All Forum Posts by: Michael Seeker

Thanks for the reply Joel.

There is no action needed for eviction as my g/f has already moved out. There have been several emails back and forth, and the last one from the property manager basically stated that they will not budge on the fees and will be turning them over to a 3rd party collection agency.

Any idea what the rental company is expecting to get out of this arrangement or whether the collection agency would be willing to accept half the money vs. no money?

I told my g/f not to pay these fees as the company couldn't even begin to prove that she had an animal at the apartment. I'm assuming the collection agency might be willing to settle for the amount she is willing to pay the management team, but who knows.

Anybody know if the 3rd party agency will ding her credit score for not paying or for only paying half?

Just looking for some thoughts on this situation, kind of from the opposite viewpoint of what we normally see on BP.

My g/f just moved out of her apartment and got a friendly letter in the mail a few days ago saying she owed 2x what she actually owes. Here's the breakdown:

Lease break: 800
Cleaning and water bill: 100
Undocumented pet fee: 500
Carpet replacement due to undocumented pet: 500

They saw my g/f walking my dog somewhere around the complex one time and sent her a letter saying she had to sign an addendum or remove the dog immediately. Failure to do so could result in up to $500 penalty.

The dog didn't live there, so she just ignored this letter and shortly thereafter gave them notice she was moving out. The same lady that sent the pet notice to her signed her move-out papers with her and never mentioned anything about a pet fee. A different person did the walk-through with her and didn't mention anything about the carpet needing replacing or a pet fee.

They sent pictures of the underside of the carpet after they had pulled it up and there are numerous stains of various sizes. The carpet was not new when she moved in, and she had the roof leak a significant amount in 3 different areas.

She already responded to them pointing out these facts and saying she will not pay the erroneous charges.

I am telling her to hold fast as there is no way their case would hold up in court. What do you guys think?

What is the likelihood they'll take this to court over $1000 when she's agreeing to pay the other fees without any argument?

My hard money guy uses an LLC.

I have no idea if this is the best way to go or what not, but maybe look around and see what most of them are doing to get a better idea.

@Ibrahim, I don't mind somebody hiding their personal business, I even expect it usually. The problem is that this guy was divulging EVERYTHING about anything (recent vacation, life history, kids, wife, you name it). He was essentially an open book and very anxious to talk about anything and everything.

This is why I find it a little disturbing that he tried to hide his ownership in the building next door. He didn't even brush the subject under the rug when we initially asked, he speculated about what was going on with the place.

He seems like a decent guy, but it just didn't quite feel right.

I did fail to mention that he probably acquired both properties about 2 years ago from a guy who was in jail or bankruptcy or some sort of legal trouble. Both properties were in poor condition at the time. The one he is trying to sell is now in average to good condition, but still needs some work to get the whole thing rentable.

There are also no tenants in the building that is for sale. He occupies 2 of the units with his family and essentially kicked out the tenants in the other two units so he could "clean them up and show them" (or so he says).

If anything, the building next door is in better shape than when he acquired it a couple years ago. The exterior is an eye-sore, but doesn't necessarily mean the inside is in rough shape too.

I'm thinking the best course of action is to set something up to view the "eye-sore" property next door. If he doesn't want to show it then he isn't the type of person I want to buy property from or own property next to anyhow.

I went to look at a 4-plex to purchase about a week ago with my agent. The building is about 5400 s/f, so we spent the better part of an hour in there with the owner as a chaperone.

The building next door is in disrepair and is quite an eyesore. We asked the owner several questions about it and brought it up on at least 3-4 occasions. He divulged what seemed to be his knowledge on the property and at one point there was even some speculation on the current or previous owner of the building.

We scheduled another showing yesterday to view one of the apartments that wasn't accessible the week before. My agent did a little research and found that the owner of the building...the same one that chaperoned us around...owned the crappy building next door as well.

What do you guys think about this? The guy was clearly hiding the fact that he owned the building next door. When we met with him yesterday, my agent asked him about it point-blankly and he gave a sort of shaky response. He then said he didn't know if he was going to fix it up or try to sell it or what.

Thoughts?

What type of properties are these?

Have you considered renting them out?

I have to disagree with this. The MLS contains a decent amount of additional info if you know what you're looking for. The CMA is nice, and in some cases there is an automated CMA which will spit out a list price and projected sales price and DOM at the given list price. On top of that, you can also look up prior listings of a property you are interested in to see the history of it (sometimes this isn't as useful, but in the historic district I focus on it comes in handy). There are also a significant amount of statistics for sales broken down by area which is another great resource to have.

I agree, MLS is not the be-all end-all, but I wouldn't discount it's usefullness.

Jon,

I have a small number of rentals/tenants. I have not collected an application fee for any of them. I typically ask the applicants for 3 months of bank statements along with the application and then I just review those. It's my own form of a "credit check".

Going forward I am going to test out a $25 application fee that I will use for a background check and credit check.

I'm not sure how this will fare, but I will say I haven't had any problems with my current method. I'm just afraid that sooner or later it will catch up to me and I'll end up with an ex-con or drug addict or something.

You can quit your full time job anytime you want or never even start one for that matter. It boils down to your comfort level. I am a relatively new investor and work the 9-5 as well. I could quit my day job right now and probably become a pretty successful RE investor over the next 1-2 years. I also think I can keep my day job and become a successful RE investor over the next 2-3 years. So instead of scraping by and living below my means for a year, I'm choosing to deal with the hassle of essentially working 2 jobs.

I choose to do this as I would like to maintain my current life-style. It's all about your personal preference. For me, working for the man just so happens to pay a hell of a lot better than RE currently does. But I'll tell you this, coming into work every day becomes a lot easier with the end in sight. If I thought I'd be stuck in this office for the next 40 years, I'd probably have my nose up my bosses *** like everybody else I work with.

If you are strictly doing flipping, this can be a very tough thing to determine. You may be able to flip a few houses without a full-time job to support them, but what are you going to do when you buy that house with a few extra problems that you didn't budget for? What if that house is also having a hard time selling because a couple others on the block went into forecloseure after you purchased it? You need to make sure you have enough money socked away in savings to pay for these things or have some other source of income until you can afford these types of setbacks on your own.