All Forum Posts by: Michael H.

It was built in 1974. I'll have to do some digging to see if there are different rules for older houses... thanks for the tip.

I recently looked at a home for my personal use (not investment), and the house is listed as a 5 bedroom house. However, in GA, to be considered a bedroom there has to be a window and a closet. And the 2 "rooms" in the basement do not have windows. So legally, I'm pretty sure it should only be listed as a 3 bedroom house. I'm trying to think of ways to use this to my advantage. The only thing I've come up with so far is hoping it doesn't appraise for the agreed upon price once the appraiser sees it's only a 3 bedroom house, not 5. 

Any experience someone has with something like would be appreciated.

I see quite a bit of SMF in/around Rome GA (I know they have Berry College and some other college in the area). It's typically pretty cheap, just a bit further out than I want to deal with. I know all the SMF around the NW Atl suburbs are all quite high as I've been looking for something remotely reasonable the past 6 months.

I currently use Tenant Cloud for managing cash flow and tracking accounting. As for bills, everything that can be put on auto pay is put on auto pay. And one off bills are paid as they come in.

@Dave Mills

I had a very similar situation last month. We called the AC tech out there to test the system, we had installed the system less than 3 months earlier, and the tech said it was working just fine. The temp was set to 72 on a day when it was almost 100 outside. The tech told us that we can only expect about a 20 degree difference from the outside temp. That kind of surprised me. But based on what he was saying, when the tenant complained a second time, we gave him the number of the AC company and told him that he would need to coordinate the next visit and be there when the tech arrived to work with him and explain exactly what the problem is. And also, he would be responsible for the service fee at this point. We haven't heard back from the tenant.

I just switched to Nation Wide for a commercial policy that now includes an umbrella policy. For 5 properties, I have better coverage and was only a total increase of less than $200 for the year.

I use TenantCloud to market my rentals to several websites. I've been getting quality tenants this way for a little over a year.

Find out if the utilities stay with the property, or with the customer. If they stay with the customer, I wouldn't be paying them at all. In GA I had a tenant not pay the last months utilities and all I had to do was give the utility company the lease and move out inspection showing they moved out and the bill will follow the tenant. 

I stopped using them when they started charging, not in an attempt to save money, but I found that I was still getting quality leads from the syndication that Tenant Cloud uses. I mostly get applicants from apartments.com and haven't had any problems. I also charge a $15 application fee to help weed out scammers/unserious people.

I use Tenant Cloud, and I'm really happy with the service overall. They do have a phone/tablet app as well as a web interface. You can also set up billing with service providers to go through the app as well. I would think the initial set up would be much easier on a computer, but the daily tasks are quite easy to accomplish on my phone. If you decide to sign up, send me a PM and I can give you a referral code.