at this now, I get a nice laugh off of it. I'm aware that this is borderline criminal, sacrilegious, offensive and against everything that we've been taught as real estate investors. 

In hindsight, in this specific situation it ended up working to my benefit. I manage my own properties, so I personally chose these tenants. They were A+ tenants for the 2.5 years they stayed in my property, payed their rent through zelle for 30 consecutive months on the 1st of the month. Every single time there was a problem with the property, the heat or air going out, clogged pipes/toilets, they were very understanding and worked great with my contractors. I firmly believe that developing this type of "friendly" relationship with my tenants allowed their tenancy to work out perfect in every aspect. When they moved out last month I represented them to buy their first home. It was great to see them fulfill their dream of becoming homeowners. As an added benefit, I made $5,000 in commission for the transaction and they referred me my new tenants.

Would I recommend this to the majority of first time landlords?  In most situations, no. I'm sharing this because all of experts and forums would tell you that going in this direction as a landlord is going to end up going south quickly, in my experience, it ended up benefiting me greatly.

My property is in a C- neighborhood and rents for $995/month. I understand that if you're scaling your business this type of hands-on landlording would prove hard to pull off and won't work out for most landlords. I wanted to share this story because it ended up working for me and could end up benefiting other investors!

Great tenants that will stay forever are invaluable. I'd let her know that the market rent for her unit is $900 and let her know you def want to keep her so you're only raising it to the $825-$850 range. There's a high probability that she'll be fine with that and be happy you're doing her a favor. This way you're not losing as much rent and you keep an A+ renter.

@Joe Splitrock Thanks for the update. I've been following this thread and it shocks me how many people go right to the negative. As you said, it takes 5 minutes to find out if his post is legit. Love this story!

I attend all of my buyer's inspections. My buyer and I typically go at the end of the inspection and our inspector walks us around the entire property pointing out any/all pertinent items. I've found this method to work the best. This allows the inspector to focus and do his job while still allowing us to walk the entire property. If a buyer wants attend the entire inspection that's fine but the strong majority of buyers prefer showing up at the end. 

@Andrew Smith What type of property are you looking to purchase? 

@Patrick Menefee Unless one of the partners wants to get out of the deal then everything would most likely stay 50/50 after the refi. 

In this scenario, if only one of the partner's name is on the refi you could potentially work out another deal since you're tying up future opportunities by taking on the debt after the refi. These specific situations/terms should all be agreed upon prior to finalizing the purchase to make sure the partnership runs as smoothly as possible. Good luck!