All Forum Posts by: Michael King

I would like to get the names of non-profits in MD that run sober-living homes. I'm considering partnering with a non-profit that would manage the sober-living program; with me just providing the house passively for rent on a per bed basis. If anyone has the names of such non-profits and/or anyone with experience doing this as a landlord, I would like to speak with you.

Michael King

I have a 6BR SFH in San Antonio TX that I will rent out on a room by room basis. I own the house and I am self-managing. My desired clientele are primarily traveling nurses, professionals and digital nomads. I have recently become aware of the insane FHA and HUD rules restricting landlords regarding Emotion Support Animals and Service Animals. Being forced to consider an applicant with perhaps multiple animals in this situation would be a disaster. My question is it legal for me to deny an applicant in this situation because of the disruption to other tenants, threats to their health and safety and additional costs? Having even one animal in a shared housing situation would be completely untenable. What are the exceptions to the ESA and SA rules in Texas?

I am looking to launch my first website for my 9 SFH rental portfolio. The options I have looked at are using a pro developer for a custom website, building it using Wix or a WordPress built site with a hosting company, REI Blackbook for an all-encompassing approach. At the moment what I need is a website where I can list all my vacant properties, create workflows for rental applications, automated payments and ideally a website that can be an API for my Rent Manager database. I guess I could also use some the standard site such as Rent-Redi or Tenant Cloud and just forego a separate website altogether. The bottom line is that I want to automate everything a landlord needs so that I can grow my portfolio without being overwhelmed with administrative details.

Second, I would like that when I am ready to get into other areas of real estate investing like wholesaling, flipping I can build on what I already have in my initial website. This is of secondary importance at the moment.

My question is this, what approaches have people used for establishing a real estate website that would take you from a small portfolio to one consisting of let's say 100 units?

Thanks in advance for any ideas or comments,

Michael King

Thanks everyone for these facts. I'm trying to decide which screening companies to use.

I've been a landlord since 2005. As people have mentioned, screening is the most important thing you do as a landlord. The attempt to automate the screening process is a good idea that I do not think should be dismissed too quickly. The automation should be designed to make the application and pre-qualification of the prospect as efficient as possible. For example, you could have the following three step process. In step one the prospects are required to answer certain questions on an online form. Their answers determine if there are disqualifying facts about their situation. Have they ever been evicted?, have they been convicted of felonies?, etc. This step could also include basic financial information, such as monthly gross income, that could also screen them out. During this "step One" you could next schedule a showing if the prospect passed all the tests. Step two would be either a self-showing or meeting the PM at the property. Step three would be the prospect filling out a detailed online form followed by a prudent evaluation of their entire situation according to criteria that you have established in advance and in accordance with local and national housing laws. The final approval needs to be a hands-on part of your business that is conducted by you and/or your property manager. You definitely want to avoid the idea of pre-approval granted before human eyes have looked on the case. Simply put, automation to pre-qualify prospects but manual approval on a case by case basis.

Cornelius, You bring up all good points that I did think about. I was thinking of doing double entry for a month to see if it makes any sense at all. Like you say it makes no sense long term. I have not started using RM yet but after getting a demo on the standalone version and seeing it's versatility I was convinced it made more sense just to dive in with RM and put QB on the shelf. Maybe I can use my QB for a different business. My CPA, that I am just starting with, said she uses either QB or RM depending on the client. She and others have said that learning RM will be more difficult. Ryan who's used both previously said they both have steep learning curves. I know I can handle the training but I need to know that it will make me much more efficient in the long run. I only have 5 units now but once I am retired and have more time to spend on doing the accounting I think I'll be OK with increasing my units to 50. (Two years from now). To me tightening up my property management before I ramp up to 50 units is the smart way to go. Knowing that I can transition to the online version of RM was a big selling point for me too. Once I have 50 units I can afford the monthly price of the online version of RM. By the time I get to that point I should already be an expert in RM and then I don't need to learn another tool that is only a partial solution.  My minimum requirements for software were: assists in doing the property management, does the accounting and allows my CPA to log in remotely for tax preparation, does bank account reconciliation with minimal manual data entry, Good reports that will help fill out all federal tax forms especially the sch E and 1099s.  RM covers all these requirements.

Ryan, Thanks for the useful info. Did you find that RM had a steep learning curve? Did you use a standalone version of RM? I want to do apartments as well as SFHs and my unit count is going to increase in the future. I'd like to have 10 more SFHs and a few four-plexes in the next ten years, so I expect the maintenance will start to become a problem I must stay on top of. Apart from the maintenance aspect of rentals and the accounting that I will do with QB Pro, did RM help you significantly with any other aspect of Property Management? At what unit count do you think RM is worth it? Thanks a bunch!!

Michael

Hey everyone. I am a DIY landlord with 7 residential properties. Planning to expand but need to get my books in order first. I'd like to know what experiences people have had with Rent Manager standalone and Quickbooks Pro standalone. My accountant has used both. I would like to have a single software solution but don't want to commit to the wrong software. I am considering using QB Pro for the accounting and RM for the property management operations (even though it could do everything including the accounting). Has anyone tried this? RM has a reputation of having a steep learning curve. But their customer support seems good. Whereas QB Pro integrates well with my Bank of America Business accounts so, as far as ease of banking is concerned, it seems having QB Pro is a good idea. I realize QB Pro by itself doesn't do the property management part of the work. Any experience, comments or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks,